Chapter 20: SI POV IX
Late 154 AC
In my time with him, I've come to find that Baelor is a good kid. A little painfully naïve at times, but he's a prince that has been kept away from the rest of the outside world, with only his Seven Pointed Star and divisive family to look to. Even if his decisions were his own, I can't help but not entirely blame him for how he reacted from my remaining memories. With how Daena practically hated her marriage to him from the moment the betrothal was announced, likely having wanted to marry Daeron instead, that couldn't have been good for his development at the time. A rather absentee father dying while he was still young, his similarly young mother possibly dying not long into his brother's reign, and no real friends who shared his nascent religiosity? No wonder the poor kid turned to the book and stuck to it like glue, its teachings were one of the few things that he could find comfort in. Had he been trying to be as holy as possible to make up for the perceived lack of piety in the rest of his family? Fasting all the time, without taking any means of recuperating after? No wonder he likely starved himself to death, despite some of the rumors saying Viserys might have poisoned him.
I doubt that was the case. Viserys seemed to care for his family too much to do that from what I can recall, as I've never met the guy, and he clearly didn't do much to temper his son's antics all that much. Now Aegon, that up-and-coming shitstorm, that's a whole other can of worms. A great appetite for pleasure with no restraint or common sense, a horrible combination for a king. If Daeron lives long enough to have a son or Baelor has children himself, and their cousin never touches the throne, I bet Aegon will be dead of liver failure before he's forty. Perhaps sooner if he takes a liking to my whiskey and brandy?
Anyways, my time with the boy has been much better than I'd expected. He's smart for his age, not a genius mind you, but he can certainly make the connections others might miss, even grown men at that. He loves to read, a trait I feel carried over from my previous life as well, and I'm glad I was able to remember enough stoicism quotes from my past life to give him something to work on. Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, all with good quotes I could pull out of my ass to help this prince become a hopefully better monarch than his original counterpart. Not that I can tell the difference between who wrote or said either quote outside of perhaps three or four of them. I didn't memorize their teachings, after all, I'm not mentally connected to internet.
That would be the best thing for anyone thrown into a position like mine, but since I don't recall my dreams being spent browsing various online encyclopedias, fan wikis and How-To videos, oh well, best to do what I can with what I have.
That being said, our time in Highmarsh came to an end rather soon, and so we'd moved on to the last town in my lands, Timberstone.
Ah, Timberstone, equally disappointing and amazing, redesigned like Lowhill, but overall not likely to expand near as quickly or reach a similar size. The hunting is not the best for food, having been a staple for a long time, thus depleting the overall numbers of game animals, and furbearers will have to wait until winter to see how profitable they are. Sadly the pines in the area are fairly young or of a smaller species, many of them only just large enough for certain construction projects or tools. While my experiments in producing turpentine from Galewood pines is doing well, I just don't have the resources to process it in the quantities on my own lands I would likely need for future projects. Unless I somehow acquire land through outright buying it from lords where pines were large and plentiful, as my Windhill betrothed's lands carry few trees in them, such plans as turpentine-fueled lanterns or turpentine-based medicines would have to take a backseat to overall progress.
Amber is sort of a mixed bag. It is found here and there, nothing overly plentiful like I'd hoped, but common enough that at least two families of craftsmen and one merchant family have basically dedicated themselves to gathering, processing and selling the stuff, all working together rather cooperatively, which is nice. They are turning a nice enough profit, and I know they'd do even better if they had access to markets in Essos that craved amber for various uses, but for now that was not possible.
Pig rearing has become much more possible for the local farmers, given that pigs in the Stormlands do better in or near forests, probably a combination of food availability and being sheltered from our constant storms. As of now the herds were still relatively small, the needs of just feeding the pigs currently outstripping the need for making the herds larger. Timberstone does not yet have near as much farmland available to feed both its smallfolk and the hogs, and as such cannot yet afford to let the herds grow or butcher fewer animals for when winter begins to arrive. That, and selling the pigs at market sometimes earns a smallfolk family enough coin to buy ten times as much food as the pig would have been if they'd eaten it themselves.
