Ⅱ 列王的纷争 Chapter13 琼恩
JON
根据山姆找到的古老地图，这里叫白树村，但在琼恩眼中，此地实在算不上什么村庄：四栋单以石块砌成，没刷砂浆的单房屋子，业已倒塌，环绕着空空的羊圈和一口井。房舍的屋顶铺着草皮，窗户则用破烂的毛皮遮盖。房屋上方有一棵高大畸形的鱼梁木，暗红的叶子，苍白的枝干。
Whitetree, the village was named on Sam’s old maps. Jon did not think it much of a village. Four tumbledown one-room houses of unmortared stone surrounded an empty sheepfold and a well. The houses were roofed with sod, the windows shuttered with ragged pieces of hide. And above them loomed the pale limbs and dark red leaves of a monstrous great weirwood.
我闻到大便的味道这是琼恩·雪诺毕生所见最大的一棵树，树干宽近八尺，枝叶繁茂扩张，将整个村落都笼罩于下。但真正令他不安的并非树的体积，而是树上那张脸……尤其是那张嘴。那并非一条简单的横向切割，而是一个锯齿状的空洞，大小足以吞下一只羊。
It was the biggest tree Jon Snow had ever seen, the trunk near eight feet wide, the branches spreading so far that the entire village was shaded beneath their canopy. The size did not disturb him so much as the face … the mouth especially, no simple carved slash, but a jagged hollow large enough to swallow a sheep.
但灰烬里的东西不是羊骨，不是羊的头颅。
Those are not sheep bones, though. Nor is that a sheep’s skull in the ashes.
“一棵古树。”莫尔蒙坐在马上，皱紧眉头。“古树！”他的乌鸦站在他肩膀上出声赞同，“古树，古树，古树！”
“An old tree.” Mormont sat his horse, frowning. “Old,” his raven agreed from his shoulder. “Old, old, old.”
“它蕴涵着力量。”这股力量连琼恩都能感觉到。
“And powerful.” Jon could feel the power.
一身黑甲的索伦·斯莫伍德在树干旁下马，“瞧瞧这张脸，难怪当初人类刚到维斯特洛时见了会惧怕，连我都想操起斧头把这鬼东西砍掉。”
Thoren Smallwood dismounted beside the trunk, dark in his plate and mail. “Look at that face. Small wonder men feared them, when they first came to Westeros. I’d like to take an axe to the bloody thing myself.”
琼恩道：“我的父亲大人相信面对心树，任何人都无法欺瞒，因为旧神在此无所不知。”
Jon said, “My lord father believed no man could tell a lie in front of a heart tree. The old gods know when men are lying.”
“我父亲也这么坚信。”熊老说，“去，把那个骷髅头拿给我瞧瞧。”
“My father believed the same,” said the Old Bear. “Let me have a look at that skull.”
琼恩听令下马。他背后斜挂长爪，包着黑皮革剑鞘。长爪是一把一手半用的长柄剑，是熊老为感谢琼恩救他一命而特意相赠。别人总爱笑话这是“杂种拿的杂种剑”。剑柄专门为他重新打造，圆球用淡色白石雕成狼头形状。剑刃本身则是瓦雷利亚钢，古老、轻盈且锐利。
Jon dismounted. Slung across his back in a black leather shoulder sheath was Longclaw, the hand-and-a-half bastard blade the Old Bear had given him for saving his life. A bastard sword for a bastard, the men joked. The hilt had been fashioned new for him, adorned with a wolf’s-head pommel in pale stone, but the blade itself was Valyrian steel, old and light and deadly sharp.
他蹲下来，伸出戴着手套的手探进树口。树洞内满是干涸的红色树汁，被火烧得焦黑。他在骷髅头下又看到另一个比较小的头骨，下巴开裂，半掩于灰烬和碎骨中。
He knelt and reached a gloved hand down into the maw. The inside of the hollow was red with dried sap and blackened by fire. Beneath the skull he saw another, smaller, the jaw broken off. It was half-buried in ash and bits of bone.
他将头骨拿给莫尔蒙，熊老双手举起，望进骷髅空洞的眼窝。“野人会烧掉他们的死者，这事我们早就知道。唉，只可惜以前还有人迹可寻的时候，没有问问他们为何这么做。”
When he brought the skull to Mormont, the Old Bear lifted it in both hands and stared into the empty sockets. “The wildlings burn their dead. We’ve always known that. Now I wished I’d asked them why, when there were still a few around to ask.”
