Samwell
The rising sun sent fingers of light through the pale white mists of dawn. A wide plain spread out beneath them, bare and brown, its flatness here and there relieved by long, low hummocks. Samwell Tarly knew these lands from his books. The barrows of the First Men.
A sharp pang twisted in Sam's heart at the thought of riding through a graveyard. He wanted to cry, to scream, to leave, most importantly he wanted to go home, to his mother and sisters. But his father's words frightened him more than the graves did. "on the morrow we shall have a hunt, and somewhere in these woods your horse will stumble, and you will be thrown from the saddle to die . . ."
Sam wiped his tears away at the thoughts of the past but the tears were unending. Like the snowfall in the north it seemed as if his tears would never end. He had never seen snows before. Samwell Tarly had been born south in the lands of the Reach as the firstborn son of Lord Randyll Tarly of Horn Hill and his lady wife Lady Melessa Florent.
There were no snows in the south and no cold, yet he never found warmth at Horn Hill. His thoughts went back to the old life he had left back, mostly his mother. He cried again at the thought of his mother. Sweet mother who used to call him Sam. But it was not his mother's face he could see now but the hard and brittle face of his father. "You will be thrown from the saddle..." his voice ringed in his ears.
His breath steamed in the cold air and with every passing moment the land became cooler. Sam hated the cold. It had been warmer in Horn Hill, though Sam hated it there seeing the cold of the north he certainly missed the southern lands of his father. He had never seen snow until last week.
They had been entering the barrowlands, Sam and the men his father had sent to see him north, when the white stuff began to fall, like a soft rain. At first he had thought it to be so beautiful, like feathers drifting from the sky, but the snowfall kept on and on, until he was frozen to the bone. Before him his father's men had crusts of snow in their beards and more on their shoulders, and still it kept coming. Looking up at the snowflakes drifting down he thought that it was not going to end and the thought frightened him.
He ought to be unafraid of them. He might be seeing the snows and feeling the bite of the cold for the rest of his life. It may be even colder in the Wall, the place where he was going to spend the rest of his life in. Sam knew of the Wall as everyone in Westeros did. The looming structure made of ice, and he was afraid of it. He knew that he was a craven and a coward and he also knew that the Night's Watch was no place for a coward. Yet he had very little choice in that matter. His eyes grew wet again when he thought about his last nameday.
The Tarlys were a family old in honor, bannermen to Mace Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden and Warden of the South. Being the eldest son of Lord Randyll Tarly, Samwell was born heir to rich lands, a strong keep, and a storied two-handed greatsword named Heartsbane, forged of Valyrian steel and passed down from father to son near five hundred years.
Whatever pride his lord father might have felt at his birth vanished as he grew up plump, soft, and awkward. Sam loved to listen to music and make his own songs, to wear soft velvets, to play in the castle kitchen beside the cooks, drinking in the rich smells as he snitched lemon cakes and blueberry tarts. His passions were books and kittens and dancing, though he was clumsy in it. But he grew ill at the sight of blood. He even wept to see even a chicken slaughtered. A dozen masters-at-arms came and went at Horn Hill, trying to turn him into the knight his father had wanted him to be. He was cursed and caned, slapped and starved. One man had him sleep in his chainmail to make him more martial. Another dressed him in his mother's clothing and paraded him through the bailey to shame him into valor. He only grew fatter and more frightened, until Lord Randyll's disappointment turned to anger and then to loathing. One time two men came to the castle, warlocks from Qarth. He remembered them, with white skin and blue lips they had scared him to death. The Warlocks slaughtered a bull aurochs and made him bathe in the hot blood, but it didn't made him brave as they'd promised. He just got sick and retched. And his father had them scourged.
Finally, after three girls in as many years, Lady Tarly gave her lord husband a second son. From that day, Lord Randyll ignored Sam, devoting all his time to his younger brother, a fierce, robust child more to his lord father's liking. Samwell had known several years of sweet peace with his music and his books.
Until the dawn of his seventeenth name day, when he had been awakened to find his horse saddled and ready. Three men-at-arms had escorted him into a wood near Horn Hill, where his father was skinning a deer. "You are almost a man grown now, and my heir," Lord Randyll Tarly had told him, his long knife laying bare the carcass as he spoke. "You have given me no cause to disown you, but neither will I allow you to inherit the land and title that should be Dickon's. Heartsbane must go to a man strong enough to wield her, and you are not worthy to touch her hilt. So I have decided that you shall this day announce that you wish to take the black. You will forsake all claim to your brother's inheritance and start north before evenfall.
"If you do not, then on the morrow we shall have a hunt, and somewhere in these woods your horse will stumble, and you will be thrown from the saddle to die . . . or so I will tell your mother. She has a woman's heart and finds it in her to cherish even you, and I have no wish to cause her pain. Please do not imagine that it will truly be that easy, should you think to defy me. Nothing would please me more than to hunt you down like the pig you are." His arms were red to the elbow as he laid the skinning knife aside. "So. There is your choice. The Night's Watch"—he reached inside the deer, ripped out its heart, and held it in his fist, red and dripping—"or this."
