"I understand." Mance nodded. "Starting with my wife and unborn child."
"And envoys. Your discipline is terrible." Gendry thought for a moment.
"Val will remain my envoy. As for your envoy, I will follow your orders, Your Grace," Mance agreed.
"Let me do it, Your Grace." Jon stepped forward. He was not a member of the Night's Watch, and his status was unusual.
He was the king's man, and also from a collateral branch of House Stark.
"Thank you for your efforts, Jon," Gendry said. As for the Onion Knight, he had a greater role to play.
"Glad to have you with us, white wolf boy." Tormund laughed heartily.
"Besides the blood money, if you want to move inside the Wall, you'll also have to face your neighbors' reproaches," Gendry said. There was no doubt that the Night's Watch would dislike having the Wildlings as neighbors.
Even if he could reshape the order of things through powerful royal authority, he still had to soothe the Night's Watch's feelings.
The Magic Dragon roared in midair.
"Open the gates!" The Night's Watch heard a thunderous shout. Seven hundred feet above, the sentries blew their war horns.
Awooooooo.
The horn sounded a long note, and the Night's Watch's passage opened.
Gendry flew over on his dragon, while everyone else could only pass through the long, narrow tunnel.
The senior officers of the Night's Watch waited for the king's party: Lord Steward Bowen, Chief Builder Othell Yarwyck, and the others.
The First Ranger, Stark, had long since disappeared, and the Commander-in-Chief, the Old Bear, had also been assassinated. The remaining Old Maester was at death's door.
Times were changing. Since unification, this once-proud force had become a mixture of good and bad.
There were some knights who had volunteered, but far more were