Maester Aemon preferred to spend his days on deck as well, huddled beneath a pile of furs and gazing out across the water. “What is he looking at?” Dareon wondered one day. “For him it’s as dark up here as it is down in the cabin.”
The old man heard him. Though Aemon’s eyes had dimmed and gone dark, there was nothing wrong with his ears. “I was not born blind,” he reminded them. “When last I passed this way, I saw every rock and tree and whitecap, and watched the grey gulls flying in our wake. I was five-and-thirty and had been a maester of the chain for sixteen years. Egg wanted me to help him rule, but I knew my place was here. He sent me north aboard the Golden Dragon, and insisted that his friend Ser Duncan see me safe to Eastwatch. No recruit had arrived at the Wall with so much pomp since Nymeria sent the Watch six kings in golden fetters. Egg emptied out the dungeons too, so I would not need to say my vows alone. My honor guard, he called them. One was no less a man than Brynden Rivers. Later he was chosen lord commander.”
“Bloodraven?” said Dareon. “I know a song about him. ‘A Thousand Eyes, and One,’ it’s called. But I thought he lived a hundred years ago.”
“We all did. Once I was as young as you.” That seemed to make him sad. He coughed, and closed his eyes, and went to sleep, swaying in his furs whenever some wave rocked the ship.
*snip*
The next day the rains began, and the seas grew rougher. “We had best go below, where it’s dry,” Sam said to Aemon, but the old maester only smiled, and said, “The rain feels good against my face, Sam. It feels like tears. Let me stay a while longer, I pray you. It has been a long time since last I wept.”
If Maester Aemon meant to stay on deck, old and frail as he was, Sam had no choice but to do the same. He stayed beside the old man for nigh unto an hour, huddled in his cloak as a soft, steady rain soaked him to his skin. Aemon hardly seemed to feel it. He sighed and closed his eyes, and Sam moved closer to him, to shield him from the worst of the wind. He will ask me to help him to the cabin soon, he told himself. He must. But he never did, and finally thunder began to rumble in the distance, off to the east. “We have to get below,” Sam said, shivering. Maester Aemon did not reply. It was only then that Sam realized the old man had gone to sleep. “Maester,” he said, shaking him gently by one shoulder. “Maester Aemon, wake up.”
Aemon’s blind white eyes came open. “Egg?” he said, as the rain streamed down his cheeks. “Egg, I dreamed that I was old.”
Sam did not know what to do. He knelt and scooped the old man up and carried him below. No one had ever called him strong, and the rain had soaked through Maester Aemon’s blacks and made him twice as heavy, but even so, he weighed no more than a child.
When he shoved into the cabin with Aemon in his arms, he found that Gilly had let all the candles gutter out. The babe was asleep and she was curled up in a corner, sobbing softly in the folds of the big black cloak that Sam had given her. “Help me,” he said urgently. “Help me dry him off and get him warm.”
She rose at once, and together they got the old maester out of his wet clothes and buried him beneath a pile of furs. His skin was damp and cold, though, clammy to the touch. “You get in with him,” Sam told Gilly. “Hold him. Warm him with your body. We have to warm him up.” She did that too, never saying a word, all the while still sniffling. “Where’s Dareon?” asked Sam. “We’d all be warmer if we were together. He needs to be here too.” He was headed back up top to find the singer when the deck rose up beneath him, then fell away beneath his feet. Gilly wailed, Sam slammed down hard and lost his legs, and the babe woke screaming.
*snip*
“The night before he died, he asked if he might hold the babe,” Gilly went on. “I was afraid he might drop him, but he never did. He rocked him and hummed a song for him, and Dalla’s boy reached up and touched his face. The way he pulled his lip I thought he might be hurting him, but it only made the old man laugh.” She stroked Sam’s hand. “We could name the little one Maester, if you like. When he’s old enough, not now. We could.”
“Maester is not a name. You could call him Aemon, though.”
Gilly thought about that. “Dalla brought him forth during battle, as the swords sang all around her. That should be his name. Aemon Battleborn. Aemon Steelsong.”