6 Chapter 6

On behalf of Daeron

While Lord Manderly was staying with us, my business generally proceeded at the same pace as before the arrival of this family. But magical practices had to be limited, as over time the Manderley girls and the rest of the kids took up a decent amount of time.

However, I also had moments free from the kids, most of these moments I spent on vacation. At the moment, I was near the Mikken forge, from him I learned the subtleties of inspection over weapons and armor.

"Oh, are you Jon again?" Mikken asked me.

Mikken is an elderly man with noticeable gray hair and a stern, typical northern face. His severity receded in the presence of children, very often he allowed us to be with him at his work.

"Hello," I said with a smile on my face and scratched my head out of embarrassment out of habit.

"Okay, come on in and help Walder."

"Thanks," I replied sincerely.

Walder is a good-natured giant, that was his name, one of the tallest people I have ever met in Westeros, he is a huge man almost two and a half meters tall, distinguished by remarkable physical strength. He has a shaggy head and arms overgrown with brown hair, bulging with muscles. However, under these muscles and power, he is at the same time one of the most good-natured and friendly people, if not of the whole North, then Winterfell for sure.

Despite his kindness, he studied military craft, but preferred blacksmithing to sword and shield, Walder was also responsible for most of the horses. Walder's very existence made an impression on me, because I knew him from the series, but there he was a traumatized person who could only say "Hodor." Now he is kind, not smart, but also not a stupid person.

I often talked with him, his kindness and smile attracted children to him, but he was not burdened by the company of children. Most of our communication consisted of him telling stories about the Starks and their shared childhood, and I listened to him, but it was interesting.

His ability to tell stories probably passed down to him from Old Nan, yet she is his great-grandmother. But where did he get his talent for martial arts?

"Yes, I once saw him in a training match, which happened only after Robb and I finished him off with this request. In that battle, he showed not only his monstrous power, but also a very remarkable talent and skill of the sword.

"So do you want to hear the story of how Lady Lyanna made me fight her?" said this kind giant, I'm cleaning swords.

"Do you still ask? Of course, I want to!" I replied with considerable enthusiasm.

"Hahah, well then listen, as you probably heard, Lady Lyanna and Lord Brandon had 'Wolf Blood'? But all these stories will not be able to convey even a third of what these two did...."

After that, there were stories about their childhood, all the pranks that Lyanna arranged and the problems that Brandon created. According to him, they once told Benjen that in order to be able to control the horse better, he had to go and pee on the largest horse in the stable. The results were disappointing.

In general, from Mikken and Walder, I learned about steel and Valyrian in particular, the magical properties of Valyrian products are legendary, I already knew a lot about them before that. For example, I knew about the unimaginable sharpness and strength of this blade, but I did not know about Qohor, the only place where Valyrian steel can be forged, the secrets of reforging are kept in the strictest secret. It is rumored that sacrifices with children are made there for forging, including, given that they believe in the Black Goat and the words of Maester Paul, it is not difficult to believe in the part about sacrifices.

In my opinion, the Black Goat is one of the most terrible gods, it requires daily blood sacrifices. Calves, steers, and horses are most often sacrificed on the altar, and on the days of sacred holidays, criminals go under the knife of hooded priests. In times of crisis and danger, the city's nobility sacrificed their own children to please the god who could protect the city.

This religion has followers besides Qohor in Asshai, a place where there is nothing forbidden.

Sharpening Valyrian steel is not worth it, since the sharpness of such materials persists for centuries, and cleaning the blade itself is also one of the difficult tasks. Since even just touching the blade, you can get a good wound like this.

Thank all the Gods and Entities for the Arsenal, for all the weapons that are sent to my pocket dimension are cleansed of all impurities.

After the forge, I decided to take a walk to clear my head, and as I approached the kitchen, a little girl with mischievous gray eyes imprinted on me.

"What happened, little sister?" I asked with a smile, knowing that this sweet girl had done something grand.

"Jon! Well... I doused Sansa and Septa Mordane with flour," she spoke like a naughty cat.

"Hahaha, is that why I hear such screams from the kitchen?"

"Yeah, you're not going to turn me in, are you?" "What is it?" she asked with puppy dog eyes.

"No, of course, let's go to my place, it will be easier for you to hide there."

"Thanks, Jon! You are the best brother in the world," she said, hugging me.

"Hahaha, don't let Robb hear this, he'll be offended yet."

To which Arya just nodded, and we were able to quietly make our way to my room, where Arya quickly settled down on my bed.

"Sit here, I'll go get something to eat," I said before heading towards the kitchen.

In general, my relationship with the chefs was not bad, at times I could beg them to chew something. I had a particularly good relationship with Torren, he was already an elderly man of about 50 with already noticeable gray hair, with kind brown eyes and a decent belly, he makes excellent meat dishes. I also took cooking lessons from him, it was this man who taught me how best to cook deer, rabbits, and other animals located in the North.

