A Time for Wolves

He was in the yard, helping some of his younger sworn brothers with their swordplay. His wounds were not fully healed, but he did not think it was reason enough to stay idle, especially in such agitated times as those. He could still defeat most of the men of the Night's Watch, even though he was not wholly recovered yet. Stannis's knights were a different matter: they had been trained to fight, the same as Jon, and it was not so easy to beat them. Now that the king was in the Wall, his knights trained in the yard together with the Black Brothers. However, that day nobody had challenged him to fight, so he was teaching a new recruit called Satin how to swordfight instead. Suddenly, the boy stepped back and looked away, and Jon turned to see who Satin was looking at. It was the Lady Melisandre, surrounded by half a dozen queen's men. She approached him and beckoned him: "The king would speak with you, Jon Snow". He looked at her beautiful but unsettling face, trying not to avoid her red eyes. He asked to be allowed to change, figuring that his sweaty clothes were not fit to stand before a king. She agreed and told him to meet them atop the Wall. This red woman is Stannis's real queen, and not the other one he had left at Eastwach, Jon thought as he went to his cell to find clean and warm clothes to put on. He also took Longclaw and slung it across his back. After that, he went to the cage, where Melisandre was waiting for him. They went up together. "What does His Grace want of me" Jon wanted to know. "All you can give, Jon Snow. He is a king." The day was bright and the Wall was weeping, Jon noticed as they rose. He was also aware of Melisandre's presence, very close to him. She was dressed lightly, with no furs to protect her from the cold, but she did not seem to mind. When they got to the top and went out of the cage, they saw the king standing there, waiting for them. "I have brought you the Bastard of Winterfell, Your Grace," Melisandre announced. Stannis turned to study him, and Jon did the same. The king's look and his clenched position made him uneasy. Jon knelt before him, wondering what he would ask of him. "Rise, Snow. I have some matters to discuss with you." Jon did as he was bid, and Stannis started to question him about the rumors he had heard about him. Jon told him what he had done, and explained that he had never turned on the Night's Watch, not even when he had killed Qhorin or when he had slept with Ygritte. In the end, Stannis said he believed in what he said, because he knew Lord Eddard to be a man of honor, and he also knew Slynt, the man who had spread most of the rumors about him, to be a treacherous liar. After having stated this, the king sighed and paused, announcing in this way that the time had come to talk about the things that really concerned him. Jon looked up at him, wondering what the matter of the conversation was, and what Stannis could want with a man of the Night's Watch like him. "When the Night's Watch needed help," the king started saying "you asked for it to the five kings of Westeros, without preferring or excluding any of them. I am the only one who answered. You have a war to fight against the White Walkers, and the Seven Kingdoms' future depends on it. As I understand that, I have decided to help the Watch, and to lend you my army for as long as your war lasts. However, as there are still people who call themselves 'Lord of the Seven Kingdoms', I also have a war to fight. I need help to win it, because the people of Westeros do not recognize me as their rightful king." Jon did not know how to answer. It was true that Stannis had helped them fight the wildlings (despite them being human and thus not the real enemy, they had tried to cross South of the Wall by force, without submitting to the King's laws, and Stannis had stopped them.) But Jon was not allowed to offer Stannis his help: the Night's Watch could not intervene in Westeros's wars. It had been like this for years, because even if the high lords could kill each other without much problem, the Watch had to work properly for the realms of men's sake and, as the brothers of the Night's Watch came from different places, families and Houses, which many times were at war with that of their own sworn brothers, intervening in the wars would mean the dissolution of the Watch. Jon did not say anything; surely Stannis already knew that. Then the King spoke again: "I need to find a region in which I can settle and from which I can start fighting again. As I am now in the Wall, the most convenient Kingdom is the North. What I am asking is that you help me get the northern Lords' loyalty." "But, Your Grace, I don’t have the power to do that. I am a man of the Night's Watch, and I have nothing to do with any inner conflict in the Seven Kingdoms. Nobody will mind my opinion on that, and I don't know how to get the North's loyalty." "Your brother was proclaimed King in the North by his own bannermen. He usurped my authority as king, but he got the North's loyalty. Now the kingdom is under Lannister rule, and House Bolton holds the power that the Starks had before. However, I am sure that if any of them happened to have the chance to fight for the House Stark once more, they would turn on the Bolton traitors without thinking it twice, and they would accept the king that the Lord of Winterfell recognizes as the only true one." "I understand what you mean, Your Grace, but I can't do that. My name was always Snow, not Stark, and however dishonorable the Boltons may be, I doubt that the North will want to have a 'Lord Snow' ruling them from Winterfell." Jon said, thinking on how it had bothered him at the beginning to be called ‘Lord Snow’ at the Watch. It would be impossible to find somebody who would acknowledge him as the rightful Lord of Winterfell, let alone someone who would fight for him. "I never said there would be a 'Lord Snow' in Winterfell. If you accept my proposal, you will kneel before me, I will touch your shoulders with my sword and, when you get up again on your feet, you will be Lord Jon Stark, of Winterfell. As king, I have this faculty," Stannis told him then. That was a tempting idea for Jon, but he could not accept it just like that. Obtaining the title of Lord of Winterfell as a result of his brothers' deaths was something horrible and dishonorable. So, instead of accepting the offer, he objected. "But I swore not to hold lands or titles when I became a man of the Night's watch. I can't do what you tell me without being considered a deserter and deserving to be beheaded for that." "If you were to fight for my cause, I would personally make sure that you are not seen as a deserter and that whoever that is named Lord Commander of the Night's Watch allows you to leave the Wall alive." "If that is your proposal, Your Grace, I would like to have some time to consider it, without accepting or rejecting it definitely for now." Jon asked and Stannis nodded. "This is not an offer to be taken lightly. However, having as I do two wars to fight, I can't allow myself to waste much time. I shall therefore give you ten days, Lord Snow, to decide whether you want to accept or reject my proposal." "I thank you, Your Grace. Is that all?" "It is. You may leave, Snow." Jon went down again and decided to walk to the weirwoods that were beyond the Wall, to ask for the Old Gods' help in making his decision. While he was walking, he thought about Winterfell's weirwood, and the Godswood. He thought about the castle in which he had lived during all of his childhood, until the moment in which he decided to go to the Wall. Winterfell had been his home, but he had never thought that it could be his: he had always known that it was Robb the one who would inherit it, and when Robb died Jon was already in the Watch, and he had quit the possibility to have a castle of his own. But now that he had this possibility back, he realized that he had always wanted Winterfell. It had never been his but it had been his home, the place where he grew up. He was more than willing to let any of his brothers or sisters inherit their father's castle, but this was not the case. If Jon did not accept it, another man from another family would take Winterfell for himself. It would most likely be the traitor Roose Bolton's son. And he was also a bastard, so he had no more rights than Jon to any land or title. Jon finally got to the place he was looking for and he sat by the trees. It was a quiet place, and there was nobody about to interrupt his thoughts. He prayed for the Old Gods, who seemed to be looking at him from the weirwoods' eyes, to help him make the right decision. Then Jon wondered what would happen if he should accept the offer. Probably his father's most loyal bannermen would fight beside him, free the North from the ironmen and attack the Boltons (and any other House on their side.) They would accept Stannis as the King in the North and they would help their new king conquer the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. All of that seemed acceptable for Jon, and even desirable: it was the possibility for him to be everything he had wanted since he was a child. But there were two reasons that made him doubt. One of those reasons was the memory of the late Lord Commander Mormont saying when dead men come hunting in the night, do you think it matters who sits the Iron Throne? Jon knew that the war against the Others was more important than the southern lords' ‘Game of Thrones’, but Stannis had helped the Watch, and he could keep helping them. If the white walkers got south of the Wall, it would not matter whoever sat on the Throne, because both the King and the poorest of the smallfolk would die. But now that the disaster could be prevented, it did matter. A king that showed no intention of listening about the growing threat beyond the Wall would be Westeros's doom, and did not deserve the throne (at least to Jon's eyes), but one who would listen and help them could save the realms of men, whose protection was the main purpose of the Night's Watch. The other problem was the weirwoods: Jon had always believed in the Old Gods, however little they had listened to him of late, and the godswood had been his favorite place in Winterfell. Jon shuddered to think of the possibility that Melisandre, the red priestess at Stannis's service, may decide to burn Winterfell's weirwood. Or the ones that were there, in front of him right then. He could not let that happen. Should he accept Stannis's proposal, Jon told himself, it would be on condition that the Old Gods would remain as the Gods of the North, and that no weirwood would be burned. Jon looked at the trees, as if waiting for an answer, but the only thing he sensed was the wind that moved its branches and leaves. And after some minutes, when he was about to start the walk back to Castle Black to get there in time for dinner, he noticed Ghost's presence, who had sat silently beside him. Jon had not seen his direwolf since their parting beyond the Wall, and he had not been sure if he would ever see him again. Was that the gods' answer, then? Had they given him his wolf back because he had made the right decision? As he asked himself that question, he noticed that he had, in fact, made a decision. He was going to wait the ten days he had and after that, he would tell Stannis that he accepted his proposal, on the conditions he had just thought. But, for the time being, he would act as if nothing had happened. He got up and, after petting Ghost affectionately as a way of welcome, he walked to Castle Black with his direwolf. He went to the hall where the meals were served, and he immediately noticed that something was wrong: everyone were arguing and shouting, and some of them insulted Jon when he got in. In the end, his friends Sam, Pyp and Grenn told him what had happened: he had been chosen Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.