Post by Melifeather on Mar 21, 2019 17:54:40 GMT
Ah yes, the mysterious disappearance of Benjen Stark!
Benjen left on a ranging with Othor, Jafer, and four other unnamed rangers, but only Othor and Jafer were found - dead - and brought back through the Wall where they rose as wights after dark and tried to kill Lord Commander Jeor Mormont.
They died fighting - that much is clear. Lets review the following passage which has a lot of information about “how” they died and possibly “when”:
“Othor,” announced Ser Jaremy Rykker, “beyond a doubt. And this one was Jafer Flowers. ” He turned the corpse over with his foot, and the dead white face stared up at the overcast sky with blue, blue eyes. “They were Ben Stark’s men, both of them. ”
My uncle’s men, Jon thought numbly. He remembered how he’d pleaded to ride with them. Gods, I was such a green boy. If he had taken me, it might be me lying here . . .
Jafer’s right wrist ended in the ruin of torn flesh and splintered bone left by Ghost’s jaws. His right hand was floating in a jar of vinegar back in Maester Aemon’s tower. His left hand, still at the end of his arm, was as black as his cloak.
“Gods have mercy,” the Old Bear muttered. He swung down from his garron, handing his reins to Jon. The morning was unnaturally warm; beads of sweat dotted the Lord Commander’s broad forehead like dew on a melon. His horse was nervous, rolling her eyes, backing away from the dead men as far as her lead would allow. Jon led her off a few paces, fighting to keep her from bolting. The horses did not like the feel of this place. For that matter, neither did Jon.
The dogs liked it least of all. Ghost had led the party here; the pack of hounds had been useless. When Bass the kennelmaster had tried to get them to take the scent from the severed hand, they had gone wild, yowling and barking, fighting to get away. Even now they were snarling and whimpering by turns, pulling at their leashes while Chett cursed them for curs.
(snipping some text)
“Ser Jaremy,” the Old Bear asked gruffly, “Ben Stark had six men with him when he rode from the Wall. Where are the others?”
Ser Jaremy shook his head. “Would that I knew. ”
Plainly Mormont was not pleased with that answer. “Two of our brothers butchered almost within sight of the Wall, yet your rangers heard nothing, saw nothing. Is this what the Night’s Watch has fallen to? Do we still sweep these woods?”
“Yes, my lord, but—”
“Do we still mount watches?”
“We do, but—”
“This man wears a hunting horn. ” Mormont pointed at Othor. “Must I suppose that he died without sounding it? Or have your rangers all gone deaf as well as blind?”
Ser Jaremy bristled, his face taut with anger. “No horn was blown, my lord, or my rangers would have heard it. I do not have sufficient men to mount as many patrols as I should like . . . and since Benjen was lost, we have stayed closer to the Wall than we were wont to do before, by your own command. ”
The Old Bear grunted. “Yes. Well. Be that as it may. ” He made an impatient gesture. “Tell me how they died. ”
Squatting beside the dead man he had named Jafer Flowers, Ser Jaremy grasped his head by the scalp. The hair came out between his fingers, brittle as straw. The knight cursed and shoved at the face with the heel of his hand. A great gash in the side of the corpse’s neck opened like a mouth, crusted with dried blood. Only a few ropes of pale tendon still attached the head to the neck. “This was done with an axe. ”
“Aye,” muttered Dywen, the old forester. “Belike the axe that Othor carried, m’lord. ”
Jon could feel his breakfast churning in his belly, but he pressed his lips together and made himself look at the second body. Othor had been a big ugly man, and he made a big ugly corpse. No axe was in evidence. Jon remembered Othor; he had been the one bellowing the bawdy song as the rangers rode out. His singing days were done. His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his hands. His hands were black like Jafer’s. Blossoms of hard cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open. They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires.
Ser Jaremy stood. “The wildlings have axes too. ”
Mormont rounded on him. “So you believe this is Mance Rayder’s work? This close to the Wall?”
“Who else, my lord?”
Jon could have told him. He knew, they all knew, yet no man of them would say the words. The Others are only a story, a tale to make children shiver. If they ever lived at all, they are gone eight thousand years. Even the thought made him feel foolish; he was a man grown now, a black brother of the Night’s Watch, not the boy who’d once sat at Old Nan’s feet with Bran and Robb and Arya.
