Mid 271 Summer
"What you did to Lord Dustan Drumm and his men…" Rickard Stark started, "Self defense. Maester Walys will take your official testimony of the event and it will be sent on to King's Landing and Pyke with my signature."
The grey robed man from the Reach nodded and I retold them everything I already put in my letter, everyone signed the transcript after I reread it, and I began to suspect that Rickard made me come here as some kind of flex because he seemed as fine with long awkward silences as I am. Walys Flowers looked like a man with his leg caught between two glaciers contemplating amputation to get him out of this situation.
Rickard and I engaged in the most Northman of Northern traditions, a cold war. Neither of us moved, or spoke, we just sat there staring at each other from across the table, waiting for either man to reveal he is flesh and bone, not axe hewn stone.
Lads, I'm sad to say I broke. Not because of the weight of my conscience or the austerity of my liege lord's gaze, but because of the mounting back pressure of piss building up in me to the point I felt I could put out a house fire using my cock as a fire hose.
Seeing me fidgeting, Rickard finally smiled, not with his mouth, but there was a little flash of light behind his slate eyes.
"You're not the first kid to think he knows what is what in the world and how to make it a better place to live in." Rickard spoke each word slowly to extend my agony, "We have an old song about someone like that. Brave Danny Flint. A girl who wanted to make the world a better place in a small way through solemn service. Raped and murdered by the very people she wanted to assist."
Rickard poured himself a tankard of mead and offered to pour me one as well but I waived it off. Then the man drank the mead in his tankard and in his cold hard soul, smirked.
"If this business with Drumm went the other way you'd be just another Brave Danny Flint, Jorah." Rickard stated with cold dispassion, "All that effort spent advancing your situation, gone just because someone else wanted what you worked for."
Rickard paused again, thankfully not another long suffered silence.
"Why the uncomfortable face, Jorah?" he inquired with almost a hint of amusement in his voice, "You're not a Brave Danny Flint. You won, and you get to keep all your things. For now. The thing about having something, anything really, is that there is always someone else who covets what you have. Don't let that bother you. Even when you have little, more still will be taken. So it's better to have, and from the rumors I've heard, you have made yourself quite the fortune already and with that new sword in your hands you'll soon enough have the chance for far more. But let's talk about those rumors. It is hard to find information in the North, we are all so isolated, news travels so slow unless it's important enough to arrive on raven wings. It's hard to know what is happening in these lands, but if you know where to look, you can figure things out."
I held my hand out, "Lord Stark, before we go speak any further, if I do not step out and relieve myself I will piss my pants and we'll be lucky if my boots don't overflow."
For the first time since we started talking, Rickard Stark actually smiled.
"Step right out, Lord Mormont." he excused me, "Ask the servants for assistance."
Rickard had a real smirk on his face when I returned. Apparently he could hear my animal-like groans as I pressure washed his privy. I swear to the gods my cock veins grew three sizes that day from Lord Stark's power play.
"Now that everyone is more comfortable, we'll move to matters of greater importance." the Lord Paramount restarted our meeting, "Historically every time the King of Iron Islands had put a ban on the Old Ways of the Ironborn, the following generation does everything in their power to undo all the good will their predecessors garnered. Once Lord Quellon is out of power the target that's been painted on you from the first moment you chose to sail a captured longship past Pyke will draw every reaver looking to make a name for himself down on your head. The ones that can't get you will go after your neighbors. The whole western coast will suffer. From the Wulls to the Flints."
If he expected my face to be anything less than something carved of granite, he should have made me wait longer with all that piss slowly turning my eyes yellow.
"We have a window of opportunity to build up strength in the west so long as Quellon Greyjoy keeps his hold on the Islands tight. Something you have helped maintain by breaking the backs of three houses ignoring his laws." Rickard pressed his fingertips together in a pose that I know relieves stress and centers the thoughts, "If all it took was opportunity and the command of a High Lord to raise the might of a region, we'd spend all our time at war. It takes resources, man power. Two things we never have enough of, and can never get more off."
