“You are as hopeless as any boys I have ever trained,” Ser Alliser Thorne announced when theyhad all assembled in the yard. “Your hands were made for manure shovels, not for swords, and if itwere up to me, the lot of you would be set to herding swine. But last night I was told that Gueren ismarching five new boys up the kingsroad. One or two may even be worth the price of piss. To makeroom for them, I have decided to pass eight of you on to the Lord Commander to do with as he will.”

He called out the names one by one. “Toad. Stone Head. Aurochs. Lover. Pimple. Monkey. SerLoon.” Last, he looked at Jon. “And the Bastard.”

Pyp let fly a whoop and thrust his sword into the air. Ser Alliser fixed him with a reptile stare.

“They will call you men of Night’s Watch now, but you are bigger fools than the Mummer’sMonkey here if you believe that. You are boys still, green and stinking of summer, and when thewinter comes you will die like flies.” And with that, Ser Alliser Thorne took his leave of them.

The other boys gathered round the eight who had been named, laughing and cursing and offeringcongratulations. Halder smacked Toad on the butt with the flat of his sword and shouted, “Toad, ofthe Night’s Watch!” Yelling that a black brother needed a horse, Pyp leapt onto Grenn’s shoulders,and they tumbled to the ground, rolling and punching and hooting. Dareon dashed inside the armoryand returned with a skin of sour red. As they passed the wine from hand to hand, grinning like fools,Jon noticed Samwell Tarly standing by himself beneath a bare dead tree in the corner of the yard. Jonoffered him the skin. “A swallow of wine?”

Sam shook his head. “No thank you, Jon.”

“Are you well?”

“Very well, truly,” the fat boy lied. “I am so happy for you all.” His round face quivered as heforced a smile. “You will be First Ranger someday, just as your uncle was.”

“Is,” Jon corrected. He would not accept that Benjen Stark was dead. Before he could say more,Halder cried, “Here, you planning to drink that all yourself?” Pyp snatched the skin from his hand anddanced away, laughing. While Grenn seized his arm, Pyp gave the skin a squeeze, and a thin streamof red squirted Jon in the face. Halder howled in protest at the waste of good wine. Jon sputtered andstruggled. Matthar and Jeren climbed the wall and began pelting them all with snowballs.

By the time he wrenched free, with snow in his hair and wine stains on his surcoat, Samwell Tarlyhad gone.

That night, Three-Finger Hobb cooked the boys a special meal to mark the occasion. When Jonarrived at the common hall, the Lord Steward himself led him to the bench near the fire. The oldermen clapped him on the arm in passing. The eight soon-to-be brothers feasted on rack of lamb bakedin a crust of garlic and herbs, garnished with sprigs of mint, and surrounded by mashed yellow turnipsswimming in butter. “From the Lord Commander’s own table,” Bowen Marsh told them. There weresalads of spinach and chickpeas and turnip greens, and afterward bowls of iced blueberries and sweetcream.

“Do you think they’ll keep us together?” Pyp wondered as they gorged themselves happily.

Toad made a face. “I hope not. I’m sick of looking at those ears of yours.”

“Ho,” said Pyp. “Listen to the crow call the raven black. You’re certain to be a ranger, Toad.

They’ll want you as far from the castle as they can. If Mance Rayder attacks, lift your visor and showyour face, and he’ll run off screaming.”

Everyone laughed but Grenn. “I hope I’m a ranger.” I’m a ranger.”

“You and everyone else,” said Matthar. Every man who wore the black walked the Wall, andevery man was expected to take up steel in its defense, but the rangers were the true fighting heart ofthe Night’s Watch. It was they who dared ride beyond the Wall, sweeping through the haunted forestand the icy mountain heights west of the Shadow Tower, fighting Wildlings and giants and monstroussnow bears.

“Not everyone,” said Halder. “It’s the builders for me. What use would rangers be if the Wall felldown?”

The order of builders provided the masons and carpenters to repair keeps and towers, the miners todig tunnels and crush stone for roads and footpaths, the woodsmen to clear away new growthwherever the forest pressed too close to the Wall. Once, it was said, they had quarried immenseblocks of ice from frozen lakes deep in the haunted forest, dragging them south on sledges so the Wallmight be raised ever higher. Those days were centuries gone, however; now, it was all they could doto ride the Wall from Eastwatch to the Shadow Tower, watching for cracks or signs of melt andmaking what repairs they could.

“The Old Bear’s no fool,” Dareon observed. “You’re certain to be a builder, and Jon’s certain tobe a ranger. He’s the best sword and the best rider among us, and his uncle was the First before he …”

His voice trailed off awkwardly as he realized what he had almost said.

“Benjen Stark is still First Ranger,” Jon Snow told him, toying with his bowl of blueberries. Therest might have given up all hope of his uncle’s safe return, but not him. He pushed away the berries,scarcely touched, and rose from the bench.

“Aren’t you going to eat those?” Toad asked.

“They’re yours.” Jon had hardly tasted Hobb’s great feast. “I could not eat another bite.” He tookhis cloak from its hook near the door and shouldered his way out.

Pyp followed him. “Jon, what is it?”

“Sam,” he admitted. “He was not at table tonight.”

“It’s not like him to miss a meal,” Pyp said thoughtfully. “Do you suppose he’s taken ill?”

“He’s frightened. We’re leaving him.” He remembered the day he had left Winterfell, all thebittersweet farewells; Bran lying broken, Robb with snow in his hair, Arya raining kisses on him afterhe’d given her Needle. “Once we say our words, we’ll all have duties to attend to. Some of us may besent away, to Eastwatch or the Shadow Tower. Sam will remain in training, with the likes of Rast andCuger and these new boys who are coming up the kingsroad. Gods only know what they’ll be like,but you can bet Ser Alliser will send them against him, first chance he gets.”

Pyp made a grimace. “You did all you could.”

“All we could wasn’t enough,” Jon said.

A deep restlessness was on him as he went back to Hardin’s Tower for Ghost. The direwolf walkedbeside him to the stables. Some of the more skittish horses kicked at their stalls and laid back theirears as they entered. Jon saddled his mare, mounted, and rode out from Castle Black, south across themoonlit night. Ghost raced ahead of him, flying over the ground, gone in the blink of an eye. Jon lethim go. A wolf needed to hunt.

He had no destination in mind. He wanted only to ride. He followed the creek for a time, listeningto the icy trickle of water over rock, then cut across the fields to the kingsroad. It stretched out beforehim, narrow and stony and pocked with weeds, a road of no particular promise, yet the sight of itfilled Jon Snow with a vast longing. Winterfell was down that road, and beyond it Riverrun andKing’s Landing and the Eyrie and so many other places; Casterly Rock, the Isles of Faces, the redmountains of Dorne, the hundred islands of Braavos in the sea, the smoking ruins of old Valyria. Allthe places that Jon would never see. The world was down that road … and he was here.

Once he swore his vow, the Wall would be his home until he was old as Maester Aemon. “I havenot sworn yet,” he muttered. He was no outlaw, bound to take the black or pay the penalty for hiscrimes. He had come here freely, and he might leave freely … until he said the words. He need onlyride on, and he could leave it all behind. By the time the moon was full again, he would be back inWinterfell with his brothers.

Your half brothers, a voice inside reminded him. And Lady Stark, who will not welcome you. Therewas no place for him in Winterfell, no place in King’s Landing either. Even his own mother had nothad a place for him. The thought of her made him sad. He wondered who she had been, what she hadlooked like, why his father had left her. Beca............