A Shadow of the Seven

The War of Ravens

His grace, King Robert, the first of his name, passed away on the second day of the third moon. May the gods, old and new, have mercy on his noble soul. The untimely demise of our beloved sovereign befell of a sudden mishap.

All lords, high and low, are bound, by the holy seventh day of the next moon, to attend the coronation of His Grace, Joffrey, of the houses Baratheon and Lannister, the First of his Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men; Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm; and to swear fealty to His Grace and his regent, Queen Mother, Cersei of House Lannister.

May his reign be blessed,

By the decree of the Small Council, Grand Maester Pycelle

Mance

The tavern in Mole's Town was half-empty as he opened the old wooden doors, three crows of the Night's Watch played dice in the corner sitting on straw bedding. A few locals scattered in the narrow space, a merchant, in a green satin robe, took the best chair in the establishment, relishing a pigeon pie. The place smelled of rotting wood and smoke that struggled to leave the cramped space through a small hole on the roof.

Dim light peeked through the windows, with the staleness of the air tinting the rays. South of the Wall the land seemed grey and dull, Mance would swear, a world apart from the true north. Sun beams up there were raw and fresh, pure as the snow they shone on, as were the people, the free folk who became one with the harshness and wilderness, forging a hard life into freedom. On contrary, men here hated the land, spiteful they claimed the worst part of Westeros, rough and gloomy, almost a dungeon. When, in war, south of Moat Cailin Starks, Umbers, Glovers turned that spite into pride, pooling strength into their arms, fighting fiercely to break foes. A mere lie, you are not a hard man because your home is hard, you are a hard man if you decide to be one, if you live by principle.

He leaned on a wooden post, as a bellied tavern wench covered him in her shadow, asking only with a look.

"A jug of ale, and whatever you have to eat," he handed her a silver stag.

"Will be, sugar," the wench said through few remaining teeth.

After a hard climb Mance liked to fill his belly and rest a day or two. Good thing about the south, if you have a coin you can eat without hunting, and if you have a wit you can eat without paying. A great feast at Winterfell was waiting, a feast for a king. His tongue still remembered the tenderness of meat, the sweetness of cakes...

"Did they say how?" a crow sporting a walrus mustache asked. An old ranger, if not for a different fort, the walrus and Mance might have been brothers once, ranging together in the haunted forest, one beyond the Bridge of Skulls, the other through the wall itself.

"No, just that he is dead, and the king's son is to be the new king, though the old queen Cersei is regent as the boy is still of no age," another voice replied, belonging to a black-haired ranger, still young, untouched by cold or free folk blade. Mance turned his head, trying to cope what he just heard, as if he slept a bear's sleep, missing the king's arrival at Winterfell. Robert was there, I saw him, sang for him, made him dance. Skins of wine pissed on a big bushy beard.

"First the Hand, now the King. Seven hells, something must be rotten down there", the third one said, with hair kissed by fire and pimples on his nose. South of the Wall knows not but one king, Mance thought again, the king who tossed him silver stags in a drunken rapture. A king who died half a year or so after the feast, slain by a boar. Only after the fat king stretched the hooves, five more sprouted to claim his place, waging a bloody war.

"Clydas says it was an accident, if you believe him, something about an apple. All happened the night before he was to ride to the North. Some say to ask Lord Eddard to be his new Hand, or to bind their houses in a marriage pact. Stark has a daughter, sweet as a peach," the young ranger said. The others laughed, knowing what he meant, and Mance recalled the daughter, the peach was too green, not a woman grown, later snatched by the family she was meant to wed. If a man stole her so young, her father should chop his head off, slowly with a bone axe or a stone one.