A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

and sixty-eight for Pyke,” Clydas said. “We are two votes short by my count, and one by Sam’s.”
    â€œSam’s count is correct,” said Maester Aemon. “Jon Snow did not cast a token. It makes no matter. No one is close.”
    Sam was more relieved than disappointed. Even with Bowen Marsh’s support, Lord Janos was still only third. “Who are these five who keep voting for Three-Finger Hobb?” he wondered.
    â€œBrothers who want him out of the kitchens?” said Clydas.
    â€œSer Denys is down ten votes since yesterday,” Sam pointed out. “And Cotter Pyke is down almost twenty. That’s not good.”
    â€œNot good for their hopes of becoming Lord Commander, certainly,” said Maester Aemon. “Yet it may be good for the Night’s Watch, in the end. That is not for us to say. Ten days is not unduly long. There was once a choosing that lasted near two years, some seven hundred votes. The brothers will come to a decision in their own time.”
    Yes
, Sam thought,
but what decision?
    Later, over cups of watered wine in the privacy of Pyp’s cell, Sam’s tongue loosened and he found himself thinking aloud. “Cotter Pyke and Ser Denys Mallister have been losing ground, but between them they still have almost two-thirds,” he told Pyp and Grenn. “Either one would be fine as Lord Commander. Someone needs to convince one of them to withdraw and support the other.”
    â€œSomeone?” said Grenn, doubtfully. “What someone?”
    â€œGrenn is so dumb he thinks
someone
might be him,” said Pyp. “Maybe when someone is done with Pyke and Mallister, he should convince King Stannis to marry Queen Cersei too.”
    â€œKing Stannis is married,” Grenn objected.
    â€œWhat am I going to do with him, Sam?” sighed Pyp.
    â€œCotter Pyke and Ser Denys don’t like each other much,” Grenn argued stubbornly. “They fight about
everything
.”
    â€œYes, but only because they have different ideas about what’s best for the Watch,” said Sam. “If we explained—”
    â€œ
We?
” said Pyp. “How did
someone
change to
we?
I’m the mummer’s monkey, remember? And Grenn is, well,
Grenn
.” He smiled at Sam, and wiggled his ears. “You, now . . . you’re a lord’s son, and the maester’s steward . . .”
    â€œAnd Sam the Slayer,” said Grenn. “You slew an Other.”
    â€œIt was the
dragonglass
that killed it,” Sam told him for the hundredth time.
    â€œA lord’s son, the maester’s steward, and Sam the Slayer,” Pyp mused. “
You
could talk to them, might be . . .”
    â€œI could,” said Sam, sounding as gloomy as Dolorous Edd, “if I wasn’t too craven to face them.”

JON
    J on prowled around Satin in a slow circle, sword in hand, forcing him to turn. “Get your shield up,” he said.
    â€œIt’s too heavy,” the Oldtown boy complained.
    â€œIt’s as heavy as it needs to be to stop a sword,” Jon said. “Now get it up.” He stepped forward, slashing. Satin jerked the shield up in time to catch the sword on its rim, and swung his own blade at Jon’s ribs. “Good,” Jon said, when he felt the impact on his own shield. “That was good. But you need to put your body into it. Get your weight behind the steel and you’ll do more damage than with arm strength alone. Come, try it again, drive at me, but keep the shield up or I’ll ring your head like a bell . . .”
    Instead Satin took a step backward and raised his visor. “Jon,” he said, in an anxious voice.
    When he turned, she was standing behind him, with half a dozen queen’s men around her.
Small wonder the yard grew so quiet
. He had glimpsed Melisandre at her nightfires, and coming and going about the castle, but never so close.
She’s beautiful
, he thought . . . but there was something more than a little unsettling about red eyes. “My lady.”
    â€œThe king would speak with you, Jon Snow.”
    Jon thrust the practice sword into the earth. “Might I be allowed to change? I am in no fit state to stand before a king.”
    â€œWe shall await you atop the Wall,” said Melisandre.
We
, Jon heard,
not he. It’s as they say. This is his true queen, not the one he left at Eastwatch
.
    He hung his mail and plate inside the armory,