A Feast for Dragons

him.
Who knows the wild better than a wildling? Who knows our foes better than a man
who has fought them?”
    “All the Weeper knows is rape and murder,” said Yarwyck.
    “Once past the Wall, the wildlings will have thrice our
numbers,” said Bowen Marsh. “And that is only Tormund’s band. Add the Weeper’s
men and those at Hardhome, and they will have the strength to end the Night’s
Watch in a single night.”
    “Numbers alone do not win a war. You have not seen them.
Half of them are dead on their feet.”
    “I would sooner have them dead in the ground,” said Yarwyck.
“If it please my lord.”
    “It does
not
please me.” Jon’s voice was as
cold as the wind snapping at their cloaks. “There are children in that camp,
hundreds of them, thousands. Women as well.”
    “Spearwives.”
    “Some. Along with mothers and grandmothers, widows and
maids … would you condemn them all to die, my lord?”
    “Brothers should not squabble,” Septon Cellador said. “Let
us kneel and pray to the Crone to light our way to wisdom.”
    “Lord Snow,” said The Norrey, “where do you mean to put
these wildlings o’ yours? Not on
my
lands, I hope.”
    “Aye,” declared Old Flint. “You want them in the Gift,
that’s your folly, but see they don’t wander off or I’ll send you back their
heads. Winter is nigh, I want no more mouths to feed.”
    “The wildlings will remain upon the Wall,” Jon assured them.
“Most will be housed in one of our abandoned castles.” The Watch now had
garrisons at Icemark, Long Barrow, Sable Hall, Greyguard, and Deep Lake, all
badly undermanned, but ten castles still stood empty and abandoned. “Men with
wives and children, all orphan girls and any orphan boys below the age of ten,
old women, widowed mothers, any woman who does not care to fight. The
spearwives we’ll send to Long Barrow to join their sisters, single men to the
other forts we’ve reopened. Those who take the black will remain here, or be
posted to Eastwatch or the Shadow Tower. Tormund will take Oakenshield as his
seat, to keep him close at hand.”
    Bowen Marsh sighed. “If they do not slay us with their
swords, they will do so with their mouths. Pray, how does the lord commander
propose to feed Tormund and his thousands?”
    Jon had anticipated that question. “Through Eastwatch. We will
bring in food by ship, as much as might be required. From the riverlands and
the stormlands and the Vale of Arryn, from Dorne and the Reach, across the
narrow sea from the Free Cities.”
    “And this food will be paid for … how, if I may
ask?”
    With gold, from the Iron Bank of Braavos
,
Jon might have replied. Instead he said, “I have agreed that the free folk may
keep their furs and pelts. They will need those for warmth when winter comes.
All other wealth they must surrender. Gold and silver, amber, gemstones,
carvings, anything of value. We will ship it all across the narrow sea to be
sold in the Free Cities.”
    “All the wealth o’ the wildlings,” said The Norrey. “That
should buy you a bushel o’ barleycorn. Two bushels, might be.”
    “Lord Commander, why not demand that the wildlings give up
their arms as well?” asked Clydas.
    Leathers laughed at that. “You want the free folk to fight
beside you against the common foe. How are we to do that without arms? Would
you have us throw snowballs at the wights? Or will you give us sticks to hit
them with?”
    The arms most wildlings carry are little more than
sticks
, thought Jon. Wooden clubs, stone axes, mauls, spears with
fire-hardened points, knives of bone and stone and dragonglass, wicker shields,
bone armor, boiled leather. The Thenns worked bronze, and raiders like the
Weeper carried stolen steel and iron swords looted off some
corpse … but even those were oft of ancient vintage, dinted from
years of hard use and spotted with rust.
    “Tormund Giantsbane will never willingly disarm his people,”
Jon said. “He is not the Weeping Man, but he is no craven either. If I had
asked that of him, it would have come to blood.”
    The Norrey fingered his beard. “You may put your wildlings
in these ruined forts, Lord Snow, but how will you make them stay? What is
there to stop them moving south to fairer, warmer lands?”
    “
Our
lands,” said Old Flint.
    “Tormund has given me his oath. He will serve with us until
the spring. The Weeper and their other captains will swear the same or we will
not let them pass.”
    Old Flint shook his