A Feast for Dragons

head. “They will betray us.”
    “The Weeper’s word is worthless,” said Othell Yarwyck.
    “These are godless savages,” said Septon Cellador. “Even in
the south the treachery of wildlings is renowned.”
    Leathers crossed his arms. “That battle down below? I was on
t’other side, remember? Now I wear your blacks and train your boys to kill.
Some might call me turncloak. Might be so … but I am no more savage
than you crows. We have gods too. The same gods they keep in Winterfell.”
    “The gods of the North, since before this Wall was raised,”
said Jon. “Those are the gods that Tormund swore by. He will keep his word. I
know him, as I knew Mance Rayder. I marched with them for a time, you may
recall.”
    “I had not forgotten,” said the Lord Steward.
    No
, thought Jon,
I did not think you
had
.
    “Mance Rayder swore an oath as well,” Marsh went on. “He
vowed to wear no crowns, take no wife, father no sons. Then he turned his
cloak, did all those things, and led a fearsome host against the realm. It is
the remnants of that host that waits beyond the Wall.”
    “Broken remnants.”
    “A broken sword can be reforged. A broken sword can kill.”
    “The free folk have neither laws nor lords,” Jon said, “but
they love their children. Will you admit that much?”
    “It is not their children who concern us. We fear the
fathers, not the sons.”
    “As do I. So I insisted upon hostages.”
I am not the
trusting fool you take me for … nor am I half wildling, no matter
what you believe
. “One hundred boys between the ages of eight and sixteen.
A son from each of their chiefs and captains, the rest chosen by lot. The boys
will serve as pages and squires, freeing our own men for other duties. Some may
choose to take the black one day. Queerer things have happened. The rest will
stand hostage for the loyalty of their sires.”
    The northmen glanced at one another. “Hostages,” mused The
Norrey. “Tormund has agreed to this?”
    It was that, or watch his people die
. “My
blood price, he called it,” said Jon Snow, “but he will pay.”
    “Aye, and why not?” Old Flint stomped his cane against the
ice. “Wards, we always called them, when Winterfell demanded boys of us, but
they were hostages, and none the worse for it.”
    “None but them whose sires displeased the Kings o’ Winter,”
said The Norrey. “Those came home shorter by a head. So you tell me,
boy … if these wildling friends o’ yours prove false, do you have the
belly to do what needs be done?”
    Ask Janos Slynt
. “Tormund Giantsbane knows
better than to try me. I may seem a green boy in your eyes, Lord Norrey, but I
am still a son of Eddard Stark.”
    Yet even that did not appease his Lord Steward. “You say
these boys will serve as squires. Surely the lord commander does not mean they
will be trained
at arms?”
    Jon’s anger flared. “No, my lord, I mean to set them to
sewing lacy smallclothes. Of course they shall be trained at arms. They shall
also churn butter, hew firewood, muck stables, empty chamber pots, and run
messages … and in between they will be drilled with spear and sword
and longbow.”
    Marsh flushed a deeper shade of red. “The lord commander
must pardon my bluntness, but I have no softer way to say this. What you
propose is nothing less than treason. For eight thousand years the men of the
Night’s Watch have stood upon the Wall and fought these wildlings. Now you mean
to let them pass, to shelter them in our castles, to feed them and clothe them
and teach them how to fight. Lord Snow, must I remind you?
You swore an
oath
.”
    “I know what I swore.” Jon said the words.
“I am the
sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns
against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the
sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men
. Were those the
same words you said when you took your vows?”
    “They were. As the lord commander knows.”
    “Are you certain that I have not forgotten some? The ones
about the king and his laws, and how we must defend every foot of his land and
cling to each ruined castle? How does that part go?” Jon waited for an answer.
None came. “
I am the shield that guards the realms of men
.
Those are the words. So tell me, my lord—what are these wildlings, if not men?”
    Bowen Marsh opened his mouth. No words came out. A flush
crept up his neck.
    Jon Snow turned away. The last light of the