Tap tap. taptaptaptaptap
Marwyn heard the knocking and new it could be no man trying to get in. A loose chicken pecking at the door was more likely than that, the knock was so soft.
Baelor looked up from his tome, "Ser Oswell go answer it." But Marwyn knew the knock and knew the one behind it.
"Allow me your grace. This is no threat and a gloomy knight with his sword drawn will only serve to scare him away," Marwyn got up from their lessons and made his way to the tapping. It was the same tapping that woke him near every night with some problem or another. He swung the doors open, "Steward Humfrey, what is it now?"
The timid looking lordling of something house held a package in his hand draped in cloth. But before he found his tongue he noticed the maester's company and tried an awkward bow, "Y-your grace. Ser, my lord... Lord Commander I mean..."
"You're interrupting my private lessons," Baelor said from across the room, his eye's piercing the man's very soul. He tried to bring up some response, but his bladder was more active than his mouth.
"Oh stop japing with him Baelor, he'll piss his breaches," Marwyn turned down to the steward he put in charge of the rookery and pulled him to his feet. "And you, I'm the one you're hear to see so get on with whatever it is."
"Maester, this raven. She has a broken wing. I can't get her to fly nor stop squawking. Then she makes the others squawk and-"
Tired of the boy, he pulled the cage from his hands and pulled off the cloth. True to his word, the bird immediately started screaming in pain. "It's a he. Can you write?" Humfrey nodded. "Good. Write the damn Citadel and tell them to send another maester already. I'm no housemade to take care of the Red Keep all by myself. Go!" He scurried along and Marwyn brought the bird over to his table.
Baelor cocked his head and examined it in it's cage, unmolested by the screech. "It's wing is broken?"
"Yes yes and as the only one with any competence here I have to figure out how to fix it. Our lessons are done for the day, you may leave now your grace."
Instead Baelor pulled up a chair beside him and sat. "No, I'll stay and observe."
"Then you'll learn something too while you're at it." Marwyn began the processes of examination. First would be getting the bird out of the cage, then covering his head in a hood to quiet it for a moment. "Have you heard the history of the Warg King, your grace?"
Baelor's eyes followed the bird, but he responded. "Yes, I've heard all the stories from my nurses."
"But your grace, this is no story," He pulled the broken wing, extending it gently. The raven began to struggle, but Marwyn kept it from hurting itself with his other hand. "He ruled a kingdom of his own in the Age of the First Men on the Northern coast."
"Was he magical? Could he turn into a wolf?" Baelor asked.
"Alas he was still only a man, but he knew the Children of the Forest taught him their songs and he could speak to the animal kingdom. That's how he came to rule over other men, his army was of bears and wolves, shadowcats were his assassins, but of all the beasts do you know which were his greatest allies?" Baelor shook his head. "The ravens. Now hold this."
Marwyn plopped the broken bird in his grace's hands before he could protest. Immediately he started pulling tools from his robes: braces, bird feed, and finally a scalpel. That was the first thing to draw Baelor's eye from the raven. Finally the king spoke, "But why ravens? Is it because they can fly?"
"Yes that's one reason, they could cross his kingdom faster than any other. But any bird can do that, what can raven's only do?" The king thought for a moment and Marwyn pulled the hood off. Again it started squawking till Marwny held out a handful of seed for it to eat.
"Speak! Ravens say 'corn' and 'hello' and such" Baelor conclued.
"Yes. They could mimic the First Man's tongue like no other animal. So he sent them all across his kingdom a messengers and spies, and according to some even heard them as council." Marwyn grabbed the bird back from Baelor's tiny hands. This time he was inspecting closer, using the the scalpel to cut away feathers for a better look. It cried so much he was forced to put the hood on again.
Baelor, however, was not done with the subject at hand. "Go on, Marwyn. His birds spied on his enemies. What else?"
"Well as all kings do, he had human subjects. The birds would whisper in his ear the plots of men who planned to betray him. None of these ever came to fruition because after every whisper, the wolves would descend and men would die. Till one day his favorite raven whispered his wives were plotting to betray the Warg King. They were to steal away with his children in the night. So he slaughtered all but one for a confession. She had no kids and no reason to defend the dead, but she claimed there was no plot. That his wives had all they could ever ask for. So the Warg King felt betrayed asked his favorite white raven if he had lied. All the other ravens flew in and sang 'Yes, yes, yes.'"
"What happened then?" Baelor asked as he Marwyn began to feed the bird once more. He held the raven in one massive hand over the bowl as it pecked at the seeds. He raised one thumb gently to the back of its head and pressed forward. With a crack it went limp. "Why did you kill it?"
Marwyn ignored the question and set it down. "He couldn't trust his raven anymore, so it was useless to him. The wife he couldn't trust neither, so he had them both killed the rest of the flock. A bloody mess it was, and the Warg King spent the rest of his life wondering which side was lying to him."
"Well which was it? How did he die?"
"Neither. Some Stark rode in with a massive army and struck him down. Birds and bears will only do so much against iron."
Baelor sat for a moment with the dead bird in front of him, staring. It was not his first death witnesses, not at all. "But why did this bird have to die?"
"It's wing was broke beyond repair. A useless mouth that would spook the other ravens at all hours, better to put down and save the whole flock."