Like a Dog
Mid 271 Summer
A deeply angry and impulsive part of myself wanted to dress my men up as Ironborn, load up on our captured ships, and sail down to Old Wyk to finish my promise to Dunstan Drumm. I could see it in my fantasies. All these gods damned savages invading my home, killing my people, and worse of all trying to take my stuff. I just want them all to pay for their crimes. For turn about to be fair play, but for some reason I don't have the kind of cultural momentum to invade another noble's lands and get away with it by shrugging my shoulders and going, 'aw shucks' the way the Ironborn have gotten away with it for thousands of years.
Fortunately my discipline and desire for gains stayed my course. Old Wyk didn't offer the kind of loot that would make it worth breaking the King's Peace and potentially putting myself into his hands for judgment.
Instead, I wrote a letter to Lord Rickard Stark informing him of the attack, detailing the results, and putting the ball in his court for the continuation of this interkingdom conflict. It pained my soul to not avenge myself against such a vulnerable foe, but I followed proper procedure and soon enough I had a response letter summoning me to Winterfell.
This wasn't some Harvest Festival invite I could send Maege to in my stead, or a tradition I could take a shortcut on and continue about my business. I gathered supplies and men for the journey as soon as the letter arrived and we set out the next morning down to the tidal flats north of Deepwood Motte on the Thunderer.
I disembarked with fifty men and sent the rest home to take part in the terracing of the mountains and hills we cleared during the construction of Far Harbor. With my demand for new ships taken care of for the next projected decade by the generous donation of my enemies I needed to shift the production of my thralls and smallfolk. While agrarian ventures weren't the most profitable use of my people, increasing domestic food production is never the wrong answer in Westeros.
I'd negotiate trade for various seed and livestock with my neighbors by adding some stops on my return trip from Winterfell, but first I needed to cross the Wolfswood and stop by the keep of my Glover relatives. The men and I marched three leagues, fifteen miles, from the coast to reach Deepwood Motte, and despite ruling far more land and people than I, the stench of raw poverty hung heavy over the hill fort.
The first and largest of the earth and wood walls of the glovers had two towers and a coating of moss growing on it, but at least the men working the gate were quick with the pass through. I had to march around the fort twice to pass through the alternating gates of the inner two ring walls that crept up the sides of the flattened hill the Glovers lived atop, but I eventually came to the keep and found it wanting.
Even Mormont Keep had more grandeur and a hint of je ne sais quoi beyond its inherent depression. Outside the neat tower sticking fifty feet beyond the roof, the keep would hardly service my growing family, and was at least twenty steps back from the opulence of Rockhall.
And these guys used to be kings.
After we got through the whole bread and salt debacle my father-in-law and I had a nice sit down staring contest for several minutes of awkward silence, but unfortunately for him I live for those quiet moments.
"I don't remember you being so big the last time I saw you." Gawen Glover stated before he took a drink of his mead.
"I was one and ten when last you saw me." I reminded the man who promptly spit out his mead and looked at me in slack jawed shock.
"Did you just say one and ten?" the gobsmacked man questioned me.
"Mhm." I hmmed, "I'm seven and ten now."
Gawen and I had a good and long talk about ourselves and by the end of it the man decided that he would return with me to Bear Island to see the changes my efforts brought and his grandchildren.
My men and I left the next morning with a guide to lead us safely through the wild forest between the coast and Winterfell. While we had permit to hunt the beasts of the Wolfswoods from my father in law who had split authority with the Starks and the Umbers for the taking of game in their regions, we could not take our sweet time answering the summons of our liege lord.
During our passing through the woods we came upon a hamlet between two small lakes, and on a tiny plot of land in the northern body of water stood a great wierwood heart tree. We stayed here for an evening and left the small folk living here a cask of mead as thanks for hosting us.
The crofter's village was barely a league from the end of the woods, and Winterfell came into clear view when we left behind the tree line. The sight of Winterfell hit with the kind of awe I'd have expected from seeing something like Hogwarts or Minas Tirith. The ancient fortress was almost half again as sprawled out as Castle Prague with two sets of granite walls, the first eighty feet and the second a hundred feet tall with thirty towers. Built across several hills, the massive castle complex almost had the whimsy one would expect of a magic castle.
I remember coming here as a boy, dragged along by my father to the Harvest Feasts, and the rooms with slanted floors where the original builders chose to simply go with the flow of nature rather than do some excavating. It was almost nightmarish navigating Winterfell, and if I'd been a normal child on those trips I would have either been filled with wonder or wracked with panic attacks. I was already feeling a little queasy thinking about some of the smaller spaces in the castle I'd found during my brief visits.
And this is coming from a guy who lives under a hill.
Fortunately I did not need to traverse any of those spaces to receive my guest rights and await my meeting with Lord Stark. Only a brief period of time saw me outside of Rickard's private office.
The room that controlled the course of the entire North was as spartan and bleak as the rest of the complex. A big desk, simple chairs, bookcases with tomes bound in dark leather, a few muted historical tapestries, a number of parchment rolls at hand for the man in charge.
Rickard Stark looked like a stereotype, but considering his position he is the archetype. Tall, dour, dark hair, gray eyes. We were colored almost exactly alike aside from my blue eyes and green garb, but I came to the unfortunate discovery that my clothes were of much higher quality than his.
It was hard to tell if Rickards wool coat was gray due to his preferred dyes or just faded black, and his leather vest and boots were much the same.
I did my tailoring in Lannisport these days, and came to this meeting in my best leather boots, chaps, and jacket. All with ivory buttons that went well with the silver and ivory adorning my belt including a big bears head buckle. I'd even kept the heavy gold rope necklace formerly worn by Lord Drumm and a thick sea dragon themed torque bangle from Andrik the Unsmiling. I'd killed great men and taken great looking loot.
It also made Lord Stark look like a pauper.
We haven't said a single word and things are already off to such a great start.
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Jorah's fantasies about raiding Old Wyk are actually alternate life memories of a chapter I wrote last night were he actually chose to raid Old Wyk rather than inform Lord Stark. While the attack itself was plausible, the aftermath would only have been negative, so I cut the chapter after finishing it.
Instead we get the ground work for the head to head everyone has been waiting for, Rickard Stark vs Jorah Mormont.
Thank God its Saturday, because if I had to work today this chapter wouldn't have happened till tomorrow.
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