LITMIR.BIZ

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covered his ears, Princess Shireen pressed her face into her mother’s furs, and the boldest of the queen’s knights moved forward, steel in hand. Jon raised an arm to block his path. “You do not want to anger him. Sheathe your steel, ser. Leathers, take Wun Wun back to Hardin’s.”

      “Eat now, Wun Wun?” asked the giant.

      “Eat now,” Jon agreed. To Leathers he said, “I’ll send out a bushel of vegetables for him and meat for you. Start a fire.”

      Leathers grinned. “I will, m’lord, but Hardin’s is bone cold. Perhaps m’lord could send out some wine to warm us?”

      “For you. Not him.” Wun Wun had never tasted wine until he came to Castle Black, but once he had, he had taken a gigantic liking to it. Too much a liking. Jon had enough to contend with just now without adding a drunken giant to the mix. He turned back to the queen’s knights. “My lord father used to say a man should never draw his sword unless he means to use it.”

      “Using it was my intent.” The knight was clean-shaved and windburnt; beneath a cloak of white fur he wore a cloth-of-silver surcoat emblazoned with a blue five-pointed star. “I had been given to understand that the Night’s Watch defended the realm against such monsters. No one mentioned keeping them as pets.”

      Another bloody southron fool. “You are … ?”

      “Ser Patrek of King’s Mountain, if it please my lord.”

      “I do not know how you observe guest right on your mountain, ser. In the north we hold it sacred. Wun Wun is a guest here.”

      Ser Patrek smiled. “Tell me, Lord Commander, should the Others turn up, do you plan to offer hospitality to them as well?” The knight turned to his queen. “Your Grace, that is the King’s Tower there, if I am not mistaken. If I may have the honor?”

      “As you wish.” The queen took his arm and swept past the men of the Night’s Watch with never a second glance.

      Those flames on her crown are the warmest thing about her. “Lord Tycho,” Jon called. “A moment, please.”

      The Braavosi halted. “No lord I. Only a simple servant of the Iron Bank of Braavos.”

      “Cotter Pyke informs me that you came to Eastwatch with three ships. A galleas, a galley, and a cog.”

      “Just so, my lord. The crossing can be perilous in this season. One ship alone may founder, where three together may aid one another. The Iron Bank is always prudent in such matters.”

      “Perhaps before you leave we might have a quiet word?”

      “I am at your service, Lord Commander. And in Braavos we say there is no time like the present. Will that suit?”

      “As good as any. Shall we repair to my solar, or would you like to see the top of the Wall?”

      The banker glanced up, to where the ice loomed vast and pale against the sky. “I fear it will be bitter cold up top.”

      “That, and windy. You learn to walk well away from the edge. Men have been blown off. Still. The Wall is like nothing else on earth. You may never have another chance to see it.”

      “No doubt I shall rue my caution upon my deathbed, but after a long day in the saddle, a warm room sounds preferable to me.”

      “My solar, then. Satin, some mulled wine, if you would.”

      Jon’s rooms behind the armory were quiet enough, if not especially warm. His fire had gone out some time ago; Satin was not as diligent in feeding it as Dolorous Edd had been. Mormont’s raven greeted them with a shriek of “Corn!” Jon hung up his cloak. “You come seeking Stannis, is that correct?”

      “It is, my lord. Queen Selyse has suggested that we might send word to Deepwood Motte by raven, to inform His Grace that I await his pleasure at the Nightfort. The matter that I mean to put to him is too delicate to entrust to letters.”

      “A debt.” What else could it be? “His own debt? Or his brother’s?”

      The banker pressed his fingers together. “It would not be proper for me to discuss Lord Stannis’s indebtedness or lack of same. As to King Robert … it was indeed our pleasure to assist His Grace in his need. For so long as Robert lived, all was well. Now, however, the Iron Throne has ceased all repayment.”

      Could the Lannisters truly be so foolish? “You cannot mean to hold Stannis responsible for his brother’s debts.”

      “The debts belong to the Iron Throne,” Tycho declared, “and whosoever sits on that chair must pay them. Since young King Tommen and his counsellors have become so obdurate, we mean to broach the subject with King Stannis. Should he prove himself more worthy of our trust, it would of course be our great pleasure to lend him whatever help he needs.”

      “Help,” the raven screamed. “Help, help, help.”

      Much of this Jon had surmised the moment he learned that the Iron Bank had sent an envoy to the Wall. “When last we heard, His Grace was marching on Winterfell to confront Lord Bolton and his allies. You may seek him there if you wish, though that carries a risk. You could find yourself caught up in his war.”

      Tycho bowed his head. “We who serve the Iron Bank face death full as often as you who serve the Iron Throne.”

      Is that whom I serve? Jon Snow was no longer certain. “I can provide you with horses, provisions, guides, whatever is required to get you as far as Deepwood Motte. From there you will need to make your own way to Stannis.” And you may well find his head upon a spike. “There will be a price.”

      “Price,” screamed Mormont’s raven. “Price, price.”

      “There is always a price, is there not?” The Braavosi smiled. “What does the Watch require?”

      “Your ships, for a start. With their crews.”

      “All three? How will I return to Braavos?”

      “I only need them for a single voyage.”

      “A hazardous voyage, I assume. For a start, you said?”

      “We need a loan as well. Gold enough to keep us fed till spring. To buy food and hire ships to bring it to us.”

      “Spring?” Tycho sighed. “It is not possible, my lord.”

      What was it Stannis had said to him? You haggle like a crone with a codfish, Lord Snow. Did Lord Eddard father you on a fishwife? Perhaps he had at that.

      It took the better part of an hour before the impossible became possible, and another hour before they could agree on terms. The flagon of mulled wine that Satin delivered helped them settle the more nettlesome points. By the time Jon Snow signed the parchment the Braavosi drew up, both of them were half-drunk and quite unhappy. Jon thought that a good sign.

      The three Braavosi ships would bring the fleet at Eastwatch up to eleven, including the Ibbenese whaler that Cotter Pyke had commandeered on Jon’s order, a trading galley out of Pentos similarly impressed, and three battered Lysene warships, remnants of Salladhor Saan’s former fleet driven back north by the autumn storms. All three of Saan’s ships had been in dire need of refitting, but by now the work should be complete.

      Eleven ships was not wise enough, but if he waited any longer, the free folk at Hardhome would be dead by the time the rescue fleet arrived. Sail now or not at all. Whether Mother Mole and her people would be desperate enough to entrust their lives to the Night’s Watch, though …

      The day had darkened by the time he and Tycho Nestoris left the solar. Snow had begun to fall. “Our respite was a brief one, it would seem.” Jon drew his cloak about himself more tightly.

      “Winter is nigh upon us. The day I left Braavos, there was ice on the canals.”

      “Three of my men passed

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