Yet Lord Commander Mormont gave a snort. “If Ben Stark had come under wildling attack a half day’s ride from Castle Black, he would have returned for more men, chased the killers through all seven hells and brought me back their heads. ”
“Unless he was slain as well,” Ser Jaremy insisted.
The words hurt, even now. It had been so long, it seemed folly to cling to the hope that Ben Stark was still alive, but Jon Snow was nothing if not stubborn.
“It has been close on half a year since Benjen left us, my lord,” Ser Jaremy went on. “The forest is vast. The wildlings might have fallen on him anywhere. I’d wager these two were the last survivors of his party, on their way back to us . . . but the enemy caught them before they could reach the safety of the Wall. The corpses are still fresh, these men cannot have been dead more than a day . . . . ”
“No,” Samwell Tarly squeaked.
Jon was startled. Sam’s nervous, high-pitched voice was the last he would have expected to hear. The fat boy was frightened of the officers, and Ser Jaremy was not known for his patience.
“I did not ask for your views, boy,” Rykker said coldly.
“Let him speak, ser,” Jon blurted.
Mormont’s eyes flicked from Sam to Jon and back again. “If the lad has something to say, I’ll hear him out. Come closer, boy. We can’t see you behind those horses. ”
Sam edged past Jon and the garrons, sweating profusely. “My lord, it . . . it can’t be a day or . . . look . . . the blood . . . ”
“Yes?” Mormont growled impatiently. “Blood, what of it?”
“He soils his smallclothes at the sight of it,” Chett shouted out, and the rangers laughed.
Sam mopped at the sweat on his brow. “You . . . you can see where Ghost . . . Jon’s direwolf . . . you can see where he tore off that man’s hand, and yet . . . the stump hasn’t bled, look . . . ” He waved a hand. “My father . . . L-lord Randyll, he, he made me watch him dress animals sometimes, when . . . after . . . ” Sam shook his head from side to side, his chins quivering. Now that he had looked at the bodies, he could not seem to look away. “A fresh kill . . . the blood would still flow, my lords. Later . . . later it would be clotted, like a . . . a jelly, thick and . . . and . . . ” He looked as though he was going to be sick. “This man . . . look at the wrist, it’s all . . . crusty . . . dry . . . like . . . ”
Jon saw at once what Sam meant. He could see the torn veins in the dead man’s wrist, iron worms in the pale flesh. His blood was a black dust. Yet Jaremy Rykker was unconvinced. “If they’d been dead much longer than a day, they’d be ripe by now, boy. They don’t even smell. ”
Dywen, the gnarled old forester who liked to boast that he could smell snow coming on, sidled closer to the corpses and took a whiff. “Well, they’re no pansy flowers, but . . . m’lord has the truth of it. There’s no corpse stink. ”
“They . . . they aren’t rotting. ” Sam pointed, his fat finger shaking only a little. “Look, there’s . . . there’s no maggots or . . . or . . . worms or anything . . . they’ve been lying here in the woods, but they . . . they haven’t been chewed or eaten by animals . . . only Ghost . . . otherwise they’re . . . they’re . . . ”
“Untouched,” Jon said softly. “And Ghost is different. The dogs and the horses won’t go near them. ”
The rangers exchanged glances; they could see it was true, every man of them. Mormont frowned, glancing from the corpses to the dogs. “Chett, bring the hounds closer. ”
Chett tried, cursing, yanking on the leashes, giving one animal a lick of his boot. Most of the dogs just whimpered and planted their feet. He tried dragging one. The bitch resisted, growling and squirming as if to escape her collar. Finally she lunged at him. Chett dropped the leash and stumbled backward. The dog leapt over him and bounded off into the trees.
“This . . . this is all wrong,” Sam Tarly said earnestly. “The blood . . . there’s bloodstains on their clothes, and . . . and their flesh, dry and hard, but . . . there’s none on the ground, or . . . anywhere. With those . . . those . . . those . . . ” Sam made himself swallow, took a deep breath. “With those wounds . . . terrible wounds . . . there should be blood all over. Shouldn’t there?”