After a breakfast of a rasher of bacon with eggs and pancakes, Baelor expressed interest in touring Timberstone's sawmills with me. These were my greatest investment in this otherwise nondescript town, simply because the small river that ran through it barely ever ran dry, even during droughts, and it ran the length of the town enough that more than one waterwheel was able to be placed upon its banks. In total, this meant I had three sawmills running at any one time, though they never would have if it hadn't been for Arrold and the other acolytes that had joined my Corps. All had studied engineering to some degree or another and it showed. Setting up a waterwheel was way more complex than I'd thought, especially if you wanted it to 'power' something other than a millstone.
Turns out at that Westeros already has sawmills in forested places with rivers, and as such I didn't really need to add anything to them to get them running. Any sawmill away from water power had to have their logs cut by big, burly men with a whipsaw, and seeing as I was looking to increase efficiency of my industries, it was only natural that I replace these men with a waterwheel. However, these don't have a strong enough river to cut logs as fast as I'd like, but considering that on Earth it took centuries for sawmills to go from mostly hand-cut to having saws capable of slicing logs into more precise boards, I'll take slower cuts over no cuts at all. At least with the number of sawmills I have, I can increase output simply by cutting and sawing more logs.
As the dull screech of the water-powered whipsaws echoed through the area, Baelor and I walked our horses along the opposite shoreline, looking over the log yard spread out before it. Three bridges had been built to aid in feeding this industry, one for each sawmill, and each bridges was wide enough for four wagons to move about at once. One side brought in logs to be measured and sent through, and on the other side, lay a great array of kilns, warehouses and open air drying racks for the processed wood and byproducts. From a distance, were it not for the construction materials and the distinct lack of motorized anything, I might have almost assumed this was a lumberyard from my first life.
"I'm surprised you are able to locally produce so many planks for your building projects," the boy prince said. "Normally any mills that handle wood are moved to where the wood is, and then further away from where everything has been logged."
"Were it not for the silviculture in place, eventually this would have to be the case for these sawmills, my prince. My lands are only partially forested, and while they give me enough for now, they pale in comparison to other, larger forests in the Stormlands."
Baelor looked to me. "Silviculture? What is that?"
"The planting of trees, much like crops are, in long and neat rows. After occasional culling, these trees will grow tall and straight over a period of decades, until they are ready to be harvested. These 'plantations' will serve as replacement for the closer trees that have been cut and hauled away."
"Replanting a forest?" he asked. "Sounds ambitious, much like your damming project."
"Indeed it would be, if that is what we were doing," I said. "Forestry would be recreating or managing a forest, Baelor. A true forest has a great variety of trees, both in age and type. Although some smaller forests might mainly be one kind of tree or another, they are usually not all the same age like a plantation. Just as well, these fields of trees will have little to no understory. No shrubs, no errant saplings, no flowering plants and the like, only trees and what needles or leaves fall from them and whatever else may eke out an existence along the ground."
"Why do so? These false forests sound incredibly barren, being empty of anything but trees and their refuse."
"While animals may still use them, especially birds, they will be so that we need not worry about moving the mills further upstream and away from Timberstone itself. As well will be able to grow far more trees in a denser set, with far straighter logs, we will be getting more wood for every acre of woods cleared and cut, my prince."
"So you will be having a greater output whilst lessening the amount of forest that needs to be cleared," he said. As I'd mentioned, smart kid, quick on the uptake and all that. "Were you to have enough 'plantations' in rotation, harvesting from one and then replanting as you moved onto the next, you would need less and less wood from the true forests themselves."
"Thus allowing for those forests to recover and provide what a plantation could not," I continued. "Berries, mushrooms, tubers, wild game, furbearers, and a whole host of other things that one could not find in a single cluster of the same trees."
"What types of trees will be in your plantations?"
"Mostly pines, we'll be planting others such as spruce in much smaller rows along field edges to serve as windbreaks for farms and pastures. All of this will take a great deal of time to come to fruition, however, so that's why we have so many clear-cut areas being replanted as much as possible. By the time these trees should be ready for harvesting, a good forty years or more may have passed."
"A long-term investment," the prince replied. "If it does not work?"
"Then we continue to import wood, and sadly, will have to move the saw mills themselves further up the river to follow the trees. The rest of the infrastructure, though, can stay in Timberstone. Better they are seasoned here than in a forest where it can stay wet far, far longer than a warehouse."
"The kilns?"
"If they are not drying the wooden planks, they are turning the more damaged, leftover or useless wood into charcoal. Even the sawdust left over from the cuttings is being used, as I want to waste as little as possible in every step of the process."
"You mentioned something about the spruces serving as windbreaks, how does that work?"
I paused. "Well, when wind blows on you, it can chill you, right?"
"Yes."
"It can also make you feel parched, almost as if you haven't drank something in a while, yes?"
"Yes, on these hotter summer days I've felt as such when I sat outside for too long, even in the shade."
"Well, I believe that same wind can dry out crops or the soil they pass over, much like our skin. If that happens, plants or the soil can lose water." I wasn't sure how knowledgeable these people were on the concepts of dehydration, but it wouldn't hurt to try and remedy such a lack if it existed.
"Meaning the crops can suffer for it."
I nodded. "Exactly. So, these windbreaks, for the most part, will serve as a means of blocking or directing the wind elsewhere. This should, hopefully, mean the fields will dry out less often and the soil will stay wetter."
Baelor said nothing for a few moments. "Wouldn't it be wise to have these windbreaks grown along every field edge?"
"Yes and no, my prince. For one, they must be a tree with good roots to hold them in place against the wind, many lower branches and something else to help block or direct the wind, like thick needles. Trees that lose their leaves in the autumn cannot be counted on for this, so it must be the evergreens, and therein lies a problem as well."
"What is it?"
"Such evergreens, like spruce, do not always grow the best in certain places. Some soils are perhaps too wet, or perhaps too dry, for them to grow. Perhaps, such as on certain mountain slopes, they would not receive enough sunlight, or perhaps receive too much. Or it could be a combination of any of these, and many more that limits where such trees can grow. How many trees grow in the great savannahs of the Dornish Marches proper, for example?"
"Few if any, if I recall. So, in your lands, where can you build these windbreaks? Could they be grown elsewhere in the Stormlands?"
"Indeed, though the best places for them would be along the most common direction the wind comes from. Here, it would be along eastern edges of fields, for the Stormlands receives her name from the eastern storms funneled through Shipbreaker Bay and into our heartlands. Other, smaller windbreaks would work along perhaps northern or southern winds, but for us, eastern would be the greatest ones."
"Does this function the best upon flatter terrain?"
I patted him on the shoulder. "Yes, Baelor, a good assumption. For the much larger fields, it would only work a bit, but for small ones, it should work very well. Now, would you like to see the saw mills in action?"
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Baelor V
Even with the oddly-padded helmet and set of large woolen earmuffs he was instructed to wear that pinched at his hair at times, Baelor could barely contain his fascination with the industry around him. It reminded him of things he'd seen in Kings Landing, yet not with steel, but wood. The dull whine of the many cutting saws and the general cacophony of the yard was thankfully negated by his earmuffs, which he noticed the many workers moving around the saws also wore.
As for the helmets, he'd thought them a bit unnecessary, for if everyone simply watched what they were doing, such dangers would be mitigated, no? Yet after witnessing a man tip and slam his head into a pile of logs, only to quickly get back up, shaken but otherwise unhurt, he'd realized such an assumption was entirely negated by bad luck. Casper told him that any smallfolk partaking in such dangerous labor should be compensated with good wages in order to have anyone willing to work it in the first place, and then mentioned a helmet like his would keep their most vital piece, their mind, safe from heavy blows. He'd not seen it himself, but he'd heard of knights or men working in mines that, upon being struck upon the head, lingering for days or weeks before passing, or worse, becoming like a child once again, unable to care for themselves let alone others.
