Craster sat above the fire, the only man to enjoy his own chair. Even Lord Commander Mormont must seat himself on the common bench, with his raven¹ muttering on his shoulder. Jarman Buckwell stood behind, dripping from patched mail and shiny wet leather, beside Thoren Smallwood in the late Ser Jaremy’s heavy breastplate and sable²-trimmed cloak.  Craster’s sheepskin jerkin and cloak of sewn skins made a shabby contrast, but around one thick wrist was a heavy ring that had the glint of gold. He looked to be a powerful man, though well into the winter of his days now, his mane of hair grey going to white. A flat nose and a drooping³ mouth gave him a cruel look, and one of his ears was missing. So this is a wildling. Jon remembered Old Nan’s tales of the savage⁴ folk who drank blood from human skulls⁶. Craster seemed to be drinking a thin yellow beer from a chipped stone cup. Perhaps he had not heard the stories.  “I’ve not seen Benjen Stark⁷ for three years,” he was telling Mormont. “And if truth be told, I never once missed him.” A half-dozen black puppies and the odd pig or two skulked⁸ among the benches, while women in ragged⁹ deerskins passed horns of beer, stirred the fire, and chopped carrots and onions into a kettle.  “He ought to have passed here last year,” said Thoren Smallwood. A dog came sniffing¹⁰ round his leg. He kicked it and sent it off yipping.  Lord Mormont said, “Ben was searching for Ser Waymar Royce, who’d vanished with Gared and young Will.”  “Aye, those three I recall. The lordling no older than one of these pups. Too proud to sleep under my roof, him in his sable cloak and black steel. My wives give him big cow eyes all the same.” He turned his

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