琼恩·雪诺想起尸鬼死而复生，苍白的死人脸上一双蓝眼闪闪发亮。他很清楚野人为何烧掉死者，琼恩心照不宣地想。
Jon Snow remembered the wight rising, its eyes shining blue in the pale dead face. He knew why, he was certain.
“若是骨头会说话就好了，”熊老咕哝，“这家伙可以告诉咱们不少事：他怎么死的？谁烧了他？为什么要烧？野人都跑哪里去了？”他叹口气，“传说森林之子能和死者交谈，可惜我不能。”他把骷髅头掷回树洞，扬起一阵灰烬。“给我仔细搜寻这几间房屋。‘巨人’，你上树看看。把猎犬带过来，或许这次留下的踪迹比较新鲜。”但他的口气对后者却颇不以为然。
“Would that bones could talk,” the Old Bear grumbled. “This fellow could tell us much. How he died. Who burned him, and why. Where the wildlings have gone.” He sighed. “The children of the forest could speak to the dead, it’s said. But I can’t.” He tossed the skull back into the mouth of the tree, where it landed with a puff of fine ash. “Go through all these houses. Giant, get to the top of this tree, have a look. I’ll have the hounds brought up too. Perchance this time the trail will be fresher.” His tone did not suggest that he held out much hope of the last.
每间屋子都派出两人搜查，以免有所遗漏。琼恩和消沉的艾迪森·托勒特配在一组，他是个满头灰发的侍从，瘦得像根长枪，大伙儿都叫他“忧郁的艾迪”。“死人会走路还不够可怕？”他们一边穿过村庄，他一边对琼恩说，“这会儿熊老竟还要他们讲话？我敢担保，他们说不出什么好话。再说了，谁知道骨头会不会撒谎？为什么人死了就会变诚实变聪明呢？我看死人八成挺无聊，一肚子牢骚——嫌泥地太冷啦，我的墓碑应该要大一点啦，为什么他身上长的虫比我多啦……”
Two men went through each house, to make certain nothing was missed. Jon was paired with dour Eddison Tollett, a squire grey of hair and thin as a pike, whom the other brothers called Dolorous Edd. “Bad enough when the dead come walking,” he said to Jon as they crossed the village, “now the Old Bear wants them talking as well? No good will come of that, I’ll warrant. And who’s to say the bones wouldn’t lie? Why should death make a man truthful, or even clever? The dead are likely dull fellows, full of tedious complaints—the ground’s too cold, my gravestone should be larger, why does he get more worms than I do …”
琼恩得弯身才能走进低矮的门槛，屋内是扎实的泥地，没有任何家具，也无居住痕迹，只是屋顶排烟口下有少许炭灰。“真不是个住人的地方，”他说。
Jon had to stoop to pass through the low door. Within he found a packed dirt floor. There were no furnishings, no sign that people had lived here but for some ashes beneath the smoke hole in the roof. “What a dismal place to live,” he said.
“我出生的房子就跟这差不多，”忧郁的艾迪表示，“那还算黄金岁月咧，之后就开始过苦日子了。”艾迪看着屋角的干稻草堆，渴望地说，“给我全凯岩城的金子，也不比在床上睡一觉。”
“I was born in a house much like this,” declared Dolorous Edd. “Those were my enchanted years. Later I fell on hard times.” A nest of dry straw bedding filled one corner of the room. Edd looked at it with longing. “I’d give all the gold in Casterly Rock to sleep in a bed again.”
“你说，这是床？”
“You call that a bed?”
“比泥地软，头上又有屋顶，当然是床。”忧郁的艾迪嗅了嗅，“我闻到大便的味道。”
“If it’s softer than the ground and has a roof over it, I call it a bed.” Dolorous Edd sniffed the air. “I smell dung.”
味道很淡，“应该干掉很久了，”琼恩说。屋子似乎空弃了一段时间，他跪下来，伸手拨弄稻草堆，看看下面是否有所隐藏，接着又沿墙仔细搜索。一无所获。“这儿什么也没有。”
The smell was very faint. “Old dung,” said Jon. The house felt as though it had been empty for some time. Kneeling, he searched through the straw with his hands to see if anything had been concealed beneath, then made a round of the walls. It did not take very long. “There’s nothing here.”