He'd not wish that fate on anyone, especially not a man whose family depended upon his work to feed them in the leaner times. A lord's family could take over in his stead, but the smallfolk often did not have such luxury.
Away from the saws and past the kilns, warehouses and large drying racks, Casper bid for him to remove his earmuffs, as did the others in their party. Here, where the compacted dirt and occasional stone of the lumber yard met the beginnings of Timberstone proper, Baelor found himself in the middle of what must have been the heart of industry for the entire area. The sheer amount of craftsmen that were specializing in wooden devices and creations was astounding. Coopers, chairblers, cartwrights and a great deal more were clustered around the exit of the timber yard, many of them with their own outdoor workspaces dedicated to their craft.
"Amazing, isn't it?" Casper asked as they passed a long line of charcoal kilns, many of them sending plumes of smoke high into the sky as men shoveled dried clumps of sawdust and other scrap material into them. "The power of industry is not something to be taken lightly, my prince, especially when given proper foresight and investment. Timberstone was once a sleepy town barely scraping by, with the wood coming in only when men could be spared to cut it. Now, its numbers having swelled greatly, its food stores from the nearby farms has dramatically grown, and well over half the townsfolk are dedicated to something dealing with wood or its byproducts."
"Incredible," Baelor replied. "I've only ever heard of such industrious smallfolk work in Kings Landing, along the Street of Steel or the Street of Looms. I'd rarely left the Red Keep before my fostering, and even then had never seen those streets, only hearing of them through my cousins or visitors."
"There are likely many villages and towns like this across Westeros, but only if one knows where to look. Come, there's something I'd like to show you, a little further down."
At the base of the large manor that was the home of the mayor, there was almost a small keep unto itself, with a great wooden gate flanked by a solid wall of sharpened wooden pillars, several logs deep and firmly planted in the ground. The wide, cobbled road through the gate was almost continuously bring in a great variety of wooden pieces, ranging from handles and staffs to barrels and crates. Once within the walls and down into the ground, however, their need became evidently clear.
"An armory," Baelor said. In a vast hall of stone-inlaid walls and a floor tempered by hundreds of feet lay a vast assemblage of what would become tools of war.
"Similar to the Arsenal of Braavos, my prince," Casper replied. "Save that we build no ships here. No, here, we build tools, be they for peace or war."
Craftsmen all across the area were stockpiling great bundles of wooden handles. Pikes and shovels, axes for battle or tree, blacksmith hammers and poles for banners, they were all here, along with many, many more. There were even a select number of bowyers tending to what appeared to be the beginnings of bows, the yew wood being cared for with extra care and separate from all others.
"Even with all of the shovel and splitting axe handles, among others, it appears that you are preparing for a war. Why is that? Surely you have enough arms in your castle home?"
"I'd rather have more than I need than have less when I need them. In times of war, Baelor, you can never have enough supplies. Tactics may win battles, but logistics can win wars."
"What do you mean?" All he'd ever heard of his brother Daeron speak of was glorious battles against worthy foes, never of how the army was sustained.
Casper shook his head. "An army marches on its stomach first and foremost, but a close second are the supplies it must use for its forces. One can only pillage or survive upon the lands for so long with any sizeable force before things start to go badly. What good is a company of archers without arrows, or a group of pikemen without extra pikes? Equipment wears out, weapons break, horses die, clean water may run low, disease may strike at any time, and a whole host of other things may go wrong for anyone. Without the food, the soldiers will starve, my prince, yet without the supplies to sustain them, the soldiers will never last a campaign. Mutiny, revolt or desertion can and will spread through the ranks if they cannot be taken care of as they should be."
