AN: Sorry for how late this chapter turned out.
I’m currently busy with in real life stuff, since I’m planning a trip with my family, so things might get a little for the next week.
Cheers, and enjoy the chapter!
…
Chapter 4.2 – Deepwood Motte 13th Day of the 3rd Moon, Year 298 AC Karlon Stark Lord Glover led the him and his retinue into the the keep proper, where Karlon saw Sybelle Locke waiting by the threshold with Gawen and little Erena, Robett’s children, five and three respectively, both dark-haired, the boy already with his father’s compact build and the girl clinging to her mother’s skirts.
She was a dark-haired woman of some years, with the bronze keys of her house stitched to her cloak.
Sybelle was the cousin to Ser Donnel Locke and daughter to the current lord of Oldcastle, Lord Ondrew Locke.
According to Jorah’s letters, she was also a regular at Lynesse Hightower’s feasts and balls in Bear Island.
She greeted Karlon with proper courtesy the moment he and Galbart approached.
Robett was met with a smile as the man went to hug his wife and children.
Not five minutes later, Galbart prepared a small feast.
It wasn’t a fancy one, with only buttered bread, roasted venison, and apple wine, but Karlon enjoyed it.
He sat at Galbart’s right, which was the proper place for a visiting lord.
Torrhen was seated to his right and had fallen into conversation with one of the older Glover household knights about a particular hunt in the Wolfswood the man had done before.
Rickard Liddle had found his natural place at the lower tables with the lesser nobles.
The mountain clansman already challenging one of the men-at-arms to a drinking contest.
“Three ships,” Galbart said, without preamble.
Karlon looked at him.
“Robett’s ship, the Ironwood” Galbart clarified, pride clear in his voice.
“He leads three ships now that fly the silver fist.
A paltry number, but for the first time in a thousand years, we feel safe on the western shores.” “He’s a good captain,” Karlon said.
“He has good instincts for the water and he doesn’t make the same mistake twice.” He paused.
“But he is your heir, is he not?” Galbart looked at his brother, who was laughing at something Sybelle had said.
“Aye, he is, and my nephew after him.
He’ll be a fine lord.” Karlon drank his wine and said nothing further.
It was the kind of problem that only time could answer.
The meal went on in silence between them then.
Karlon saw Torrhen engaging in increasingly animated debate with the household knight beside him.
Rickard Liddle finally finished with the drinking contest and was now telling a story at the lower tables that produced three successive waves of laughter, each louder than the last.
Karlon was mid-conversation with Galbart about the road conditions east of the Motte when the maester appeared in the doorway, slightly out of breath.
“My lord,” he said, to Galbart.
“Riders approach from the north.” He paused, catching his breath.
“Our scouts say they moored from ships coming from the Bay of Ice.
They bear the banners of House Mormont, my lord.” ‘Finally,’ Karlon thought as set down his cup.
… The godswood of Deepwood Motte was a modest thing by northern standards — a clearing behind the keep with a dozen trees of various ages and dispositions and a heart tree at the center of it that stood perhaps twelve feet tall.
It was small for a weirwood.
Young, almost, in the terms the old gods reckoned age.
But the pale bark was unmistakable and the red leaves moved even when the air was still, and Karlon had never been in a godswood, large or small, that did not have its own quality of quiet.
He sat with his back against the heart tree’s trunk and a bottle of wine balanced on his knee.
The moon was high and nearly full, throwing enough light through the red leaves to see by without needing a torch.
Behind him the carved face gazed out at whatever it had always gazed at, patient as the stone it grew from.
Jorah Mormont was a big man, thick as a bear.
Karlon could remember being nine years old and looking up at him like an older brother, but the years had settled the size of him differently.
He had thickened through the chest and shoulders, with the close-cropped hair now showing more grey than brown.
He was four-and-forty now, and the difference in age between them never felt more apparent.
He sat across from Karlon with his own cup, his back against the godswood’s oldest oak, easy in the silence the way men were easy in silences they had built together over many years.
Torrhen had wanted to come with, but Karlon sent him off to bed.
Ser Egran remained a sentry in the entrance to the godswood, so their conversation would be private.
“How’s Lynesse?” Karlon asked.
“Good,” Jorah replied, his tone soft.
“Having Leyton has mellowed the rougher edges.
She’s—” He considered the word.
“She’s adapted.
More than I hoped for, early on.” “Alysanne’s doing, most of it.” Jorah took a slow drink.
“My cousin took her in hand from the first month.
They have an understanding, those two.
I’ve learned not to ask for details.” Karlon nodded.
It was a confounded fear, he remembered.
Lynesse Hightower, daughter of one of the richest lords in Westeros, coming north to become lady of a poor lordship that was Bear Island?
Thankfully, the fear had not come to pass, which was the best possible outcome for a fear.
“And the boy?” “Eight years old and already too heavy to lift.” Jorah’s voice carried the helpless satisfaction of a father who cannot quite believe his own luck.
“Has his mother’s eyes and my build.
Gods help whoever has to fight him in twenty years.” “Send him to Frostkeep when he’s old enough.
I’ll teach him to sail.” “You’ll teach him to sail and Dacey will teach him everything else worth knowing,” Jorah said, with the ease of someone stating a fact, “and in ten years I’ll have a son who makes me feel like I’ve been doing everything wrong.” “Aye, our children have a way of making us feel that way, eh?” Karlon smiled.
Somewhere in the branches above, something shifted.
A bird, perhaps, or maybe the wind.
“Galbart didn’t look pleased to see you,” Karlon said.
Jorah was quiet for a moment.
“I don’t blame him.
His sister was my first wife.
She died in the birthing bed.” He turned his cup in his hands.
“After three miscarriages.
Galbart was there for the last two.
He watched her decline.”He doesn’t blame me for it, I think.
But I remind him of it.” “I remember,” Karlon said.
He remembered when Jorah married Galbart’s sister.
He looked happy then, and so did Jeor.
“Enough of the talk,” Jorah said suddenly.
“You didn’t ask me to ride to Winterfell because you wanted to discuss Galbart’s feelings.
Speak.” Karlon took a long pull from the bottle.
“Robert means to make Ned the Hand of the King.” Jorah was quiet.
His eyes did not change, but something in the set of his face did — a settling, a calculation running behind the stillness.
“You’re certain.” “Certain enough.
Jon Arryn is dead and the King rides north and there’s no man Robert trusts the way he trusts Ned.
He won’t ask Stannis, you know as well as I the two loathe one another.
And the King would sooner bash his own skull in than give the position to the Old Lion.” Karlon set the bottle down.
“Ned won’t refuse.
You know he won’t.” Jorah exhaled slowly through his nose.
“And Starks don’t fare well in the south.” “They don’t.” Jorah turned it over for a moment.
“So you want me in Winterfell.
As what?
counsel?
A friendly face?” “As the man in the room who understands the south better than anyone else,” Karlon said.
“Your marriage with Lynesse gives you more connections to the southern houses than any northern lord outside the Manderlys.
You know how they think.
You know what they want and how they dress it up.” Jorah grunted.
“You should have told me to bring Lynesse.
She deals with more of the southron business than I do.” “You still know more than most.” Karlon paused.
“There’s also the matter of Alaric.” “Oh?” “He’s six-and-ten this year.
Dacey and I have been talking.” Karlon watched the leaves.
“It’s time to think about marriages.
I wanted Ned’s counsel on it.” Jorah laughed .”Good luck for that then.
Marriages and betrothals are a pain to think about.” “Your confidence is encouraging.” “Ned’s going to refer you to Catelyn, and the Lady Stark is known to have her own opinions.” Jorah shook his head, still smiling.
“I’m sure you and Dacey can figure it out, she’s certainly the fiercest of Maege’s daughters.” Karlon chuckled, and looked at his old friend.
Jorah was nearer fifty now than he was to forty, and it showed.
The near-bare scalp, the grey in his beard, the lines that had come to his face since the last time Karlon had really looked at him.
The last time they had seen one another was three months ago, when Dacey deigned a visit to Bear Island was proper for the children.
He had been nine years old the first time he had met Jorah.
It was a grey morning in early spring, the Bay of Ice still cold enough to kill a man in minutes, and Jorah — seven-and-ten, already a man grown, and twice Karlon’s size — had invited him out by boat to try their hand in fishing.
Then their ship had hit a wave and the spray hit Karlon full in the face before he held on for dear life, nearly falling.
Jorah had laughed.
They had spent almost every day together then; fishing, sailing, and even hunted one winter.
They had escaped from Jeor’s watch, packed enough supplies for three days, snuck out of the keep, and rushed into the woods of the island, just the two of them, and came back with a bear’s carcass the next day.
When the Greyjoy Rebellion came, they had stood on the same deck in the same rain and beaten Victarion Greyjoy back from the waters he thought were his.
And then they had stood at the same breach at Pyke, and Jorah had gone first, and Karlon had been right behind him.
He put a hand on Jorah’s shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re here, my friend.” Jorah just clicked Karlon’s bottle with his own before they both just sat there, enjoying the silence of the godswood.
Above them, in the branches of the heart tree, something moved.
Karlon looked up.
The white owl sat on a branch not ten feet above his head, the moonlight catching its feathers so that it seemed to shed its own light.
Its amber eyes were fixed on him.
It was not the gaze of a predator looking for prey, but something else.
It had followed him from the Wolfswood.
Or it had been waiting here.
He was not sure which possibility was stranger.
“That’s the third time today,” he said.
Jorah looked up.
His expression shifted.
“You know what my aunt would say.” “Maege would say a great many things.” “She’d say the old gods are watching.” Jorah studied the owl for a moment.
“She might not be wrong.” Karlon looked at it a little longer.
Then he looked away, at the heart tree, at the pale face carved into the wood, at the red sap tracking slowly from its eyes like tears that had been falling since before either of them were born.
The owl called once, low and clear, and they sat in the silence that followed, and did not speak for a long time.
… AN: Another chapter, here we go!
I quite enjoyed writing this chapter.
A classic ASOIAF storytelling thing is that travel time is real, and it’s something I wanna try implementing as well.
Westeros is a big place, and I won’t have Season 8 instant travel if I could help it.
Anyways, a Karlon focused chapter, a quick travel through the Wolfswood where a snow-white owl won’t stop bothering our MC.
Introducing House Glover, as well as Karlon’s retinue that rides to Winterfell.
Karlon Stark – Lord of Frostkeep, Guardian of the Western Shores, and Captain of the Frostfang Jorah Mormont – Lord of Bear Island Torrhen Karstark – Second son of Lord Karstark and Karlon’s page Ser Egran of Frostkeep – Captain of the Guard and Karlon’s sworn sword Rickard Liddle – Little Liddle, third son of Chief Liddle, a mountain clansman and First Mate of the Frostfang Robett Glover – Heir to Deepwood Motte, Captain of the Ironwood.
30 Frostkeep men-at-arms and 10 Mormont men-at-arms.