New chapter is live.
Settle in, take your time, and let’s see what waits in the dark 🖤 ✦ Aeg dried himself and picked up the clothes a servant had brought.
The long tunic was black in the style of the Night’s Watch, but the fabric was velvet, unmistakably not part of any uniform.
In texture and workmanship, it was worlds above what an ordinary black brother wore.
When he pulled it on, the cloth brushed his skin so comfortably that he almost groaned.
In Westeros, only men of the Night’s Watch dressed entirely in black.
The size did not seem made for Aeg, so the clothes were probably Benjen Stark’s.
‘Traveling with the First Ranger certainly had its privileges.’ Aeg smiled bitterly.
It was not that he had never worn better clothes.
Before coming to this world, his family had not been rich, but they had owned a home and a car, and his mother had once been a tailor before running a clothing shop.
She was a true expert.
Any random piece from Aeg’s old wardrobe would have been decent, practical, and well made.
Growing up, good clothes had seemed like the most ordinary thing in the world.
That life felt like something from a previous existence.
A man who had once worked toward a better standard of living now felt grateful for a soft tunic.
Among transmigrators, he might be one of the least impressive success stories ever.
Winterfell had been built over hot springs.
Warm water flowed through pipes within the walls, and even the worst room without a hearth was at least twenty degrees warmer than the air outside.
After bathing, Aeg sat down in a chair and nearly lost the will to move.
But he still had work to do tonight.
He forced himself up, straightened his clothes, and left the room.
* * * Men of the Night’s Watch were “honored guests” at Winterfell.
That was a pretty phrase.
With the king in residence, no one had attention to spare for one ordinary black brother.
A servant gave him curt directions to the feast, and Aeg found his place in a corner among many other guests who had arrived early.
The hall was hot and heavy with the smell of roasted meat and fresh bread.
Banners hung along the gray stone walls: the gray direwolf of House Stark on ice-white, House Baratheon’s crowned black stag on gold, and House Lannister’s golden lion on crimson.
A singer plucked a harp and sang, but Aeg was still not entirely comfortable with the language of Westeros, and from the far end of the hall he could not make out the words.
Jon Snow sat at the same table.
At the king’s feast, it did not matter whether Jon’s father was Rhaegar Targaryen or Eddard Stark.
As long as he was not a lawful heir, a bastard’s status was much like that of a certain black brother: welcome enough to sit, but at the lowest rank among the guests.
That was the cold hierarchy of this world.
Jon hid the slight well.
He fed the little direwolf beneath the table and plied Aeg with questions about the Night’s Watch, but the summerwine in his cup and the edge beneath his eagerness betrayed him.
Besides the bastard and the black brother, the table held a number of young squires.
Some served House Stark, some the royal household, and some came from Casterly Rock or Lannisport.
At the lower tables, old family grudges and great political feuds meant little.
Boys from all over the realm sat shoulder to shoulder, drinking the same wine and trading stories in the same tongue.
Jon asked eagerly about the Wall, and Aeg answered.
As he spoke, more and more boys set down knives, cups, and bread to listen.
“Do giants really exist?” “Do men beyond the Wall really bed goats?” “I heard wildlings eat their own children when they’re hungry!” Aeg knew that if he spoke too directly about the Others, they would take it for boasting.
Instead, he chose stories that were strange, interesting, and easy to repeat.
He was already in his twenties, but his foreign features made him look younger, allowing him to blend into a circle of boys.
Age and experience, however, made him the most composed person at the table.
He had read enough popular psychology in his old life to understand a crowd.
Back home, no one would have called him charismatic.
Here, among boys eager for tales of the Wall, he only had to give them the right story.
Before long, the ranger in new black clothes became the center of the table.
The boys crowded around him, offering wine and questions.
Even men from the next table shifted closer on the benches to hear his stories.
“That said, things at the Wall have been less than peaceful lately,” Aeg said once the lighter stories had done their work.
“The weather grows colder by the day.
A hundred thousand wildlings are gathering under the King-Beyond-the-Wall, preparing to break through and come south for winter.
South of the Wall, that is.
Rangers have begun seeing man-shaped figures in the Haunted Forest that may be Others.
Since the year began, several brothers have vanished on northern patrols.” Telling this to bastards and young squires served no immediate purpose, but news traveled.
Behind the bastard stood the lord of House Stark and the future heir of Winterfell.
The squires served knights, nobles, royal men, and Lannisters—people who actually controlled resources in Westeros.
If the Watch’s difficulties spread through enough mouths, then in the long run, it could only help the men on the Wall.
✦ ✦ ✦ Want to keep going?
I hope this chapter gave you another reason to stay with the story.
There’s still plenty ahead, and things are only starting to unfold.