Baelor was silent. Whilst there were no wars going on that he was aware of, save for the Dornish trouble his foster father was taking care of, there was little reason to prepare for it. Yet it made sense to prepare for war in peacetime, when a great deal of your time could be spent stockpiling weapons, nonperishable food, water, armor, training men, etc. Casper was not exactly training as many men as he could to wield a weapon, as the smallfolk often were in the week or two before they would battle, or so Daeron had told him. "So you are merely preparing, just in case?"
"Exactly. Better do so now than later. Besides, with all of these tools, I can commit to a greater number of projects in my land, and give the smallfolk a better means of completing them. Some of these might last long enough to be passed down a generation if they are taken care of well enough."
"Smallfolks do tend to have rather shoddy tools if left to themselves," Baelor replied. "It is good to see a lord willing to invest in something so small that might have so large an impact as time goes on."
Shouts from behind them, not of alarm but of surprise, sounded, causing them to turn back. A group of guards had, judging from their breathing, hurried along to find them, the town's mayor in tow beside a rider. In their midst this man, his livery that of House Wytch, dismounted from his horse and marched to Casper, kneeling before him.
"I bear a message from your lady mother, my lord," the man said, motioning to the pouch slung under his arm.
"Rise, Gladden. What is it?"
Baelor watched the scroll transfer from courier to lord, and as his friend read it, the prince noticed a darkening of his features, one he'd not seen before.
"Prince Baelor," he said, handing the scroll to one his guards. "We must ride for Stormhall with all due haste after we have eaten lunch."
"Whatever for?"
"Lord Baratheon has called for men to aide in the fight against the Dornish in the Marches. I have been summoned amongst other western lords to answer the call to arms."
"Will I be coming with you?" The question of 'can I come with you?' was left unsaid.
Casper shook his head. "No, my prince, you are not far enough in your training and if Lord Baratheon thought the initial issue too dangerous for you to be around, then now, with this escalation, it most certainly will not be safe for a prince of the realm." His friend, more serious than he'd seen before, turned back to the courier. "Gladden, has mother summoned my retinue?"
"She had just begun to do so when I left, my lord. Most will be near Lowhill before we return."
"No, Gladden, before I return. You have ridden hard and fast, and delivered this missive faithfully. Rest here for a day, then make for Stormhall."
Gladden bowed. "Thank you, my lord."
Casper turned back to Baelor. "I need to speak to the quartermaster. Ser Thorne and my guards will take you to the mayor's manor, where lunch is being readied as we speak. After we finish, we ride for Stormhall."
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Smallfolk I
Berric could practically taste the excitement in the air after the town crier had ridden through Lowhill. The Dornish were causing trouble out west, and their lord had been called to aid Lord Baratheon himself in putting down those desert dogs! Whitebeards spoke of the battles of the past, of tales their grandsires had told of the Dornish Wars many years before, with young boys listening with great enthusiasm. Young women tittered at the honors their brother or sweethearts might earn with their lord on those open plains against the raiders, for wicked Dornish could no more stand against Stormlander strength and bravery than they could against a winter storm sweeping from the east.
However, this festive mood had been tempered by the knowledge that no levies had been raised to meet this threat. There were no farmers being given spears, no sons of shepherds having to march in formation, and no heaps of mothers or wives worrying about their return. Only the men serving under their lord would be leaving, and a small portion of them at that.
Berric was one of these men. While not a man at arms, serving and training up in Lowhill, he was a bowman, tried and true, much like his sire and grandsires before him. For generations his family had dwelt in and around Lowhill, serving with their yew bows in times of war for their Stormhill lords. After the extinction of that family, they'd served the Baratheon cause for a time, and now would serve their newest lords all the same.
Berric and his brother Edric were not the oldest in the family, but their brother Roland had taken over the farming for their father, whose best years were long past, and instead it fell to them to answer their lord's call. Thankfully, Lord Wytch had returned the night before, and already the last vestiges of troops were arriving in Stormhall proper.
