“I would.” Sam carefully replaced the scroll¹ in the bin² from which Jon had plucked it. “You can learn so much from ledgers³ like that, truly you can. it can tell you how many men were in the Night’s Watch then, how they lived, what they ate...”  “They ate food,” said Jon, “and they lived as we live.”  “You’d be surprised. This vault⁴ is a treasure, Jon.”  “If you say so.” Jon was doubtful. Treasure meant gold, silver, and jewels, not dust, spiders, and rotting leather.  “I do,” the fat boy blurted⁵. He was older than Jon, a man grown by law, but it was hard to think of him as anything but a boy. “I found drawings of the faces in the trees, and a book about the tongue of the children of the forest... works that even the Citadel⁶ doesn’t have, scrolls⁷ from old Valyria, counts of the seasons written by maesters dead a thousand years...”  “The books will still be here when we return.”  “if we return...”  “The Old Bear is taking two hundred seasoned men, three-quarters of them rangers⁸. Qhorin Halfhand will be bringing another hundred brothers from the Shadow Tower. You’ll be as safe as if you were back in your lord father’s castle at Horn Hill.”  Samwell Tarly managed a sad little smile. “I was never very safe in my father’s castle either.”  The gods play cruel jests, Jon thought. Pyp and Toad⁹, all a lather¹⁰ to be a part of the great ranging, were to remain at Castle Black. it was Samwell Tarly, the self-proclaimed coward, grossly fat, timid, and near as bad a rider as he was with a sword, who must face the haunted forest. The Old Bear was taking two cages of

分享到：