Mid 276 Spring
Gawen reacted to the news of Alysa's death in the exact same way I did, his eyes misted, his lips pressed into a hard line and his brow furled. Alsya was one of a dozen Northern notables who died this spring of fever, including Lady Stark. Illness is just one of those things that happens, not even modern Earth could stop it, let alone a world like Westeros where so much advancement simply could not happen due to the fight against nature and the tyranny of magic. As such, losses like these are no excuse to break down. The business of governance and influence goes on regardless of our feelings.
And business is booming with the Flints and Ryswells coming online fully with Gawen, the Clans, and I as partners. We'd taken stock of our assets throughout the warm winter, and determined our needs, the most pressing of which is now our defenses against invasion and incursion. We can source food and fuel from the south, we have the means and the method, but between the five of our domains our domestic security looked remarkably like swiss cheese. We needed to clench up before our holes get invaded.
The Flints of Flint's Finger, the Ryswells, and the Mountain Clans were to focus on the production of stone and mortar for our castle building operations. I contracted a guild in Lannisport to start digging cisterns at the locations we wished to fortify. On earth, this kind of operation could take up to ten years due to location and soil conditions, but this is Westeros, so the guild could get it done in five comfortably even in the hardest of our locations.
The Ryswells and Flints would also greatly increase their herds of sheep, while the Mountain Clans build a road from the coast to the Shadow Tower for future raiding. They didn't like being told to come together for such a project, but hatred of the Wildlings north of the Wall drove them to do it. The Glovers upped their logging and tended herds of swine. There was some concern about pigs breaking away from the farms and going feral, but the idea that pigs could breed so fast they could fill the forests and overrun homesteads just made my contemporaries excited for the prospect of roast boar every night. Truly, they would need no persuading to hunt wild herds here in Westeros. Only more spears.
Far Harbor with its large urban population and years of experience processing raw materials into finished products became the heart and lungs of the system. The women folk had a strong community of cottage industry for the processing of wool into sails, cloths, and armor. The men had options in shipbuilding, iron work, bronze work, agriculture, and fishing should they wish not to sail with me.
All of this existed because of my network of trade and loans, allowing each of us to take advantage of our opportunity costs so we can all get what we need at the lowest possible prices. We'd ultimately over the course of the next decade build up a steely strength between us to throw off all comers, and become the takers ourselves, no longer the victims, no longer the sickly west coast of the North, but a real geopolitical power.
Both the Ryswells and the Flints pledged eight hundred men for the Great Raid of 277. I liked to start them on the first day of the new year so we had a handful of months to prepare. I did not like the cocky tone in which the Ryswells and Flints discussed the matter. I joke about this being an extended boys weekend, but the work is hard and requires diligence and vigilance to avoid disaster. The easy success of the last great raid inspired too much confidence and greed.
I felt a particular unease about the Ryswells, who would be led by the oldest of three contentious and hot headed brothers. If they could not be relied on to obey their father, how can they be relied on to swiftly and accurately obey the commands of their leader in the field? At least I could offload my horse breeding project onto them. The charm of the activity quickly faded, and I could care less about the prestige so long as I get a good animal to ride upon in tourneys and battle. Each of the brothers assured me that his stable would produce the best horses, so hopefully the competition will drive quality of the product, and not lead to sabotage and infighting.
Of my brothers-in-law, the younger Robett would take command, Gawen not at all happy with the contention and reservations of his heir. He didn't much care that I was a force of cultural reversion, bringing us back to the savagery of the past. The old Glover wanted power and prestige, and the current order of things kept us weak and infirm. Galbard's moral stance came from a good place, but this is Westeros. The moral high ground is a wood tower soaked in pitch. It might feel nice while you're up there, but anyone with a torch and a desire will set you on fire.
Galbard's lucky to have learned this in a low stakes environment, as his move to deny his men female thralls bred a lot of resentment in the lower ranks despite his bannermen yes-manning the situation. A good leader knows that resentment is a cancer that will spread and destroy an organization. That's why I am religious in my practice of delayed gratification with my men. They can exhibit greater discipline because they know they will get theirs, just in the hour and method of my will, and that because of it they will have greater long term reward.
That's why men have leaders. As much as I may want to pound my chest full of love for individualism, the vast majority of people can't effectively plan long term, so they rally around leaders. The real problems start when the leaders can't effectively plan long term, or become so corrupt that they refuse too. I dream of a time when I am so highly regarded that people will pay me to move counter to the interest of my people. Bribes sound so sweet.
I paid visits to all my allies during the lead up to the raid, ensured they knew what was expected of them in terms of conduct, equipment, and performance. These conversations occurred out of the earshot of any women, for despite sole power being vested in the hands of men, the ears of men are quite vulnerable to shrill reprisal. Most women just aren't as cool as Alysa Mormont was, and the boasting of lordlings and men-at-arms tends towards quite coarse.
If even half the things these guys brag about comes true, then we will wipe the Wildlings of the Frozen Shore out, clear out the Frostfangs, and feast on roast meat and mead in the Haunted Forrest in just ninety days. I give those claims three skeptical faces out of five.
I carried many orders for equipment back to Far Harbor, as it was significantly cheaper to outfit warriors in my urbanized domain and simply perform final fittings at home, than to swamp the local blacksmiths with fairly tedious jobs start to finish. My town housed over a hundred journeyman blacksmiths and had a large body of thralls working the low end apprentice work, all state organized and funded, like the bronze workers.
In the whole lot I don't have a single master smith, the closest being the sword smith who worked for my father supplying our men-at-arms, and the crotchety bastard old bastard would have taken the method for making castle-forged steel with him to the grave had I not forced the issue by holding his grandson's head underwater until he swore to teach the apprentices I sent him. Every time the man got uppity I helped him remember what the first time felt like, and I'm sure he got himself killed by the Spring Fever this year just to spite me.
Honestly, the old folk on this island make me regret the health and sanitation mandates I enforce in Far Harbor. If I let them live in their filth like their want, people wouldn't live as long and I'd have less old timers to deal with. Unfortunately on the scales, the pros of reduction in infant mortality outweighs the cons of increased life expectancy.
Truly a cruel calculus, and few are the men willing to sacrifice as much as I for the people I serve. A noble and righteous heart beats in my chest.
My migrant bronze workers found themselves beset on all sides by thralls and new apprentices, for just like my iron industry, they too are of strategic importance. While they taught their new coworkers the trade, my shipwrights split logs of white oak from old growth trees of incredible size taken from our northern neighbors, and assembled a ship on par in size with The Thunderer. The Great Sea Bear was to be my new flagship and was on track for completion before the final month of the year. One hundred oars, fore and aft platforms for archers, space enough for two hundred fifty men.
The ship needed to be riveted together using the same bronze being used to plate the hull to prevent reactions between differing metals. That combination of white oak and naval bronze working together provided an incredible resistance to rot, worms, and other evil ship destroying infiltrators that greatly extends service life for my ships, and since the bronze does not allow barnacles to grow upon my hull, our average speed on long voyages goes way up while our down time in dry dock goes way down, greatly increasing the economic viability of many trade routes.
And if one of those trade routes happens to be an archipelago filled black girls of well documented beauty who worship sex… well I might just find a religion in this world I can fully sink my faith into. Thrust myself deeply into the warm embrace of piety. I am, after all, a devout man simply looking for the tight fit - I mean right fit. No… I meant tight fit.
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I was surprised by how few people got my reference in the previous chapter titles. For some reason I assumed Frank Sinatra was required listening.
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