I had gotten what I wanted: a little freedom to do what I wanted. First, I needed to learn how to read and write the Common Tongue, whose alphabet and language were completely different from English. So I went to find Winterfell's maester, Maester Luwin.
I had to go to the maester's tower and ask Maester Luwin whether he could teach me, but I didn't know why I kept having a bad feeling about it. Let's give it a try.
If he wouldn't teach me, I would try something else. I left my room and headed to his quarters, in the maester's tower.
It stood in eastern Winterfell, between the kitchens, the bell tower, and the Hunter's Gate. I slowly climbed the stairs and reached the tower. When I knocked on the door, an old voice told me to come in. Inside was a man in his sixties.
He was thin and looked a little frail and tired. But his eyes didn't seem to have lost their sparkle. His body might have looked old, but his mind must have been as sharp as ever.
"Did you need something, boy?"
"Maester Luwin, could you teach me to read and write?"
"No, my child. I already have too many responsibilities. I don't even have time to scratch my head."
"Then could you write down the alphabet for me, show me a few times how to pronounce the letters, and, if possible, give me a book you use to teach reading? Please, Maester, could you spare a few minutes to do that?"
"All right, but only an hour. After that, don't bother me with these things again."
Within that hour, he taught me how to read letters and sentences. We worked for an hour, but it felt like five. I still couldn't read or write, but I had learned how to pronounce the letters.
I planned to learn to read within a few weeks. I already spoke the language, and now I had learned the sounds of its letters. I could see that, at its core, it wasn't too different from English.
Rodrik and I had drawn up a training schedule. I had to decide how to spend each day. I only needed to train in swordsmanship for three hours, do an hour of physical training, and spar for two hours.
I had eight hours of free time. Until I learned to read and write, I intended to spend at least two hours a day on it, so accounting for the rest I needed, I had about five hours left.
How should I use that free time? I need at least eight to ten hours of sleep because I'm still growing. Should I start learning smithing? No, I'm still too young and weak to work metal.
Then archery and magic training it is. Oh, I almost forgot. I should spend some time playing with Robb and being his friend. That will be useful later.
So I decided to spend an hour or two playing with him. I might not be his best friend, but I would do my best to be a close one.
I had to go to the archery range to practice. The range was right beside the Broken Tower. They said it had once been the Citadel's tallest building, but lightning had destroyed it long ago. When I arrived, I picked up a training bow and some arrows.
The arrows and bow didn't look like high-quality weapons. They were a little old and weathered. But the bow could do its job.
Rodrik had taught me the basics of archery, but he didn't consider the bow a true martial weapon. It was a weapon for war or hunting used by common soldiers. He said a knight should know how to use one but shouldn't waste time mastering it.
My thinking was the exact opposite. A good longbow or composite bow was a deadly weapon in the hands of a knight or anyone trained to use it. I preferred composite bows, but there weren't any here. They had ordinary shortbows and longbows. Shortbows were the army's main ranged weapons because they were easy to make and very cheap. Their range was around 45 to 140 meters.
Longbows and composite bows had similar ranges. Composite bows could shoot slightly farther.
The main difference was that you couldn't use a longbow on horseback or move while shooting, but making a longbow was much easier than making a composite bow. That was the longbow's advantage.
Longbows were made from long pieces of wood, while composite bows were made from sinew, horn, and glue. A composite bow could shoot 180-190 meters in a straight trajectory and up to 370 meters in an arc.
Longbows were usually about two meters long, while composite bows were around 90 centimeters. Watching someone make one didn't mean you could make one yourself. I would need a lot of time to master bowmaking before I could make a composite bow.
I began training at the archery range for two hours every day. For the remaining time, I would return to my room and practice my magic there. This went on for two months.
I learned to read within a month. I really liked the five-times-experience skill. After that, I used those hours to practice reading and writing, mostly reading. Once I had learned, I spent two hours in Winterfell's library every day.
When I first asked Lord Stark for permission to enter the library, he didn't believe I had learned to read and made me take a test. After I read the book he gave me, he believed me and granted permission.