他原本就不预期会有所发现，白树村是他们北行以来经过的第四个聚落，每个地方的情形都一样，居民早已带着少得可怜的家当和所有的牲口悄然离去。而这些村庄又没有任何遭受攻击的迹象，只是单纯地……空无一人。“你觉得他们到底碰上了什么？”琼恩问。
Nothing was what he had expected; Whitetree was the fourth village they had passed, and it had been the same in all of them. The people were gone, vanished with their scant possessions and whatever animals they may have had. None of the villages showed any signs of having been attacked. They were simply … empty. “What do you think happened to them all?” Jon asked.
“一定是我们想像不到的倒楣事，”忧郁的艾迪说，“哎，要我想像其实不难，但我瞧还是算了。知道倒楣还不够惨？胡思乱想干嘛？”
“Something worse than we can imagine,” suggested Dolorous Edd. “Well, I might be able to imagine it, but I’d sooner not. Bad enough to know you’re going to come to some awful end without thinking about it aforetime.”
他们从屋里出来时，两只猎犬正在门旁闻闻嗅嗅。其他的狗儿则在村里四处搜寻，管狗的齐特冲它们高声咒骂，他讲话总少不了几分脾气。天光渗过鱼梁木的红叶洒落下来，把他脸上的疔子照得通红。当他看到琼恩，便眯起眼睛，他们彼此素无好感。
Two of the hounds were sniffing around the door as they reemerged. Other dogs ranged through the village. Chett was cursing them loudly, his voice thick with the anger he never seemed to put aside. The light filtering through the red leaves of the weirwood made the boils on his face look even more inflamed than usual. When he saw Jon his eyes narrowed; there was no love lost between them.
其他几间屋也空荡荡的。“不见啦！”莫尔蒙的乌鸦叫着飞上鱼梁木枝头，俯瞰他们。“不见啦，不见啦，不见啦！”
The other houses had yielded no wisdom. “Gone,” cried Mormont’s raven, flapping up into the weirwood to perch above them. “Gone, gone, gone.”
“一年前还有野人住在白树村。”索伦·斯莫伍德穿着杰瑞米·莱克爵士的闪亮黑甲和浮雕胸铠，模样比莫尔蒙更华贵。他的厚披风边缘繁复地绣着貂皮，钩扣则是交叉银锤，莱克家族的标记。那原本是杰瑞米爵士的披风……然而尸鬼夺走了杰瑞米爵士的性命，而守夜人军团向来不浪费任何东西。
“There were wildlings at Whitetree only a year ago.” Thoren Smallwood looked more a lord than Mormont did, clad in Ser Jaremy Rykker’s gleaming black mail and embossed breastplate. His heavy cloak was richly trimmed with sable, and clasped with the crossed hammers of the Rykkers, wrought in silver. Ser Jaremy’s cloak, once … but the wight had claimed Ser Jaremy, and the Night’s Watch wasted nothing.
“去年劳勃在位，国内相安无事，”负责指挥斥候，长得十分壮硕的贾曼·布克威尔评道，“这一年变化可真大。”
“A year ago Robert was king, and the realm was at peace,” declared Jarman Buckwell, the square stolid man who commanded the scouts. “Much can change in a year’s time.”
“有件事没变，”马拉多·洛克爵士坚持，“野人越少，麻烦越少。不管他们有什么下场，我都不觉得可惜，反正净是些土匪和杀人犯。”
“One thing hasn’t changed,” Ser Mallador Locke insisted. “Fewer wildlings means fewer worries. I won’t mourn, whatever’s become of them. Raiders and murderers, the lot of them.”
琼恩头顶的红叶传来一阵飒飒声，两根枝干向侧旁分开，一个小个子松鼠般灵活地在枝干间游移。贝德威克身高不到五尺，但一头灰发却暴露了他的年龄。其他游骑兵戏称他为“巨人”。他站在大火儿头上的分叉处说：“北边有水源，可能是个湖。西面有几座丘陵，但不高。除此之外啥都没啦，诸位大人。”
Jon heard a rustling from the red leaves above. Two branches parted, and he glimpsed a little man moving from limb to limb as easily as a squirrel. Bedwyck stood no more than five feet tall, but the grey streaks in his hair showed his age. The other rangers called him Giant. He sat in a fork of the tree over their heads and said, “There’s water to the north. A lake, might be. A few flint hills rising to the west, not very high. Nothing else to see, my lords.”
