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283 AC

As I thought, once I was three, my study started, and the man who was supposed to teach me was none other than Maester Wolkan, he was a pudgy older man, but not as old as in the show, still, he looked good for his age.

"Are you listening, milord?" I shook myself from my thoughts as I smiled at Wolkan, still, somehow I could see the smile unnerving him, I heard rumors from some maids who thought I was asleep that when I smiled, my eyes, the Bolton cold eyes that seemed to by hereditary, shone with malevolent light, which, is not good, not when I want to make people loyal to me, I know fear and respect is supposed to be balanced for loyalty to be strong, but how can I ear adoration when even my smile make the fuckers tremble?!

"My apologies, Maester, I just thought about the lecture." Wolkan looked at me with askance, so I continued, "I know that our house lands are mostly bare and stony, with few forests, but couldn't we use our access to water for trade?" I confusedly asked, Wolkan just looked at me as he asked.

" And what, milord, should we sell that others would pay for? Stone? Or the trees from the few forest house Bolton possesses?" Fuck... Yea... What should we sell fucking hell, just how bad is the Bolton family, yea, by this world standard, it could still be good or good enough, from what I saw and was told until now, Bolton lands had farms enough to feed the fifty thousand civilians, I fucking rejected calling them smallfolk, still, Bolton lands were enormous, just like most of the Northern house's lands were, the problem for most, and not so much for Bolton's, was that the population was dispersed through the entire enormously big land, making any mobilization for most houses nightmare, not so much for Bolton house, as most civilians in our land were gathering near the places that could feed them, which were too few in our lands, maybe that was reason Bolton house couldn't be so easily defeated, as the mobilization of any army would be much faster in our lands...

"Do we not have any mines?" I fished for information, Wolkan already knew I wasn't an ordinary child, and I was glad he didn't try to belittle me because if yes, I couldn't stay happy for too long, even if I didn't have any real power in the house, I was still heir of the Bolton family.

"Currently in Bolton lands are two medium quality copper mines and three minor quality iron mines." Wolkan said as he kept looking at me, it was still beyond me how exactly the things worked in there, even when I looked at the documents my father left on the desk, and even Wolkan help in teaching me didn't help much, mainly from the fact that we still didn't move to these more complicated matters, but mainly because I still had the mind of a man who lived twenty-five years in the more civilized world, as such most of my understanding very hardly clashed with things I saw there, being lord and ruling over peasants? Ok, that can do, but understand just what the people of this world wanted? For that, I needed to think very carefully, no matter how impossible, I will not temp Murphy...

Still, even if we are supposed to go through my math, or numbers as this world calls it, my letters and such, Wolkan, just like the rest, don't play stupid in acknowledging that I already know these things, thanks to years of doing nothing other than trying to translate westerosi language with the help of the more knowlededateble maids, which were few, but still enough for me to annoy them with my never-ending questions, it was slow, repetitive, and fucking irritating work, but when I was closing to my third birthday, or name-day as they call it, I was already good enough to understand most of the things correctly, there were still more complicated words I didn't hear so, from time to time I was like a fish out of water...

Wolkan POV

The more the young heir asked, the more Wolkan knew there was something wrong with his student, asking how the Bolton family earned gold dragons, asking how many souls lived in Bolton lands, asking how many knights were pledged to the Bolton family, how many town's and villages Bolton land had...

The things that would be taught in his ten name-days or more, but having three name-day boys ask such things? Wolkan wasn't very religious, not many Maesters were, as religion was one of the things they pledged to not practice even if they should study it, but the more Wolkan spent time with the Bolton heir and thus his small lord, the more Wolkan minds drifted to the rumors he overheard the people say about the young lordling, things like Blessed by Old Gods, Blessed by the Seven, that Dark magic was at play in there, and more...

Of course, when Wolkan heard such things, he made sure to reprimand such smallfolk, as it wouldn't do if rumors go outside of the castle walls, Bolton's weren't very much loved, and Wolkan knew the sole reason nobody dared to act was fear, fear of being flayed alive...

"Do we have port towns?" Again, asking such things he shouldn't be capable of knowing or even understanding...

"I fear not milord, because of law, Bolton family currently posses just fisher villages, and even these are questionable because of Ironborn raids, Bolton family cant construct its own fleet," Wolkan explained.

"Law? Ah... Of course, the Starks..." How? How did the child know, or how did he arrive at the truth of the matter so quickly? It was true that because of punishment so long ago, generations away, Stark forbid Bolton owing its own fleet.

"Wait... Fleet? Not port towns?... I see." There it was, the smile that sent shivers to most of the people, not Wolkan himself, at least not any longer, Wolkan worked for Lord Roose Bolton for years, he already got accustomed to these smiles that promise nothing more than pain, even if Roose Bolton never smiled, because for Roose Bolton smile was just a quirk of the lips, as such Wolkan quite quickly understood that these smiles weren't truly malevolent, no matter how much they looked like it, and wasn't that crux of the matter, for such young boy to have a such natural evil smile?

Wolkan pitied any weak-willed woman who would wish to gain young lords' affection...

And as Wolkan kept answering his young lord's questions, as this lecture was nothing other than Wolkan answering and young lord asking, now that he thought about it, Wolkan knew that he genuinely never was in the lead in there, Wolkan started to create a report he would give to his lord Bolton about his son's questions and intelligence...

As that was the sole time, even Wolkan's older and tired eyes could catch the slightest quirk up of the Roose Bolton corners of the lips...