"And anyway, it could have been much worse!
"But it could have been so much better, damn it!"
(c) Joseph Heller, Catch-22
John gradually recovered, lying around in Master Aemon's rooms and sleeping as much as he was allowed, like a model soldier, or more accurately, sleeping almost all day and certainly all night. Perhaps it was the poppy milk that Master Aemon sometimes gave John to drink, but John didn't care — he was very preoccupied with his dreams. In some of them, he saw the world through the eyes of his direwolf, who roamed freely wherever he wanted and even managed to sniff out a few cute female wolves. The dreams featuring the direwolf were interesting, but when he woke up, Jon felt that they did not improve his mood, quite the contrary: the direwolf roamed free, while Jon was going to serve a life sentence on the Wall through no fault of his own.
When the longing from the wolf dreams became almost unbearable, John dreamed of his missing uncle Benjen. Uncle Benjen stood on the other side of the Wall with his usual sly smile, and John seemed to be looking down at him slightly, as if hovering in the air in front of the Wall.
"I'll tell the boys you're back, Uncle," promised Jon, delighted by his uncle's return, thinking that Benjen had been freezing in front of the closed gates for hours.
"The Wall won't let me through, nephew," complained Uncle Benjen with the same mocking grin."In my opinion, Uncle," John suggested cheerfully, remembering Benjen as he used to be when he came to Winterfell on leave every couple of years, "I think you're just drunk again and forgot the password.
"Heh," Uncle Benjen approved of John's teasing and gave him another piece of outrageous advice. "Serve, nephew, as I served. And I gave up my service."
With that, the cheerful dream with Uncle Benjen ended, and Jon feigned suffering and asked Maester Aemon for more poppy milk.
Uncle Benjen visited John's dreams only after the second serving of poppy milk, and he had a grin on his face as if he had drunk both servings of poppy milk and smoked the dregs.
"Didn't you think, nephew, that you were surrounded by madmen in the Watch?" Benjen asked confidentially, and John tried to understand what he was getting at.
"No," John replied honestly. "At first, I thought I was surrounded by incompetents, sadists, and fools. But then I talked to Master Aemon, who explained to me that as a bastard, I have a subconscious hatred of people. I disagreed and replied that I hated them all quite consciously...
"Yes, yes," John's uncle agreed approvingly. "Maester Aemon is an interesting man. Once, when he was still sighted, he read a lot of Valyrian tomes and diagnosed me with depression. "Poverty depresses you," Maester Aemon told me. "Ignorance infuriates you. Clumsiness and unteachability disgust you, and human stupidity drives you to white heat. In short, a perfectly normal life makes you miserable."
"And the maester told me he had no other squires for me, so I'd better get used to these ones," Jon shared. "You know, some of them aren't such bad guys. Although many are still complete scum who would kill their own lord commander, not only on their way back from a failed campaign, but right in the courtyard of the Black Castle.
"You're getting smarter, Jon," Jon's misanthropic uncle praised him. "Remember that. After all, in my years in the Watch, I've come to the conclusion that it's mostly madmen, especially among the scouts."
"Listen, Uncle," John objected. "But sending a man who's not quite right in the head out into the frozen wasteland is sending him to certain death."
"Who else but madmen would go to certain death?" Uncle Benjen retorted.
When John had almost completely recovered, except for his burnt right hand, whose fingers still had difficulty closing, he heard rumours that Jeor Mormont, Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, had decided in his old age to show everyone that he was still a strong man and was preparing a campaign beyond the Wall to defeat the huge army of the Wildlings, along with giants, mammoths and other mythical creatures, with the strength of two squads.
"Is there grass for horses beyond the Wall?" asked Jon, whom the conversation with his uncle in his dream had put in a cynical but sensible and pragmatic mood.
"As far as I know, practically none," admitted Maester Aemon. "There is lichen, but horses won't eat it."
"In that case, Mormont is mad," John concluded, jumping on his uncle's favourite topic, but Maester Aemon did not pursue the conversation.
"Maester," Jon called after a couple of minutes. "Could you declare me unfit for duty beyond the Wall for the time being?"
"And you're not at all interested in seeing what's beyond the Wall?" Maester Aemon asked, seemingly forgetting that Jon was lying there because he had already gone and seen it, and then the wights he had brought back from beyond the Wall had burned down the commander's quarters and nearly killed Jon himself. "Are you going to spend the rest of your life in these ruins?"
"No, of course not," John replied. "But I'd rather go beyond the Wall in company of my own choosing, and when I feel like it. Until then, for example, my hand is still numb, so I can't fence properly and am therefore unfit for drill.
"John," Maester Aemon said sternly. "The only people exempt from marching are the mad. If you are mad, I cannot endanger the lives of your comrades by letting you go beyond the Wall.
"I'm mad," Jon replied readily. "For example, I often have a dream in which I'm walking alone through an empty Winterfell. None of my family is there, can you imagine? Even in my dreams, not everyone is at home.
"Do you go into any dungeons or caves?" the maester asked with interest.
"Yes, I do!" Jon replied eagerly.
"According to Valyrian wisdom, if you enter caves in your dreams, it means it's time for you to get laid," said the hundred-year-old maester, whom John thought had forgotten how to speak. "I see you're well on the mend."
"No, I've gone mad," John insisted. "Every night I talk in my sleep with my missing uncle, who insists that everyone around me is mad, and I'm starting to agree with him. Judge for yourself, maester: isn't thinking that everyone around you is mad the first sign of madness?"The first sign of madness, if you want to know," the maester said confidentially, "is constantly wanting to go on a quest beyond the Wall, where there aren't even any people who want to kill you, and if you kill them, you gain nothing. So you're perfectly normal, Jon. Take Cuoren One-Handed, for example, he's a real madman — almost all the fingers on his right hand have been cut off, and he didn't even ask to be taken off active duty. He learned to fence with his left hand and still spends more time beyond the Wall than on this side of it. A certified madman.
"But if Quoren is crazy, why don't you stop sending him beyond the Wall?
"Because he hasn't asked me to.
"And if he asks you not to let him go beyond the Wall?
"Then I would refuse, of course," replied the old maester. "Rule number 22 of the Night's Watch states: 'Any man who attempts to shirk his duty is not truly mad.
"I think it's some kind of trap," said Jon, thinking for a moment.
"Exactly," agreed the maester.
After signing out of Maester Aemon's service and receiving a Valyrian sword from Jorah Mormont as a reward for his bravery in battle, Jon did not give up and decided to take his fate into his own hands.
"May I speak with you, sir?" John asked old Mormont a few days later, having improved himself in several aspects of life and service on the Wall. "What if the Wildlings really have gathered an army of several thousand? I fear that two squads would be doomed in open terrain.
"In that case, we'll take up defensive positions in a fortified position," Mormont said decisively.
"We already have such a position, sir," John reported. "I think it's called the Wall. Why go beyond the Wall to look for a poor imitation of it?
"It seems to me, lad," Mormont said angrily, "that you doubt my ability to lead a campaign beyond the Wall!
"Not at all, sir!" John replied eagerly. "I'm just reporting that defending the Wall is easier than defending a pile of ruins.
"Yes, yes," Mormont grumbled. "What do you suggest we do if we don't even know where they're going to attack?
"Triple the frequency of the sentries, sir," Jon replied readily, not taken aback by the question. "Give each guard a pair of ravens so they can report the start of an assault or a diversionary group. The guards ride mules, so tie a bag of sand or ash to each mule's rear so you can see the tracks if someone climbs over the Wall between guards.
"Well," snorted Mormont, "what if the enemy manages to get past the Wall?
"I dare say, sir," John pondered the disposition. "If we see it, then fuck it. They can't drag horses over the Wall, and crows fly faster than foot soldiers. A couple hundred infantrymen will be enough to crush Amber's cavalry on the treeless lands of Dar.
"What would you do if you were in command of the Outcasts?
"I would storm Black Castle, sir, to open the gates under the Wall. As for me, it's a dead end, we have more than three hundred soldiers here, and storming without a five-to-one advantage is a lost cause. They won't be able to drag a thousand and a half men across the Wall unnoticed.
"Ten to one," Mormont corrected pedantically.
"Exactly," John acknowledged. "But our fortifications are shit. Sorry, sir."
"Right," Mormont grunted. "I've been preparing this march beyond the Wall for three weeks. Three weeks gathering supplies and men. And in all that time, no one told me this was utter idiocy, which of course it is. You'll make a fine Lord Commander in time, Jon.
Despite all the assurances of the brave blacksmith from Castle Black that Benjen was not the kind of man to let himself die over such trifles, John missed his uncle — not so much that he gathered all the career soldiers in the castle, stood on the Fist of the First Men like old women with their seeds, and waited for Benjen Stark to come out and face them — but John missed him badly. And John also missed Tyrion, who had left and tagged along with him and Benjen when they left Winterfell.
Jon knew that his family didn't like the Lannisters, although he had seen them at Winterfell and noticed that they were all different, difficult to treat the same. But the hungover Benjen, leaving Winterfell, was stern and harsh, and Jon was wary that his uncle and Tyrion would bicker and snap at each other the whole way.
For the first few hours, Benjen and Tyrion did indeed ride in silence, but then suddenly they seemed to exchange coded signals.
"Whoever built this road deserves to have a nail driven through their head!" Tyrion said energetically as the road rapidly deteriorated the further they travelled from Winterfell, and his horse stumbled again, nearly throwing Tyrion off.
"That's not what you think," Benjen explained, pulling up alongside Tyrion.
"I see," said Tyrion, either stoically or sardonically, and Benjen fell back slightly and slapped Tyrion's horse on the rump. Tyrion's horse flew forward, and Tyrion nearly flew out of the saddle onto the rocks sticking out of the road, but he didn't take offence, and Benjen warmed to him.
At the campsite, Tyrion behaved like a civilian and went to read, but Benjen firmly took him by the shoulder and directed him to a pile of firewood, explaining to Tyrion the division of labour, according to which it was his job to build and maintain the fire.
"Don't you think this wood is taller than me?" Tyrion grumbled and swore, and Jon was surprised when his uncle and Tyrion switched to informal speech. "If you want me to roast, I warn you, I'm not tasty."
"It's not about the wood," Benjen explained convincingly. "It's not about height, or anything else. It's about getting the fire going."
"I see," said Tyrion in the same stoic, sceptical tone, and began rearranging the wood in an orderly fashion so that it would burn well and long. "I can see that the North is not only a kind word, but also very quick to act. That's what your chief Stark said when he was building the Wall: "While the Others are making plans for their attack, we are changing the landscape, and by hand. When the Others attack, they suddenly come across a wall seven hundred feet high, get lost in unfamiliar terrain and are completely unprepared for battle. That is the purpose of the Wall, that is our strategy."
"You're reading the right books," Benjen approved. "Let me have it when you're done."
As surprising as it seemed at the beginning of the day, by the end of it Benjen and Tyrion were lying in a corner by the fire, head to head, and Benjen was telling him how he came to join the Night's Watch.
"It was a difficult year," Benjen said. "Crop failure, civil war, banditry, and a shortage of rangers. The last one was unacceptable, so the recruiters didn't just take boys like me, they even escorted a whole orphanage of deaf-mutes to the Wall. They formed a squad called the Northern Grouse, and it turned out to be a good squad. The wildlings paid us tribute for ten years so that we wouldn't let these deaf-mutes out beyond the Wall. You can't even negotiate with them. And you're complaining about being short and having crooked legs. Stay with us, little man, eh?
Realising that Jon was no fool, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont began to invite him more often to his chambers to discuss matters concerning the Night's Watch, and once even invited him to drink, as he had something of a personal nature to discuss with him.
"The king died while you were lying there with Aemon, throwing up your breakfast," Mormont said when they had finished their second drink.
"Uh-huh," Jon agreed, having already heard this. "I mean, it's a shame, of course. Maybe my father will come home now."
"Your father is now the Protector of the Realm," Mormont disappointed Jon. "The young Lionel is king. Did you know him?"
"A drunkard and a bully," Jon recalled. "I never managed to punch him in the face, though I tried several times. He was a good guy."
"So the young king fled the capital," Mormont moved on to personal matters.
"Handsome!" John thought, but didn't say it out loud. "And here I am."
Jeor Mormont poured a third round, and the new recruit John and Lord Commander Mormont knocked them back again.
"Why are you looking at me like that, sir?" asked Jon, his mind already clouded by the northern moonshine. "Did he run away with my sister, you horned deer?"
While Mormont was thinking about how to tell the boy the truth, Jon pondered and came to the interim conclusion that King Lionel was a decent bastard. "He's probably already married Sansa, travelling incognito with her around Westeros or secretly visiting friends, and in any case teaching the girl bad things," thought the tipsy Jon, with just enough brotherly jealousy to be expected of a stepbrother and bastard, which was not particularly significant. "And here I am, surrounded by men, and even the whores in Crooked Town have faces like pigs' arses. No, the king is handsome after all!"
"He ran off with both your sisters," Mormont admitted with a sigh.
"Well, that's almost decent," John rejoiced. "And Arya won't be bored in the city, and the two of them won't go too far astray with Arya around."
"You're a good boy, Jon," Mormont sighed again and poured out the fourth cup. "You still believe in people."
***
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