雪往往意味着死亡“我们今晚可以在此扎营。”斯莫伍德提议。
“We might camp here tonight,” Smallwood suggested.
熊老抬起头，透过鱼梁木的苍白枝干和红叶搜寻天光。“不行，”他说，“巨人，还有几时天黑？”
The Old Bear glanced up, searching for a glimpse of sky through the pale limbs and red leaves of the weirwood. “No,” he declared. “Giant, how much daylight remains to us?”
“大概三小时，大人。”
“Three hours, my lord.”
“那我们继续北行，”莫尔蒙作了决定，“走到湖边，在那里扎营，说不定还能抓几条鱼加菜。琼恩，拿纸笔来，我早该给伊蒙师傅写信了。”
“We’ll press on north,” Mormont decided. “If we reach this lake, we can make camp by the shore, perchance catch a few fish. Jon, fetch me paper, it’s past time I wrote Maester Aemon.”
琼恩从自己鞍袋里找出羊皮纸、羽毛笔和墨水，递给总司令。莫尔蒙字迹潦草地写道：白树村，第四个村落，无人，野人已离开。“去找塔利，叫他把信送出去。”说完他将信递给琼恩，接着一吹口哨，他的乌鸦便从树上飞下，停在马头上。“玉米！”乌鸦点头提议，马儿嘶叫两声。
Jon found parchment, quill, and ink in his saddlebag and brought them to the Lord Commander. At Whitetree, Mormont scrawled. The fourth village. All empty. The wildlings are gone. “Find Tarly and see that he gets this on its way,” he said as he handed Jon the message. When he whistled, his raven came flapping down to land on his horse’s head. “Corn,” the raven suggested, bobbing. The horse whickered.
琼恩翻上坐骑，掉转马头，快步离去。鱼梁巨木树荫之外，守夜人军团的弟兄们站在较小的树下，照料马匹、嚼食渍牛肉条、撒尿、搔头、或是相互交谈。当继续前进的命令传达下来，众人便停止谈话，纷纷上马。贾曼·布克威尔的斥候率先出发，前锋纵队由索伦·斯莫伍德率领，接下来是熊老指挥的主力部队，跟着是马拉多·洛克爵士的辎重队和驮马队，殿后的是奥廷·威勒斯爵士。人员一共两百，马匹则有三百。
Jon mounted his garron, wheeled him about, and trotted off. Beyond the shade of the great weirwood the men of the Night’s Watch stood beneath lesser trees, tending their horses, chewing strips of salt beef, pissing, scratching, and talking. When the command was given to move out again, the talk died, and they climbed back into their saddles. Jarman Buckwell’s scouts rode out first, with the vanguard under Thoren Smallwood heading the column proper. Then came the Old Bear with the main force, Ser Mallador Locke with the baggage train and packhorses, and finally Ser Ottyn Wythers and the rear guard. Two hundred men all told, with half again as many mounts.
近来，他们白昼沿着狩猎小径和溪流河床——弟兄们通常戏称其为“游骑兵之路”——前进，逐渐深入极北的太古荒野。入夜后则在星空下扎营，抬头可见彗星。黑衣弟兄们初离黑城堡时，精神振奋，一路谈笑风生，但近来似乎被林间的寂静所感染，渐渐沉默下来。笑闹日渐稀少，脾气却越见暴躁。谁也不肯承认自己害怕——再怎么说，他们可都是守夜人军团的汉子——但琼恩能感觉出那种不安。四个空无一人的村落，到处不见野人踪迹，动物们也逃窜无踪。就连经验老到的游骑兵也承认，鬼影森林从未像现在这么鬼影幢幢。
By day they followed game trails and streambeds, the “ranger’s roads” that led them ever deeper into the wilderness of leaf and root. At night they camped beneath a starry sky and gazed up at the comet. The black brothers had left Castle Black in good spirits, joking and trading tales, but of late the brooding silence of the wood seemed to have sombered them all. Jests had grown fewer and tempers shorter. No one would admit to being afraid—they were men of the Night’s Watch, after all—but Jon could feel the unease. Four empty villages, no wildlings anywhere, even the game seemingly fled. The haunted forest had never seemed more haunted, even veteran rangers agreed.
