“Is it Craster who frightens you, Gilly?” “For the baby, not for me. If it’s a girl, that’s not so bad, she’ll grow a few years and he’ll marry her. But Nella says it’s to be a boy, and she’s had six and knows these things. He gives the boys to the gods. Come the white cold, he does, and of late it comes more often. That’s why he started giving them sheep, even though he has a taste for mutton. Only now the sheep’s gone too. Next it will be dogs, till …” She lowered her eyes and stroked her belly. “What gods?” Jon was remembering that they’d seen no boys in Craster’s Keep, nor men either, save
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