A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Tommen?”
    â€œAt Winterfell Tommen fought my brother Bran with wooden swords. He wore so much padding he looked like a stuffed goose. Bran knocked him to the ground.” Jon went to the window. “Yet Bran’s dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled amongst his golden curls.”
    Bran’s not dead,
Sam wanted to say.
He’s gone beyond the Wall with Coldhands.
The words caught in his throat.
I swore I would not tell.
“You haven’t signed the letter.”
    â€œThe Old Bear begged the Iron Throne for help a hundred times. They sent him Janos Slynt. No letter will make the Lannisters love us better. Not once they hear that we’ve been helping Stannis.”
    â€œOnly to defend the Wall, not in his rebellion.” Sam read the letter quickly once again. “That’s what it
says
here.”
    â€œThe distinction may escape Lord Tywin.” Jon took the letter back. “Why would he help us now? He never did before.”
    â€œWell,” said Sam, “he will not want it said that Stannis rode to the defense of the realm whilst King Tommen was playing with his toys. That would bring scorn down upon House Lannister.”
    â€œIt’s death and destruction I want to bring down upon House Lannister, not scorn.” Jon lifted up the letter.
“The Night’s Watch takes no part in the wars of the Seven Kingdoms,”
he read.
“Our oaths are sworn to the realm, and the realm now stands in dire peril. Stannis Baratheon aids us against our foes from beyond the Wall, though we are not his men . . .”
    â€œWell,” said Sam, squirming, “we’re
not.
Are we?”
    â€œI gave Stannis food, shelter, and the Nightfort, plus leave to settle some free folk in the Gift. That’s all.”
    â€œLord Tywin will say it was too much.”
    â€œStannis says it’s not enough. The more you give a king the more he wants. We are walking on a bridge of ice with an abyss on either side. Pleasing one king is difficult enough. Pleasing two is hardly possible.”
    â€œYes, but . . . if the Lannisters should prevail and Lord Tywin decides that we betrayed the king by aiding Stannis, it could mean the end of the Night’s Watch. He has the Tyrells behind him, with all the strength of Highgarden. And he did defeat Lord Stannis on the Blackwater.” The sight of blood might make Sam faint, but he knew how wars were won. His own father had seen to that.
    â€œThe Blackwater was one battle. Robb won all his battles and still lost his head. If Stannis can raise the north . . .”
    He’s trying to convince himself,
Sam realized,
but he can’t.
The ravens had gone forth from Castle Black in a storm of black wings, summoning the lords of the north to declare for Stannis Baratheon and join their strength to his. Sam had sent out most of them himself. Thusfar only one bird had returned, the one they’d sent to Karhold. Elsewise the silence had been thunderous.
    Even if he should somehow win the northmen to his side, Sam did not see how Stannis could hope to match the combined powers of Casterly Rock, Highgarden, and the Twins. Yet without the north, his cause was surely doomed.
As doomed as the Night’s Watch, if Lord Tywin marks us down as traitors.
“The Lannisters have northmen of their own. Lord Bolton and his bastard.”
    â€œStannis has the Karstarks. If he can win White Harbor . . .”
    â€œIf,” Sam stressed. “If not . . . my lord, even a paper shield is better than none.”
    Jon rattled the letter. “I suppose so.” He sighed, then took up a quill and scrawled a signature across the bottom of the letter. “Get the sealing wax.” Sam heated a stick of black wax over a candle and dribbled some onto the parchment, then watched as Jon pressed the Lord Commander’s seal down firmly on the puddle. “Take this to Maester Aemon when you leave,” he commanded, “and tell him to dispatch a bird to King’s Landing.”
    â€œI will.” Sam hesitated. “My lord, if I might ask . . . I saw Gilly leaving. She was almost crying.”
    â€œVal sent her to plead for Mance again.”
    â€œOh.” Val was the sister of the woman the King-beyond-the-Wall had taken for his queen.
The wildling princess
was what Stannis and his men were calling her. Her sister Dalla had died during the battle, though no blade had