The Wall was a vast defensive fortification of ice and snow, rising in the far northern reaches of the Seven Kingdoms.
Today, the former Lord of Casterly Rock, Tywin Lannister, was preparing to go before the heart tree to swear his vows and formally become a brother of the Night's Watch.
The great hall of Castle Black was a wooden keep where the brothers of the Watch took their meals, while the ravens perched on the high wooden rafters.
Inside the hall, Tywin Lannister had just finished his breakfast. With his usual cold expression, he rose to put on his blacks and head out to face what came next.
But at that moment, Kevan Lannister burst into the warm hall, pushing through the wind and snow with a letter clutched in his hand.
Kevan Lannister also wore a black cloak. His broad shoulders and thick waist made him look even bulkier in the freezing North, and his skin was no longer refined at all.
His golden beard, originally trimmed very short, had now been left to grow freely in this bitter cold for warmth.
Entering the hall, he lifted his eyes and looked around; he quickly picked out the man with golden side-whiskers and a full beard.
"Tywin, a letter from King's Landing—it's for you—"
The moment he saw Tywin, Kevan paid no mind to the snow piled upon his shoulders and hurried at a quick trot toward his elder brother.
Tywin, who had been preparing to drape on his black cloak, halted his movements when he heard the words "King's Landing" from Kevan's mouth. Those calm, pale-green eyes flecked with gold suddenly hardened.
Taking the letter, he lowered his head to read. There was only a single short line written on the paper.
"The stag is dead!"
Seeing this line, Tywin's expression slowly shifted. Then he lifted his head and looked toward his brother standing before him—
Kevan Lannister.
"We should make ready."
Tywin Lannister's voice grew deep, yet the corner of his cold mouth lifted ever so slightly.
...
Outside the great hall of Castle Black, on the training yard, Jeor Mormont stood atop the wooden structure, gazing down at the bustling scene below.
Since House Lannister had announced their surrender to the Iron Throne, this place had gradually grown lively.
This was a sight Jeor Mormont, the current 997th Lord Commander of the Night's Watch, had never seen since he took command.
Yet with the influx of men—this one shipment alone bringing six thousand soldiers—even Jeor Mormont felt a measure of pressure.
To ease the situation, aside from urging the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms to provide more supplies, Jeor Mormont had also activated, all at once, the sixteen castles that had lain dormant besides the three currently in use.
With these six thousand reinforcements, plus the few hundred he already possessed, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont was able in one stroke to restart the Night's Watch fortifications that had long been falling into disrepair due to a lack of manpower.
But although the shortage of men had been alleviated, the arrival of so many new recruits plunged him once again into a strange predicament—he suddenly found himself with no one suitable to employ for anything.
Fortunately, this situation was only temporary.
However, the mission he had originally intended to dispatch—sending men to investigate and search for Ser Waymar Royce, who had gone missing on patrol—now had to be halted because of this unexpected event.
Including the First Ranger of the Night's Watch, Benjen Stark, Jeor Mormont could only be forced to scatter all of them, assigning them to supervise the Lannister army that had been sent here.
And, along with that, he activated the remaining sixteen defensive fortifications that had not yet been opened.
As for the former unknown movements of the wildlings beyond the Wall, and the threat of Mance Rayder, naturally all of that vanished entirely with this influx of manpower.
However, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont still felt some unease, forcing him, throughout this time, to stay constantly on high alert.
There were simply too many people sent this time—far beyond what he could control or absorb.
And the most important of all was that Tywin Lannister had also been sent here.
Although the Iron Throne had delayed for a time, and only after publicly trying him did they send him here—granting him three months to digest the Westerlands army he had previously received—even such a span of time was clearly not enough.
Yet no matter what, he had to perform the duties that were his.
Thus at Castle Black, he directly detained four thousand of the six thousand men, placing them under his own direct management and supervision.
The remaining two thousand were handed over to the five hundred usable brothers originally under his command, and after their training was completed, they were dispersed among the other eighteen castles.
It came out to an average of roughly a hundred or so men for each castle.
This way, they would no longer need, every two weeks or each month, to dispatch a large detachment to garrison one of the abandoned castles in order to defend the Wall's hundred-league span.
Thinking about matters concerning the Night's Watch, Jeor Mormont folded his hands within his black cloak, lowered his head, and looked at the crowds below as he waited.
"Lord Commander Mormont—"
At that moment, Benjen Stark walked up from the side stairway.
Hearing Benjen's voice, the Lord Commander turned his head to look.
"How are the preparations?" Jeor Mormont asked.
Whenever new recruits of the Night's Watch met the requirements to don the black, they would take their Night's Watch vows either in the sept or before the heart tree, thus formally joining the order.
Although Castle Black had a small sept overseen by Brother Seledar, it had no godswood.
Thus, those who followed the Old Gods had to go half a mile into the Haunted Forest and swear their oaths within a small grove of weirwood trees left behind by the children of the forest.
Although only a dozen or so people, including Tywin Lannister and Kevan Lannister, needed to swear their vows today, Jeor Mormont still chose to send them to the heart tree.
It was not that Jeor Mormont was disregarding the faith of this former Lord of Casterly Rock.
Rather, Jeor Mormont wanted to use this method to tell Tywin Lannister that the glory once belonging to him was long past, and from this day forward, he was nothing more than an ordinary brother of the Night's Watch.
For Jeor Mormont understood very clearly that after his own death, Tywin would almost certainly be chosen as the next Lord Commander of the Night's Watch.
Therefore, he needed Tywin Lannister to learn what a true brother of the Night's Watch was, and what the honor of the Night's Watch meant.
At the very least, he needed to begin teaching him now.
Hearing the Lord Commander's words, Benjen Stark nodded. "Everything is ready. The gate can be opened at any time, and the brothers are prepared."
Hearing Benjen's response, Lord Commander Jeor Mormont nodded, tilted his head back, and glanced at the snowflakes drifting even here within the lower interior of Castle Black beneath the Wall.
"The snow outside will be heavy, but we cannot wait for it to stop," the Lord Commander said, a trace of depth flickering in his eyes. "It is just right to let this southern lion see the snow and the cold winds of the North. We need him to grow familiar with this place."
Although Tywin Lannister had lost the war and had long since been stripped of his titles, becoming a nominal commoner, as a man who had once stood at the very pinnacle of power in Westeros, Jeor Mormont still gave weight to his formal oath-taking into the Night's Watch.
For although the six thousand former Lannister soldiers who preceded him had already undergone simple training, grown accustomed to life upon the Wall, and sworn their vows, Jeor Mormont, Benjen Stark, and the others all knew very well that only when this former Lord of Casterly Rock, the Warden of the West, also swore his formal oath as a brother of the Night's Watch could they truly relax and fully digest these thousands of troops.
Thus, no matter how one looked at it, today was an extremely important day.
He could not help but treat it with great care.
Only by truly absorbing and integrating this former Westerlands host could Mormont feel assured enough to turn his full attention to defending against the foes beyond the Wall—even to actively investigating and striking at them.
"Go. Bring Tywin Lannister. From this day on, he will be our brother as well."
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