Rickard let that sit for a moment then took a deep breath and let it out slowly, "If I told all my vassals to start trading with the south so we can build ourselves up, all of them would be offended and for every one that succeeds three will fail, making us weaker, but I have before me a lord with many ships and a positive trade balance with the Westerlands."
Like a straight psychopath, Rickard poured himself another tankard of mead and drank deeply from it. Did he relieve himself while I was away? Is he secretly pissing his pants behind that desk and I just can't smell it? Where is all this mead going?
"You will leave Winterfell with two writs." Rickard informed me, "The first for trade. You will have my conditional approval to trade with the western houses, and provide low interest loans to them. This writ is not for your profit, but to enable you to build up your neighbors as you have built up yourself. They will provide you with trade goods, sailors, and anything else you might need to enact a plan for economic growth. Copies of all agreements will be sent to Winterfell and are subject to my refusal."
The man sighed, "You will push further south, Old Town, Planky Town. Find what these people have, what they need. Extend your network. Extend our influence."
Rickard finished his mead then continued, "The second is for war. You will be the Lord Guardian of the West Coast, and able to mobilize in full or in part the fighting men of the houses specified within to destroy bandits, pirates, reavers, and wildlings for however long you remain effective and keep the King's Peace."
I did my best to keep my overwhelming feelings from showing on my face. Lord Stark just made me the Secretary General of the Western Union, giving me both economic and military authority, making me the master of life, death, and money within half his realm. It's partly a heady rush, because when the man in charge hands you the keys to the kingdom it is a very wild rush, but under that euphoric response is an undercurrent of dread.
It's hard to be responsible for just yourself. It's harder to be responsible for just your family. It is a huge burden to be responsible for a community if you intend to run it with any integrity and ambition for a better future. Running a community of communities in a manner that sees them enriched and secured is nightmarish, but it's also the chance I need to finally be rid of the gods damned savages of the Frozen Shore and to be properly militarized for the first opportunity the Ironborn give me to destroy them. Plus it gives me a leg up on dealing with the top level dissolution of the feudal system and the suicidal political maneuverings of the south.
This is the best chance I have of building a force capable of surviving the next thirty years. Whether or not we will make it to the end of the Long Night. Anyone's guess. But I'll put my money on me over 'she's muh queen' and his discount Professor X cousin any day.
"What I give you is a solemn duty, and not a burden I would place on you had your actions and the results of which not given me confidence in you and your abilities." Rickard leaned forward, "Do not allow the powers granted drive you to arrogance and greed. Do not grow comfortable in authority. Carry out these duties, Lord Jorah Mormont, in service to the people of the North. Never forget."
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How's that for a plot twist? Rickard Stark the man who created the STAB Alliance that brought down the Targaryen's, the kind of great alliance SI characters wish they could conduct, turns out to be just a savvy a political player at home.
Jorah is the only one of his bannermen that aligns with his plans for expanding his southern influence, and if you noticed he assigned him the Westerlands, the Reach, and Dorne. Obviously Jorah isn't expected to bind the Lords Paramount to the North the way Rickard manages too, but Ser Lionel is proof that having connections to the middle management comes in clutch when you need something.
Jorah now serves as the dictator of the hardest lands for Rickard to manage, and he is the primary vassal with the least capacity to turn that kind of influence around on the Starks. Obviously if Roose Bolton all of a sudden proved he was a major breadwinner this kind of response wouldn't happen. I think of this more like how the Royces serve as stewards while Jon Arryn is hand of the king, but with a mandate for progress and the looming threat of the Ironborn.
It's appropriate to share power, and though it might seem weird for Rickard to invest so much power into a 17 year old, Jorah is the only western lord with a chance at improving the situation. I'm sure I'll field some complaints about how convenient it is, but in my estimation the fields of butchered bodies and piles of loot Jorah stands on put him a high above all his neighbors and it would be silly for a competent ruler to ignore that.
You can support me and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm