A Feast for Dragons

“but like as not you’d eat him.”
    Tormund roared at that as well.
“Eat,”
the
raven said darkly, flapping its black wings.
“Corn? Corn? Corn?”
    “We need to talk about the ranging,” said Jon. “I want us to
be of one mind at the Shieldhall, we must—” He broke off when Mully poked his
nose inside the door, grim-faced, to announce that Clydas had brought a letter.
    “Tell him to leave it with you. I will read it later.”
    “As you say, m’lord, only … Clydas don’t look his
proper self … he’s more white than pink, if you get my
meaning … and he’s shaking.”
    “Dark wings, dark words,” muttered Tormund. “Isn’t that what
you kneelers say?”
    “We say,
Bleed a cold but feast a fever
too,” Jon told him. “We say,
Never drink with Dornishmen when the moon
is full
. We say a lot of things.”
    Mully added his two groats. “My old grandmother always used
to say,
Summer friends will melt away like summer snows, but winter
friends are friends forever
.”
    “I think that’s sufficient wisdom for the moment,” said Jon
Snow. “Show Clydas in if you would be so good.”
    Mully had not been wrong; the old steward
was
trembling, his face as pale as the snows outside. “I am being foolish, Lord
Commander, but … this letter frightens me. See here?”
    Bastard
, was the only word written outside
the scroll. No
Lord Snow
or
Jon Snow
or
Lord
Commander
. Simply
Bastard
. And the letter was sealed
with a smear of hard pink wax. “You were right to come at once,” Jon said.
You
were right to be afraid
. He cracked the seal, flattened the parchment,
and read.
    Your false king is
dead, bastard. He and all his host were smashed in seven days of battle. I have
his magic sword. Tell his red whore
.
    Your false king’s
friends are dead. Their heads upon the walls of Winterfell. Come see them,
bastard. Your false king lied, and
so did you. You told the world you burned the King-Beyond-the-Wall.
Instead you sent him to Winterfell to steal my bride from me
.
    I will have my bride
back. If you want Mance Rayder back, come and get him. I have him in a cage for
all the north to see, proof of your lies. The cage is cold, but I have made him
a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell
.
    I want my bride back. I
want the false king’s queen. I want his daughter and his red witch. I want his
wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my
Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows.
Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard’s heart and eat it
.
    It was signed,
    Ramsay Bolton
,
Trueborn Lord of Winterfell
.
    “Snow?” said Tormund Giantsbane. “You look like your
father’s bloody head just rolled out o’ that paper.”
    Jon Snow did not answer at once. “Mully, help Clydas back to
his chambers. The night is dark, and the paths will be slippery with snow.
Satin, go with them.” He handed Tormund Giantsbane the letter. “Here, see for
yourself.”
    The wildling gave the letter a dubious look and handed it
right back. “Feels nasty … but Tormund Thunderfist had better things
to do than learn to make papers talk at him. They never have any good to say,
now do they?”
    “Not often,” Jon Snow admitted.
Dark wings, dark
words
. Perhaps there was more truth to those wise old sayings than
he’d known. “It was sent by Ramsay Snow. I’ll read you what he wrote.”
    When he was done, Tormund whistled. “Har. That’s buggered,
and no mistake. What was that about Mance? Has him in a cage, does he? How,
when hundreds saw your red witch burn the man?”
    That was Rattleshirt
, Jon almost said.
That
was sorcery. A glamor, she called it
. “Melisandre … 
look
to the skies
, she said.” He set the letter down. “A raven in a storm.
She saw this coming.”
When you have your answers, send to me
.
    “Might be all a skin o’ lies.” Tormund scratched under his
beard. “If I had me a nice goose quill and a pot o’ maester’s ink, I could
write down that me member was long and thick as me arm, wouldn’t make it so.”
    “He has Lightbringer. He talks of heads upon the walls of
Winterfell. He knows about the spearwives and their number.”
He knows
about Mance Rayder
. “No. There is truth in there.”
    “I won’t say you’re wrong. What do you mean to do, crow?”
    Jon flexed the fingers of his sword hand.
The Night’s
Watch takes no part
. He closed his fist