A Feast for Dragons

did.”
    “Ghost?”
Jon was shocked.
    “Unless your lordship has some other white wolf, aye. I never
seen him like this, m’lord. All wild-like, I mean.”
    He was not wrong, as Jon discovered for himself when he
slipped inside the doors. The big white direwolf would not lie still. He paced
from one end of the armory to the other, past the cold forge and back again.
“Easy, Ghost,” Jon called. “Down. Sit, Ghost.
Down.”
Yet when
he made to touch him, the wolf bristled and bared his teeth.
It’s that
bloody boar. Even in here, Ghost can smell his stink
.
    Mormont’s raven seemed agitated too.
“Snow,”
the bird kept screaming.
“Snow, snow, snow.”
Jon shooed him
off, had Satin start a fire, then sent him out after Bowen Marsh and Othell
Yarwyck. “Bring a flagon of mulled wine as well.”
    “Three cups, m’lord?”
    “Six. Mully and the Flea look in need of something warm. So will
you.”
    When Satin left, Jon seated himself and had another look at
the maps of the lands north of the Wall. The fastest way to Hardhome was along
the coast … from Eastwatch. The woods were thinner near the sea, the
terrain mostly flatlands, rolling hills, and salt marshes. And when the autumn
storms came howling, the coast got sleet and hail and freezing rain rather than
snow.
The giants are at Eastwatch, and Leathers says that some will help
.
From Castle Black the way was more difficult, right through the heart of the
haunted forest.
If the snow is this deep at the Wall, how much worse up
there?
    Marsh entered snuffling, Yarwyck dour. “Another storm,” the
First Builder announced. “How are we to work in this? I need more builders.”
    “Use the free folk,” Jon said.
    Yarwyck shook his head. “More trouble than they’re worth,
that lot. Sloppy, careless, lazy … some good woodworkers here and
there, I’ll not deny it, but hardly a mason amongst them, and nary a smith.
Strong backs, might be, but they won’t do as they are told. And us with all
these ruins to turn back into forts. Can’t be done, my lord. I tell you true.
It can’t be done.”
    “It will be done,” said Jon, “or they will live in ruins.”
    A lord needed men about him he could rely upon for honest
counsel. Marsh and Yarwyck were no lickspittles, and that was to the
good … but they were seldom any
help
either. More and
more, he found he knew what they would say before he asked them.
    Especially when it concerned the free folk, where their
disapproval went bone deep. When Jon settled Stonedoor on Soren Shieldbreaker,
Yarwyck complained that it was too isolated. How could they know what mischief
Soren might get up to, off in those hills? When he conferred Oakenshield on
Tormund Giantsbane and Queensgate on Morna White Mask, Marsh pointed out that
Castle Black would now have foes on either side who could easily cut them off
from the rest of the Wall. As for Borroq, Othell Yarwyck claimed the woods
north of Stonedoor were full of wild boars. Who was to say the skinchanger
would not make his own pig army?
    Hoarfrost Hill and Rimegate still lacked garrisons, so Jon
had asked their views on which of the remaining wildling chiefs and war lords
might be best suited to hold them. “We have Brogg, Gavin the Trader, the Great
Walrus … Howd Wanderer walks alone, Tormund says, but there’s still
Harle the Huntsman, Harle the Handsome, Blind Doss … Ygon Oldfather
commands a following, but most are his owns sons and grandsons. He has eighteen
wives, half of them stolen on raids. Which of these …”
    “None,” Bowen Marsh had said. “I know all these men by their
deeds. We should be fitting them for nooses, not giving them our castles.”
    “Aye,” Othell Yarwyck had agreed. “Bad and worse and worst
makes a beggar’s choice. My lord had as well present us with a pack of wolves
and ask which we’d like to tear our throats out.”
    It was the same again with Hardhome. Satin poured whilst Jon
told them of his audience with the queen. Marsh listened attentively, ignoring
the mulled wine, whilst Yarwyck drank one cup and then another. But no sooner
had Jon finished than the Lord Steward said, “Her Grace is wise. Let them die.”
    Jon sat back. “Is that the only counsel you can offer, my
lord? Tormund is bringing eighty men. How many should we send? Shall we call upon
the giants? The spearwives at Long Barrow? If we have women with us, it may put
Mother Mole’s people at ease.”
    “Send women, then. Send giants. Send