Dywen sucked at his wooden teeth. “Might be they didn’t die here. Might be someone brought ’em and left ’em for us. A warning, as like. ” The old forester peered down suspiciously. “And might be I’m a fool, but I don’t know that Othor never had no blue eyes afore. ”
Ser Jaremy looked startled. “Neither did Flowers,” he blurted, turning to stare at the dead man.
When Othor and Jafer were discovered, Benjen had been gone nearly six months. It seems evident that Othor and Jafer died some time ago - perhaps months ago, but their bodies have been preserved by the cold, and no wild animals would touch them. How can they be "preserved" when the day they were found it was unseasonably warm? There was also no blood on the ground, even though their bodies were covered with wounds - which indicates they didn’t die where they were found.
I thought it interesting that Dywen thought Jafer had been killed by Othor, even though no one saw Othor’s axe.
Othor’s cause of death was stranger. His torso was spattered with dry blood from throat to groin - a clue that he may have been the one to swing the axe, and while they indicated he too had wounds, they didn’t really describe what kind of wounds they were.
Othor never sounded the horn he was carrying. It’s an indication that he may have died in his sleep of exposure, rose as a wight, and killed Jafer with his axe. The wounds that Jon noted may have been defensive stabs from Jafer. This is a mirror to how Ser Waymar Royce rose up and killed Will after he came down from the tree.
The dead only rise after the sun has gone down and when the cold wind is rising. If Othor died of exposure, rose as a wight, and then killed Jafer, then their deaths occurred when the ranging party stopped for the night.
The Watch concluded that the reason why Othor and Jafer were found nearly within sight of the Wall was a message of some type, but the meaning wasn’t entirely clear to them. It could mean that all six are dead and this was a warning to stay away, but in my opinion, because they didn’t leave Benjen’s body, I think whoever left the bodies wanted to entice the Watch to send more men to range so that they could reduce the numbers of the Nights Watch.
If you’ve read my theory that the wildlings are the Others then you might come to the same conclusion: Benjen is dead, man. He’s dead, and so are the other four rangers.
Benjen left on a ranging with Othor, Jafer, and four other unnamed rangers, but only Othor and Jafer were found - dead - and brought back through the Wall where they rose as wights after dark and tried to kill Lord Commander Jeor Mormont.
They died fighting - that much is clear. Lets review the following passage which has a lot of information about “how” they died and possibly “when”:
“Othor,” announced Ser Jaremy Rykker, “beyond a doubt. And this one was Jafer Flowers. ” He turned the corpse over with his foot, and the dead white face stared up at the overcast sky with blue, blue eyes. “They were Ben Stark’s men, both of them. ”
My uncle’s men, Jon thought numbly. He remembered how he’d pleaded to ride with them. Gods, I was such a green boy. If he had taken me, it might be me lying here . . .
Jafer’s right wrist ended in the ruin of torn flesh and splintered bone left by Ghost’s jaws. His right hand was floating in a jar of vinegar back in Maester Aemon’s tower. His left hand, still at the end of his arm, was as black as his cloak.
“Gods have mercy,” the Old Bear muttered. He swung down from his garron, handing his reins to Jon. The morning was unnaturally warm; beads of sweat dotted the Lord Commander’s broad forehead like dew on a melon. His horse was nervous, rolling her eyes, backing away from the dead men as far as her lead would allow. Jon led her off a few paces, fighting to keep her from bolting. The horses did not like the feel of this place. For that matter, neither did Jon.
The dogs liked it least of all. Ghost had led the party here; the pack of hounds had been useless. When Bass the kennelmaster had tried to get them to take the scent from the severed hand, they had gone wild, yowling and barking, fighting to get away. Even now they were snarling and whimpering by turns, pulling at their leashes while Chett cursed them for curs.
(snipping some text)
“Ser Jaremy,” the Old Bear asked gruffly, “Ben Stark had six men with him when he rode from the Wall. Where are the others?”
Ser Jaremy shook his head. “Would that I knew. ”
Plainly Mormont was not pleased with that answer. “Two of our brothers butchered almost within sight of the Wall, yet your rangers heard nothing, saw nothing. Is this what the Night’s Watch has fallen to? Do we still sweep these woods?”
“Yes, my lord, but—”
“Do we still mount watches?”
“We do, but—”
“This man wears a hunting horn. ” Mormont pointed at Othor. “Must I suppose that he died without sounding it? Or have your rangers all gone deaf as well as blind?”
Ser Jaremy bristled, his face taut with anger. “No horn was blown, my lord, or my rangers would have heard it. I do not have sufficient men to mount as many patrols as I should like . . . and since Benjen was lost, we have stayed closer to the Wall than we were wont to do before, by your own command. ”
The Old Bear grunted. “Yes. Well. Be that as it may. ” He made an impatient gesture. “Tell me how they died. ”
Squatting beside the dead man he had named Jafer Flowers, Ser Jaremy grasped his head by the scalp. The hair came out between his fingers, brittle as straw. The knight cursed and shoved at the face with the heel of his hand. A great gash in the side of the corpse’s neck opened like a mouth, crusted with dried blood. Only a few ropes of pale tendon still attached the head to the neck. “This was done with an axe. ”
“Aye,” muttered Dywen, the old forester. “Belike the axe that Othor carried, m’lord. ”
Jon could feel his breakfast churning in his belly, but he pressed his lips together and made himself look at the second body. Othor had been a big ugly man, and he made a big ugly corpse. No axe was in evidence. Jon remembered Othor; he had been the one bellowing the bawdy song as the rangers rode out. His singing days were done. His flesh was blanched white as milk, everywhere but his hands. His hands were black like Jafer’s. Blossoms of hard cracked blood decorated the mortal wounds that covered him like a rash, breast and groin and throat. Yet his eyes were still open. They stared up at the sky, blue as sapphires.
Ser Jaremy stood. “The wildlings have axes too. ”
Mormont rounded on him. “So you believe this is Mance Rayder’s work? This close to the Wall?”
“Who else, my lord?”
Jon could have told him. He knew, they all knew, yet no man of them would say the words. The Others are only a story, a tale to make children shiver. If they ever lived at all, they are gone eight thousand years. Even the thought made him feel foolish; he was a man grown now, a black brother of the Night’s Watch, not the boy who’d once sat at Old Nan’s feet with Bran and Robb and Arya.
Yet Lord Commander Mormont gave a snort. “If Ben Stark had come under wildling attack a half day’s ride from Castle Black, he would have returned for more men, chased the killers through all seven hells and brought me back their heads. ”
“Unless he was slain as well,” Ser Jaremy insisted.
The words hurt, even now. It had been so long, it seemed folly to cling to the hope that Ben Stark was still alive, but Jon Snow was nothing if not stubborn.
“It has been close on half a year since Benjen left us, my lord,” Ser Jaremy went on. “The forest is vast. The wildlings might have fallen on him anywhere. I’d wager these two were the last survivors of his party, on their way back to us . . . but the enemy caught them before they could reach the safety of the Wall. The corpses are still fresh, these men cannot have been dead more than a day . . . . ”
“No,” Samwell Tarly squeaked.
Jon was startled. Sam’s nervous, high-pitched voice was the last he would have expected to hear. The fat boy was frightened of the officers, and Ser Jaremy was not known for his patience.
“I did not ask for your views, boy,” Rykker said coldly.
“Let him speak, ser,” Jon blurted.
Mormont’s eyes flicked from Sam to Jon and back again. “If the lad has something to say, I’ll hear him out. Come closer, boy. We can’t see you behind those horses. ”
Sam edged past Jon and the garrons, sweating profusely. “My lord, it . . . it can’t be a day or . . . look . . . the blood . . . ”
“Yes?” Mormont growled impatiently. “Blood, what of it?”
“He soils his smallclothes at the sight of it,” Chett shouted out, and the rangers laughed.
Sam mopped at the sweat on his brow. “You . . . you can see where Ghost . . . Jon’s direwolf . . . you can see where he tore off that man’s hand, and yet . . . the stump hasn’t bled, look . . . ” He waved a hand. “My father . . . L-lord Randyll, he, he made me watch him dress animals sometimes, when . . . after . . . ” Sam shook his head from side to side, his chins quivering. Now that he had looked at the bodies, he could not seem to look away. “A fresh kill . . . the blood would still flow, my lords. Later . . . later it would be clotted, like a . . . a jelly, thick and . . . and . . . ” He looked as though he was going to be sick. “This man . . . look at the wrist, it’s all . . . crusty . . . dry . . . like . . . ”
Jon saw at once what Sam meant. He could see the torn veins in the dead man’s wrist, iron worms in the pale flesh. His blood was a black dust. Yet Jaremy Rykker was unconvinced. “If they’d been dead much longer than a day, they’d be ripe by now, boy. They don’t even smell. ”
Dywen, the gnarled old forester who liked to boast that he could smell snow coming on, sidled closer to the corpses and took a whiff. “Well, they’re no pansy flowers, but . . . m’lord has the truth of it. There’s no corpse stink. ”
“They . . . they aren’t rotting. ” Sam pointed, his fat finger shaking only a little. “Look, there’s . . . there’s no maggots or . . . or . . . worms or anything . . . they’ve been lying here in the woods, but they . . . they haven’t been chewed or eaten by animals . . . only Ghost . . . otherwise they’re . . . they’re . . . ”
“Untouched,” Jon said softly. “And Ghost is different. The dogs and the horses won’t go near them. ”
The rangers exchanged glances; they could see it was true, every man of them. Mormont frowned, glancing from the corpses to the dogs. “Chett, bring the hounds closer. ”
Chett tried, cursing, yanking on the leashes, giving one animal a lick of his boot. Most of the dogs just whimpered and planted their feet. He tried dragging one. The bitch resisted, growling and squirming as if to escape her collar. Finally she lunged at him. Chett dropped the leash and stumbled backward. The dog leapt over him and bounded off into the trees.
“This . . . this is all wrong,” Sam Tarly said earnestly. “The blood . . . there’s bloodstains on their clothes, and . . . and their flesh, dry and hard, but . . . there’s none on the ground, or . . . anywhere. With those . . . those . . . those . . . ” Sam made himself swallow, took a deep breath. “With those wounds . . . terrible wounds . . . there should be blood all over. Shouldn’t there?”
Dywen sucked at his wooden teeth. “Might be they didn’t die here. Might be someone brought ’em and left ’em for us. A warning, as like. ” The old forester peered down suspiciously. “And might be I’m a fool, but I don’t know that Othor never had no blue eyes afore. ”
Ser Jaremy looked startled. “Neither did Flowers,” he blurted, turning to stare at the dead man.
When Othor and Jafer were discovered, Benjen had been gone nearly six months. It seems evident that Othor and Jafer died some time ago - perhaps months ago, but their bodies have been preserved by the cold, and no wild animals would touch them. How can they be "preserved" when the day they were found it was unseasonably warm? There was also no blood on the ground, even though their bodies were covered with wounds - which indicates they didn’t die where they were found.
I thought it interesting that Dywen thought Jafer had been killed by Othor, even though no one saw Othor’s axe.
Othor’s cause of death was stranger. His torso was spattered with dry blood from throat to groin - a clue that he may have been the one to swing the axe, and while they indicated he too had wounds, they didn’t really describe what kind of wounds they were.
Othor never sounded the horn he was carrying. It’s an indication that he may have died in his sleep of exposure, rose as a wight, and killed Jafer with his axe. The wounds that Jon noted may have been defensive stabs from Jafer. This is a mirror to how Ser Waymar Royce rose up and killed Will after he came down from the tree.
The dead only rise after the sun has gone down and when the cold wind is rising. If Othor died of exposure, rose as a wight, and then killed Jafer, then their deaths occurred when the ranging party stopped for the night.
The Watch concluded that the reason why Othor and Jafer were found nearly within sight of the Wall was a message of some type, but the meaning wasn’t entirely clear to them. It could mean that all six are dead and this was a warning to stay away, but in my opinion, because they didn’t leave Benjen’s body, I think whoever left the bodies wanted to entice the Watch to send more men to range so that they could reduce the numbers of the Nights Watch.
If you’ve read my theory that the wildlings are the Others then you might come to the same conclusion: Benjen is dead, man. He’s dead, and so are the other four rangers.