琼恩一边骑马，一边摘手套，让灼伤的手指透透气。它们难看死了。他忽然想起自己以前常用它们拨乱艾莉亚的头发。他那干巴巴的小妹啊，不知现在过得怎么样。想到此生很可能无法再拨弄她的头发，他不禁有些感伤。于是他开始一张一阖地活动手指，若是让使剑的右手僵硬笨拙下去，那他就完了。长城之外，剑是人存活之本。
As he rode, Jon peeled off his glove to air his burned fingers. Ugly things. He remembered suddenly how he used to muss Arya’s hair. His little stick of a sister. He wondered how she was faring. It made him a little sad to think that he might never muss her hair again. He began to flex his hand, opening and closing the fingers. If he let his sword hand stiffen and grow clumsy, it well might be the end of him, he knew. A man needed his sword beyond the Wall.
山姆威尔·塔利和其他事务官在一起，正忙着给马喂水。他需要照料三匹马：除了自己的坐骑，外加两匹驮马，它们各带一个铁丝和柳条编成的大鸟笼，里面装满乌鸦。一见琼恩走近，鸟儿便纷纷拍翅，透过笼栅朝他尖叫，有几只的声音实在很像人类的语言。“你教它们说话？”他问山姆
Jon found Samwell Tarly with the other stewards, watering his horses. He had three to tend: his own mount, and two packhorses, each bearing a large wire-and-wicker cage full of ravens. The birds flapped their wings at Jon’s approach and screamed at him through the bars. A few shrieks sounded suspiciously like words. “Have you been teaching them to talk?” he asked Sam.
“只教了几个字，有三只学会了说‘雪诺’。”
“A few words. Three of them can say snow.”
“听着鸟尖叫我的名字已经够奇怪了，”琼恩说，“更何况黑衣弟兄最不想听的就是雪。”在北方，雪往往意味着死亡。
“One bird croaking my name was bad enough,” said Jon, “and snow’s nothing a black brother wants to hear about.” Snow often meant death in the north.
“你们在白树村发现什么没有？”
“Was there anything in Whitetree?”
“骷髅、骨灰和空房。”琼恩把卷起的羊皮纸递给山姆，“熊老要你把信寄给伊蒙。”
“Bones, ashes, and empty houses.” Jon handed Sam the roll of parchment. “The Old Bear wants word sent back to Aemon.”
山姆从笼中抓出一只鸟，为它顺顺羽毛，绑好信息，然后说：“勇敢的鸟儿，回家啰，回家。”乌鸦嘎嘎叫了两句莫名的语言回应他，然后山姆朝空中一抛，鸟儿便拍动翅膀，穿过树梢飞上天际。“真希望它能带我一起走。”
Sam took a bird from one of the cages, stroked its feathers, attached the message, and said, “Fly home now, brave one. Home.” The raven quorked something unintelligible back at him, and Sam tossed it into the air. Flapping, it beat its way skyward through the trees. “I wish he could carry me with him.”
“你还这么想？”
“Still?”
“嗯，”山姆说，“是啊，不过……我已经没那么害怕了，真的。头天晚上，每当我听见有人起来如恭，都以为是野人偷摸进来要割我喉咙。我生怕自己眼睛一闭就再没机会睁开，可是……嗯……到天亮还是没事。”他勉强挤出一丝笑容，“我胆子虽小，却并不笨。我骑马骑到脚破皮，躺在地上睡得腰酸背痛，可我现在已经不怕了。你瞧，”他试图向琼恩展示自己的手掌有多沉稳。“这几天，我一直在研究地图。”
“Well,” said Sam, “yes, but … I’m not as frightened as I was, truly. The first night, every time I heard someone getting up to make water, I thought it was wildlings creeping in to slit my throat. I was afraid that if I closed my eyes, I might never open them again, only … well … dawn came after all.” He managed a wan smile. “I may be craven, but I’m not stupid. I’m sore and my back aches from riding and from sleeping on the ground, but I’m hardly scared at all. Look.” He held out a hand for Jon to see how steady it was. “I’ve been working on my maps.”
