A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

neck. If it is chains you want, come with me.
For three days and three nights Sam had sobbed himself to sleep, manacled hand and foot to a wall. The chain around his throat was so tight it broke the skin, and whenever he rolled the wrong way in his sleep it would cut off his breath. “I cannot wear a chain.”
    â€œYou can. You will. Maester Aemon is old and blind. His strength is leaving him. Who will take his place when he dies? Maester Mullin at the Shadow Tower is more fighter than scholar, and Maester Harmune of Eastwatch is drunk more than he’s sober.”
    â€œIf you ask the Citadel for more maesters . . .”
    â€œI mean to. We’ll have need of every one. Aemon Targaryen is not so easily replaced, however.” Jon seemed puzzled. “I was certain this would please you. There are so many books at the Citadel that no man can hope to read them all. You would do well there, Sam. I know you would.”
    â€œNo. I could read the books, but . . . a m-maester must be a healer and b-b-blood makes me faint.” He held out a shaky hand for Jon to see. “I’m Sam the Scared, not Sam the Slayer.”
    â€œScared? Of what? The chidings of old men? Sam, you saw the wights come swarming up the Fist, a tide of living dead men with black hands and bright blue eyes. You slew an Other.”
    â€œIt was the d-d-d-dragonglass, not me.”
    â€œBe quiet. You lied and schemed and plotted to make me Lord Commander. You
will
obey me. You’ll go to the Citadel and forge a chain, and if you have to cut up corpses, so be it. At least in Oldtown the corpses won’t object.”
    He doesn’t understand.
“My lord,” Sam said, “my f-f-f-father, Lord Randyll, he, he, he, he, he . . . the life of a maester is a life of
servitude.
” He was babbling, he knew. “No son of House Tarly will ever wear a chain. The men of Horn Hill do not bow and scrape to petty lords.”
If it is chains you want, come with me.
“Jon, I cannot disobey my
father.
”
    Jon,
he’d said, but Jon was gone. It was Lord Snow who faced him now, grey eyes as hard as ice. “You have no father,” said Lord Snow. “Only brothers. Only us. Your life belongs to the Night’s Watch, so go and stuff your smallclothes into a sack, along with anything else you care to take to Oldtown. You leave an hour before sunrise. And here’s another order. From this day forth, you will
not
call yourself a craven. You’ve faced more things this past year than most men face in a lifetime. You can face the Citadel, but you’ll face it as a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch. I can’t command you to be brave, but I
can
command you to hide your fears. You said the words, Sam. Remember?”
    I am the sword in the darkness.
But he was wretched with a sword, and the darkness scared him. “I . . . I’ll try.”
    â€œYou won’t try. You will obey.”
    â€œObey.”
Mormont’s raven flapped its great black wings.
    â€œAs my lord commands. Does . . . does Maester Aemon know?”
    â€œIt was as much his idea as mine.” Jon opened the door for him. “No farewells. The fewer folk who know of this, the better. An hour before first light, by the lichyard.”
    Sam did not recall leaving the armory. The next thing he knew he was stumbling through mud and patches of old snow, toward Maester Aemon’s chambers.
I could hide,
he told himself.
I could hide in the vaults amongst the books. I could live down there with the mouse and sneak up at night to steal food.
Crazed thoughts, he knew, as futile as they were desperate. The vaults were the first place they would look for him. The
last
place they would look for him was beyond the Wall, but that was even madder.
The wildlings would catch me and kill me slowly. They might burn me alive, the way the red woman means to burn Mance Rayder.
    When he found Maester Aemon in the rookery, he gave him Jon’s letter and blurted out his fears in a great green gush of words. “He does not
understand.
” Sam felt as if he might throw up. “If I don a chain, my lord f-f-f-father . . . he, he, he . . .”
    â€œMy own father raised the same objections when I chose a life of service,” the old man said. “It was
his
father who sent me to the Citadel. King Daeron had sired four sons, and three had sons of their own.
Too many dragons are as dangerous as too few,
I heard His