So today I went to him, to get food for Arya and me. When I entered the kitchen, I was greeted by the sight of the working staff, my target was 3 meters away from me and was working on something delicious.

As soon as I entered, Torren had already noticed me and only grunted knowingly and nodded.

"Huh, I think it's already clear that Arya made this noise?" I asked with a smile.

"Hahaha, who else could it be?" "And I take it you came to get food for her?" The cook said with a smile.

I just nodded, but Torren shook his head and pointed to two pies.

"Thank you!" I shouted, holding the pies in my hands at the exit.

The way back had to be slightly changed since the evil as Satan Septa Mordane was walking in the direction of the kitchen, I could see it through the eyes of a crow.

At the moment, I can use two or three crows as an additional viewing angle without problems for the main point of view. With active intervention, I could take control of the order of 10 crows, but the distance of my influence did not change much. But this is not so important because most of the houses in the North are already under my supervision, the main focus of my observation was shifted, of course, to the Boltons.

From my observations, the bastard Roose was not visible in the castle, but there was a Domeric. Roose Bolton is a man of medium height, he has an unremarkable face with smooth skin without wrinkles and scars, thin lips, pale, almost colorless eyes like ice, his eyes from a distance may look like the eyes of the Starks. He wears black chain mail and a stained pink cloak with embroidered drops of blood. Lord Bolton likes to put healing leeches on himself, a very nasty process, so to speak, but Lord Bolton believed that they were good for health.

Domeric was similar in many ways to Roose in appearance, but he is a very quiet and very gifted boy, likes to read books, plays the high harp, and is an excellent horseman. He currently serves as a page for his maternal aunt Lady Barbry Dustin.

Ramsay was also found by me, which was not difficult since he is very similar to Roose and there is also cruelty with savagery. He now had a servant, nicknamed Stinky, who constantly accompanies the master. He received it after Ramsay's mother arrived at the Dreadfort demanding to give the bastard, who grew up wild and uncontrollable, a servant — Roose Bolton gave her a Stinky as a mockery. However, Ramsay and Reek, and that was actually Stinky's name, became inseparable.

Sadism is really in the blood of this family, at least for most of it. I did not notice this trait in Domeric, maybe the upbringing of his mother somehow interrupted the upbringing of Roose. But Ramsay has this cruelty in abundance, now it's not so noticeable because he's not hunting for people yet. However, the animals felt this sadism in full, to see how he rips out the guts of dogs and other animals just for the sake of pleasure. He once almost killed a crow through which I watched him, his arrows often found a target, this and the cunning that he has are the only useful properties of this subject.

In addition to the Boltons, such families as the Mormonts, Ambers, Manderleys and Karstarks were under my attention. The first ones were doing very badly, since Jorah Mormont had already begun to sell smugglers into slavery in order to satisfy the desires of his beloved Lynesse, yes she was beautiful but she had no less pampering, as can be seen from her relationship to other people.

I did not follow Manderley as carefully as the others because the merchants attracted my attention more, but according to my observations, I am able to learn many tricks and tricks of trading from them. In general, thanks to White Harbor, I was able to see a lot of traders from other regions of this world, ranging from Braavos to Lys. It was there that I first saw the Valyrians and heard the Valyrian language. From a lot of short conversations among the owners of the Valyrian language, I was able to pick up some words in Valyrian.

The most popular saying was probably "Ydra ji Valyre?" Which roughly meant "Do you speak Valyrian?"

At the same time, from observing the Ambers, I was able to understand the reason for the hatred of the Wildlings from the houses of the North. This particular house suffered a lot from frequent raids, and I saw people on the other side of the Wall killing, raping and devouring people who are on the other side of the Wall. Because of this, it was even more difficult to come up with a plan to transfer a large part of these people.

I did not dare to look beyond the Wall, because there are much more werewoods there and let's not forget about the Three-Eyed Raven, alas, I know little about his intentions, but I know that he has enough magical powers in reserve.

Under such thoughts, I came to my room, where there was one restless girl who had already managed to get bored. Arya's eyes lit up when she saw me and the pies, and before I could put the pies in front of her, Arya had already eaten half of the pie.

Even when we finished eating, and after a couple of stories, I was still able to persuade Arya to go to her room.

"Arya, listen, if you don't go to your lady mother now, there could be a lot more problems."

After looking at me for a couple of minutes, she still nodded and ran to her room, shouting at the same time:

"Next time, you'll show me how to use a bow!"

It sounded like a fait accompli, but knowing me, I'm unlikely to be able to refuse Arya.

Next, I also had to train magic through the summoning-recall of my combat knife, in general, through constant practice, magical power, although developed, but not as much as I would like, and each time the growth of my "magical muscles" decreased. For example, through blessings, I received an order of magnitude more magical powers.