This was the first time he'd gotten a good look at his lord. Oh, he'd seen Morden Wytch before, the Seven bless his soul, as he had Lord Casper, but always from afar. Now, he was plenty close, as their lord looked them over with an eye far more seasoned than he'd have expected from a boy of four and ten. Big, bigger than most his age, with black hair like a Baratheon but the eerie purple eyes of Valyria, he was rather imposing despite the barest hint of facial hair.
"I want everyone who has brought a full kit of their own to form up on my right, towards my master at arms," Lord Wytch said, his voice carrying easily over their number as he raised his arm. "To those with some or nothing, move to my left, towards the quartermaster."
As the men moved to their respective groups, Beric and Edric followed the other bowmen to the kitted line. Like them, they'd maintained their own bows, often hiring themselves out to hunting parties in the leaner times to help keep their skills sharp. Out here in the grassier areas of the Stormlands, most game was small, usually rabbit, gamebirds and the occasional wild goat. Before Lord Wytch had forbidden the hunting of them, the occasional aurochs herd could be found, but now that their lord cited them as protected, they'd not hunted any. He'd heard talk of 'licenses' being distributed to small groups of hunters once their numbers recovered enough.
Edric was the faster shot, being able to take geese on the wing at times. Berric, however, knew he was the better shot at a distance, having taken rabbits at distances where others might have seen only specks in the grass. With hope, they would earn some good pay and rights to spoils after taking care of these Dornish.
The master at arms motioned, and one by one, each man came forward, presenting his kit. After a minute of questions and the occasional examination, he'd give them a slip and motion towards a far wall. Rather quickly, they were sorted into two further groups, though as to why they had no idea. Berric was next in line, and showed what he had. A yew bow, four and twenty arrows with broadheads and a good pair of boots apiece. Apparently that wasn't enough, as he and his brother were sent to the second group, mingling with others that seemed to have all the necessary gear, so they asked around.
The others all said the same thing, that they didn't have a horse.
As the men were sorted, Lord Wytch, having been in deep discussion with what looked to be a messenger, stood before them once more.
"Men, we are to be swift in our response to Lord Baratheon's call, as well as in our fight against these raiding Dornish," he said. "You have been sorted in accordance with the need to arm and supply you. All men without mail will be receiving a linen undershirt and a coat of scales, and all without helmets shall receive one." Their lord grabbed one from a table set behind him, and it was a curious thing to Berric. A chinstrap dangled from a metal helmet with a rounded, thin brim, the likes of which reminded him of a large coin.
Their lord continued. "These shall keep the sun out of your eyes and shade you from the worst of it come marching or fighting. All bowmen shall also receive a second and third quiver of arrows, each according to their need upon the battlefield. According to Lord Baratheon we will be facing Dornish raiders, not properly armed and armored ones, so we will have no need of plate-piercing arrowheads. So for those of you with broadheads and the like, be sure to use them on their horses. They can't run away if their horses are all dead or throw their riders off in a blind panic."
That got a few chuckles from the assembled men. Whilst the double recurve bows were known for being strong and able to fire from the saddle, the Dornish were not Dothraki, thankfully. Then again, their bows were often used for raiding or surprise attacks, with pitched battles being a rarity, or so his grandfather had once told him. Whether in a surprise attack or an open field battle they'd be no less deadly, but he was confident they could return a volley at a far greater range with their Stormlander yew.
"We leave at dawn, so get your gear, find a bed, and get a good night's sleep, for tomorrow, we march west to our Lord Baratheon's aid!"
END OF PART I
A/N: so ends the first arc of this story. It's gotten long enough that I've had to start a new Word document, as it takes comparatively forever every time I save it, and given the troubles I've had with my laptop's battery running out between saves, since I usually spend at least an hour or two every day writing something, I've lost and had to rewrite portions of the last eight or so chapters. As it is, I'll also be taking a short break from this story to work on other projects of mine I've taken a sort os sabbatical from, but I should return shortly. Maybe a month or two? Hard to tell.
As always, comments, criticisms and discussions help fuel this ever-growing and evolving story. Until then, thanks for reading!
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