A Feast for Dragons

faces but their eyes, but
he knew Ty by the tangled rope of greasy black hair falling down his back and
Owen by the sausage stuffed into the scabbard at his hip. He might have known
them anyway, just by the way they stood.
A good lord must know his men
,
his father had once told him and Robb, back at Winterfell.
    Jon walked to the edge of the Wall and gazed down upon the
killing ground where Mance Rayder’s host had died. He wondered where Mance was
now.
Did he ever find you, little sister? Or were you just a ploy he
used so I would set him free?
    It had been so long since he had last seen Arya. What would
she look like now? Would he even know her?
Arya Underfoot. Her face was
always dirty
. Would she still have that little sword he’d had Mikken
forge for her?
Stick them with the pointy end
, he’d told her.
Wisdom for her wedding night if half of what he heard of Ramsay Snow was true.
Bring
her home, Mance. I saved your son from Melisandre, and now I am about to save
four thousand of your free folk. You owe me this one little girl
.
    In the haunted forest to the north, the shadows of the
afternoon crept through the trees. The western sky was a blaze of red, but to
the east the first stars were peeking out. Jon Snow flexed the fingers of his
sword hand, remembering all he’d lost.
Sam, you sweet fat fool, you
played me a cruel jape when you made me lord commander. A lord commander has no
friends
.
    “Lord Snow?” said Leathers. “The cage is coming up.”
    “I hear it.” Jon moved back from the edge.
    First to make the ascent were the clan chiefs Flint and
Norrey, clad in fur and iron. The Norrey looked like some old fox—wrinkled and
slight of build, but sly-eyed and spry. Torghen Flint was half a head shorter but
must weigh twice as much—a stout gruff man with gnarled, red-knuckled hands as
big as hams, leaning heavily on a blackthorn cane as he limped across the ice.
Bowen Marsh came next, bundled up in a bearskin. After him Othell Yarwyck. Then
Septon Cellador, half in his cups.
    “Walk with me,” Jon told them. They walked west along the
Wall, down gravel-strewn paths toward the setting sun. When they had come fifty
yards from the warming shed, he said, “You know why I’ve summoned you. Three
days hence at dawn the gate will open, to allow Tormund and his people through
the Wall. There is much we need to do in preparation.”
    Silence greeted his pronouncement. Then Othell Yarwyck said,
“Lord Commander, there are
thousands
of—”
    “—scrawny wildlings, bone weary, hungry, far from home.” Jon
pointed at the lights of their campfires. “There they are. Four thousand,
Tormund claims.”
    “Three thousand, I make them, by the fires.” Bowen Marsh
lived for counts and measures. “More than twice that number at Hardhome with
the woods witch, we are told. And Ser Denys writes of great camps in the
mountains beyond the Shadow Tower …”
    Jon did not deny it. “Tormund says the Weeper means to try
the Bridge of Skulls again.”
    The Old Pomegranate touched his scar. He had gotten it
defending the Bridge of Skulls the last time the Weeping Man had tried to cut
his way across the Gorge. “Surely the lord commander cannot mean to allow
that … that demon through as well?”
    “Not gladly.” Jon had not forgotten the heads the Weeping
Man had left him, with bloody holes where their eyes had been.
Black
Jack Bulwer, Hairy Hal, Garth Greyfeather. I cannot avenge them, but I will not
forget their names
. “But yes, my lord, him as well. We cannot pick and
choose amongst the free folk, saying this one may pass, this one may not. Peace
means peace for all.”
    The Norrey hawked and spat. “As well make peace with wolves
and carrion crows.”
    “It’s peaceful in my dungeons,” grumbled Old Flint. “Give
the Weeping Man to me.”
    “How many rangers has the Weeper killed?” asked Othell
Yarwyck. “How many women has he raped or killed or stolen?”
    “Three of mine own ilk,” said Old Flint. “And he blinds the
girls he does not take.”
    “When a man takes the black, his crimes are forgiven,” Jon
reminded them. “If we want the free folk to fight beside us, we must pardon
their past crimes as we would for our own.”
    “The Weeper will not say the words,” insisted Yarwyck. “He
will not wear the cloak. Even other raiders do not trust him.”
    “You need not trust a man to use him.”
Else how could
I make use of all of you?
“We need the Weeper, and others like