There was plenty to learn in the library, from history, herbs, and medicine to existing technology. Oh, and dragons, giants, the Children of the Forest, and all sorts of magic were real. I began studying this world's religions. I hadn't known before that Winterfell had a large red tree with a face. Now that I knew it existed, I wanted to see it.
Ever since learning about the Godswood, I had wanted to visit it. It was on the other side of the Citadel. Winterfell was walled on all sides and covered about ten hectares.
It was an enormous castle, and I learned from books and people that there were more enormous castles on the continent.
I found the grove without trouble. It was within the Citadel walls. There was a small grove inside the Citadel, and the grove had walls of its own. When I entered, I could feel the magic within. It was faint, but it was there.
If I trained here, I would gain more than I did in my room. So whenever I had time, I would return to the grove, sit somewhere near the weirwood, and begin manipulating the elements, but not too strongly.
I would only train with wind and earth there, and I would try to manipulate them at a distance, so even if I was caught using magic, people would think it was the work of the Old Gods.
I couldn't create an earth ball at such a distance, but I could make the ground tremble slightly. My maximum range was ten meters. Although it wasn't a useful spell yet, the earth ball had started as a pebble. Now I could make a ball ten centimeters across.
When I returned to my room, I would take "Blue" in my hands and try to establish a connection. I could feel it. It was very close.
I now had 28 points of mana, 1.2 points of speed, and 1.1 points of strength.
I had an ordinary servant pull me with a rope while I tried not to be moved. He had five points of strength. I tried this with ten other people, whose strength was roughly between four and six. Let's call five the average strength.
I tried this with Rodrik, and he pulled me so hard I nearly flew. He had nine points of strength. Of course, none of them were trying to kill me, so I didn't think these were their best results.
While I was in the Godswood, commoners coming to pray discovered me several times. When they felt the strong winds and moving earth, they nearly wet themselves in fright, then ran away.
I was discovered again today, so I stood up and decided to leave the grove. I was almost out when I saw a snake and two crows fighting to protect their nest.
It looked like a venomous snake I had seen in an illustrated animal guide in the library. The snake was coiled around a branch beside the nest, waiting motionlessly.
The crows beat their wings, trying to frighten the snake away, but it didn't work. Both sides were bleeding, but if the snake was a yellowtail, the crows were already dead. They just didn't know it yet. That might have been why it was waiting so close.
Just as I thought that, the crows began to slow down and grow drowsy. The venom must have started taking effect.
One crow launched a desperate attack, and the other joined in right behind it. But one of them was bitten by the snake again, and this time it didn't let go immediately.
The snake abruptly coiled around the crow. The commotion knocked the nest out of the tree. I immediately ran over and caught it before it hit the ground. There were two little birds inside.
They had a few feathers on their bodies and wings, but they were gray, not the color of crows. When I looked up again, the snake had already killed one crow, but the other had gouged out the snake's eyes, so both sides were going to die.
I turned toward the nest in my hands and began walking. "What should I do?"
"If I leave you here, you'll starve or become food for some other animal. Your parents are both dead."
"I don't know how to take care of you. I've never looked after birds before. Could you eat worms or insects if I fed them to you? I don't know. Hmm, right, Maester Luwin has birds. He might know whether you can survive. If he says you can, I'll try to save you."
I started toward the maester's tower. As I approached, Maester Luwin was coming out, heading in another direction. I called loudly to get his attention.
"Maester Luwin, could you wait a moment?" I approached him respectfully.
"Maester, I found these baby crows. Their parents died. Can we tame them?" He looked at me and said, "Why do you want to save them?"
"I pity them. If I have the ability to save them, I should do the right thing, shouldn't I?"
"Before anything else, the first thing you should know is that baby crows need warmth. They have almost no feathers, and the few they do have cannot keep out the cold. You must keep them warm with heated stones until they are fully feathered."
"As for food, you cannot give them anything hard. They need soft, moist food, such as mashed worms and caterpillars, or eggs. You need to feed them whenever they beg, and you should feed them every hour from sunrise to sunset. Be careful not to let them choke when feeding them. It will take five to seven weeks for them to grow strong enough to fly and catch their own food, and they will not reach adulthood until they are three years old."
"Do you have any other questions?"
"No. Thank you for sharing your knowledge, Maester."