A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

them on the morrow. He
shuffled the scrolls about aimlessly. “There’s more maps. If I had time to
search . . .

everything’s a jumble.
I
could set it all to order, though; I know I
could, but it would take time . . . well,
years,
in
truth.”
    â€œMormont wanted those maps a little sooner than that.” Jon plucked a scroll
from a bin, blew off the worst of the dust. A corner flaked off between his
fingers as he unrolled it. “Look, this one is crumbling,” he said, frowning
over the faded script.
    â€œBe gentle.” Sam came around the table and took the scroll from his hand,
holding it as if it were a wounded animal. “The important books used to be
copied over when they needed them. Some of the oldest have been copied half a
hundred times, probably.”
    â€œWell, don’t bother copying that one. Twenty-three barrels of pickled cod,
eighteen jars of fish oil, a cask of salt . . .”
    â€œAn inventory,” Sam said, “or perhaps a bill of sale.”
    â€œWho cares how much pickled cod they ate six hundred years ago?” Jon
wondered.
    â€œI would.” Sam carefully replaced the scroll in the bin from which Jon had
plucked it. “You can learn so much from ledgers like that, truly you can. It
can tell you how many men were in the Night’s Watch then, how they lived, what
they ate . . .”
    â€œThey ate food,” said Jon, “and they lived as we live.”
    â€œYou’d be surprised. This vault is a treasure, Jon.”
    â€œIf you say so.” Jon was doubtful. Treasure meant gold, silver, and jewels,
not dust, spiders, and rotting leather.
    â€œI do,” the fat boy blurted. He was older than Jon, a man grown by law, but
it was hard to think of him as anything but a boy. “I found drawings of the
faces in the trees, and a book

about the tongue of the children of the forest . . . works that
even the Citadel doesn’t have, scrolls from old Valyria, counts of the seasons
written by maesters dead a thousand years . . .”
    â€œThe books will still be here when we return.”
    â€œ
If
we return . . .”
    â€œThe Old Bear is taking two hundred seasoned men, three-quarters of them
rangers. Qhorin Halfhand will be bringing another hundred brothers from the
Shadow Tower. You’ll be as safe as if you were back in your lord father’s
castle at Horn Hill.”
    Samwell Tarly managed a sad little smile. “I was never very safe in my
father’s castle either.”
    The gods play cruel jests,
Jon thought. Pyp and Toad, all a lather to
be a part of the great ranging, were to remain at Castle Black. It was Samwell
Tarly, the self-proclaimed coward, grossly fat, timid, and near as bad a rider
as he was with a sword, who must face the haunted forest. The Old Bear was
taking two cages of ravens, so they might send back word as they went. Maester
Aemon was blind and far too frail to ride with them, so his steward must go in
his place. “We need you for the ravens, Sam. And someone has to help me keep
Grenn humble.”
    Sam’s chins quivered. “You could care for the ravens, or Grenn could, or
anyone,
” he said with a thin edge of desperation in his voice. “I
could show you how. You know your letters too, you could write down Lord
Mormont’s messages as well as I.”
    â€œI’m the Old Bear’s steward. I’ll need to squire for him, tend his horse, set
up his tent; I won’t have time to watch over

birds as well. Sam, you said the words. You’re a brother of the Night’s Watch
now.”
    â€œA brother of the Night’s Watch shouldn’t be so scared.”
    â€œWe’re all scared. We’d be fools if we weren’t.” Too many rangers had been
lost the past two years, even Benjen Stark, Jon’s uncle. They had found two of
his uncle’s men in the wood, slain, but the corpses had risen in the chill of
night. Jon’s burnt fingers twitched as he remembered. He still saw the wight in
his dreams, dead Othor with the burning blue eyes and the cold black hands, but
that was the last thing Sam needed to be reminded of. “There’s no shame in
fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it. Come, I’ll help you
gather up the maps.”
    Sam nodded unhappily. The shelves were so closely spaced that they had to