Sam shook in his saddle as he thought of the heart dripping with blood in his father's blade. If it was something that had happened to someone else, he would have wept but there was no one to weep for him. And strangely, even his own tears had betrayed him.
He did not weep when he thought about it, not even once. He rode in his saddle quietly listening to the winds. His legs ached and he wanted nothing more than to rest for a while. He would ask his father's guards for it but they would only tie him up and put him across his saddle to rest. Even they wanted this to end quickly and their duty would end when this journey would come to its end. And his journey along the kingsroad would come to an end with Castle Black where he would swear his life to the Night's Watch.
Sam had not wanted this, he hadn't wanted the north, he hadn't wanted the Wall, he hadn't wanted to join the Night's Watch. All he wanted was to go study in the Citadel and wear the maester's chain but Lord Randyll Tarly would have nothing of it. There were so many books in the Citadel that no man can hope to read them all. He could have very well become a master as he had once dreamed to.
Now the word made him flinch. No, Father, please, I won't speak of it again, I swear it by the Seven. Let me out, please let me out. He tried to brush the memory away as soon as it entered his mind but he couldn't.
"The life of a maester is a life of servitude." Lord Randyll had told him when he told his father about his wish to become a maester. "No son of House Tarly will ever wear a chain. The men of Horn Hill do not bow and scrape to petty lords. If it is chains you want, come with me."
Sam put a hand to his throat. He could almost feel the chain there, choking him. They make you wear a chain about your neck. If it is chains you want, come with me. For three days and three nights Sam had sobbed himself to sleep, manacled hand and foot to a wall. The chain around his throat was so tight it broke the skin, and whenever he rolled the wrong way in his sleep it would cut off his breath. He had never used the word maester in his father's presence thereafter.
The north went on forever he saw as their ride continued for days. They rode most of the day and there were rides even during the night much to Sam's chagrin. Most time he would lag behind his guards and even then they would drag him for a faster pace.
By the end of the second week, Samwell's thighs were raw from hard riding, his legs were cramping badly, and he was chilled to the bone. He did not complain knowing full and well that his companions won't even bother to hear him. They rode hard and fast as the days passed and Sam tried hard to keep up with his father's men.
They reached Winterfell, the ancient stronghold of House Stark, now occupied by the Targaryens, sooner than he had thought to thanks to their quicker pace. Though Sam was not thankful for it though. His father's men wanted nothing more than to put him in Castle Black as quick as possible and Sam wanted nothing more than to at least enjoy the last few days he had before taking his vows as the brother of Night's Watch.
He had thought they would stay in Winterfell for the night but his companions kept on riding. Sam had wanted to visit the castle of course. Once Winterfell had been the capital of the North, when the north had been an independent kingdom. When the King in the North, Eddard Stark still ruled the kingdom with his queen, Queen Ashara. Those days would have been the days of glory for the north.
Sam had heard those stories when he was a boy in Horn Hill. Stories of the Outlaw King in the North. He'd been only three or four when Eddard Stark declared his northern kingdom independent. King Rhaegar Targaryen declared King Eddard a rebel and declared war against the Northern king. Thrice the Targaryen army attacked the north and thrice the north threw them back. There were singers who still sang about the Battle of Wolfswood, the third and final battle fought between the Starks and the Targaryens, where King Eddard smashed the Targaryen forces under King Rhaegar and chased them from the edge of the Wolfswood to the Sea Dragon point through where they had entered the north unseen.
For three years there had been no war after the bitter defeat in the north. King Rhaegar declared King Eddard an Outlaw to his realm and the northerners claimed their absolute independence from the Iron Throne until King Eddard, Queen Ashara and their little son Prince Andrew's demise in the hands of the Rhaegar Targaryen through treachery. There is no crime worse than murder at a host's dinner table Sam had heard his father tell his mother when he heard about the Starks' massacre at Starfall. There are no gods to hear our prayers, Sam thought. The Seven had never answered him and the Heart Trees the northmen worshipped did nothing about the crimes done to the Starks.
He looked to the tall grey towers capped white with snow and deeply wished that Eddard Stark was still alive. Maybe he could've saved him from his fate. No one dared to enter the north from the south whilst he was still alive and maybe the King in the North could've given Sam a chance. Sam knew that King Eddard was an honorable man and his queen, Queen Ashara was a kind woman. He could've even befriended the prince.
As they neared the castle Sam could see that their was nothing cheerful with the sight. The grey walls seemed alone and bleak and the black and red dragon banners of the Targaryens looked out of place. It was as quiet as a grave with no indication of people there. Though the castle stood strong it seemed as if it was just a burnt ruin. As they crossed the castle Sam thought of his wish. Looking up at the black banners flowing from the snow covered towers of Winterfell Sam sadly thought the fact that none of his wishes ever came true.
He left his lost wish with Winterfell in the swirling snows and passed the castle. He looked back at the castle as he moved away from it. He could still see it, standing alone and grim in the cover of snow and cold much like his unanswered prayers.