世事实在难料，琼恩心想，两百勇士离开长城，其中唯一没有越来越怕的竟是山姆这个众所皆知的懦夫。“我看你是块当游骑兵的料，”他玩笑道，“再隔几天，你就会想学葛兰的样，当个侦察兵了。怎么，要不我去跟熊老建议？”
The world is strange, Jon thought. Two hundred brave men had left the Wall, and the only one who was not growing more fearful was Sam, the self-confessed coward. “We’ll make a ranger of you yet,” he joked. “Next thing, you’ll want to be an outrider like Grenn. Shall I speak to the Old Bear?”
“你千万不要！”山姆拉起他那件大黑斗篷的兜帽，步履蹒跚地爬上马背。他的坐骑是头大犁马，行动缓慢又笨拙，但也只有它能负担他的重量，游骑兵的战马没办法。“我本希望今晚能在村子过夜，”他失望地说，“能在屋里睡觉该有多好。”
“Don’t you dare!” Sam pulled up the hood of his enormous black cloak and clambered awkwardly back onto his horse. It was a plow horse, big and slow and clumsy, but better able to bear his weight than the little garrons the rangers rode. “I had hoped we might stay the night in the village,” he said wistfully. “It would be nice to sleep under a roof again.”
“就那几间屋也不够啊。”琼恩也上了马，冲山姆笑笑，然后策马离去。队伍已经行动起来，所以他远远绕过村庄，避开拥挤的人流，反正白树村他也看够了。
“Too few roofs for all of us.” Jon mounted again, gave Sam a parting smile, and rode off. The column was well under way, so he swung wide around the village to avoid the worst of the congestion. He had seen enough of Whitetree.
白灵突然从矮树丛里窜出，吓得马儿连忙前脚跃起，躲了开去。白狼跑到离队伍很远的地方觅食，但相比斯莫伍德派去收集食物的人，它的运气也好不了多少。森林里和村落一样空荡荡的，某天晚上，戴文在营火边告诉他。“我们队伍庞大，”琼恩对他说，“猎物大概早被行军的噪音吓跑了吧。”
Ghost emerged from the undergrowth so suddenly that the garron shied and reared. The white wolf hunted well away from the line of march, but he was not having much better fortune than the foragers Smallwood sent out after game. The woods were as empty as the villages, Dywen had told him one night around the fire. “We’re a large party,” Jon had said. “The game’s probably been frightened away by all the noise we make on the march.”
“他们是被吓跑的，至于被啥东西，我可就不敢说了。”戴文道。
“Frightened away by something, no doubt,” Dywen said.
琼恩待马儿平静下来，白灵也脚步轻快地跟在旁边，便继续追赶莫尔蒙。司令正在绕行山楂丛。“鸟儿放出去了？”熊老问。
Once the horse had settled, Ghost loped along easily beside him. Jon caught up to Mormont as he was wending his way around a hawthorn thicket. “Is the bird away?” the Old Bear asked.
“是的，大人。山姆在教鸟儿说话呢。”
“Yes, my lord. Sam is teaching them to talk.”
熊老哼了一声，“他会后悔的。这些该死的东西成天吵个没完，却没半句管用。”
The Old Bear snorted. “He’ll regret that. Damned things make a lot of noise, but they never say a thing worth hearing.”
他们静静骑了一段，后来琼恩道：“如果我叔叔之前也发现这些村落没有人——”
They rode in silence, until Jon said, “If my uncle found all these villages empty as well—”
“——他便会想办法找出原因，”莫尔蒙替他把话说完。“我看有什么人或什么东西不希望这消息传出去。哎，等科林跟我们会合，这就是支三百人的军队。不管是什么敌人，咱们可没那么好对付。我们会找到他们的，琼恩，我跟你保证。”
“—he would have made it his purpose to learn why,” Lord Mormont finished for him, “and it may well be someone or something did not want that known. Well, we’ll be three hundred when Qhorin joins us. Whatever enemy waits out here will not find us so easy to deal with. We will find them, Jon, I promise you.”
我就说有死人嘛或许，是他们找到我们，琼恩暗想。
Or they will find us, thought Jon.