Marcus awoke the next morning to find that the ship was already making good speed towards the Stormlands.
On the top deck He found Davos once again at the helm of the ship and approached him.
Davos for his part grinned as he saw him approach and asked „I see that your trip was productive milord"
"Oh yes. Great fun it was. I got a guided tour of Sunspear's dungeon and its famed hospitality." Marcus responds with fake cheer.
Davos grimaces at that feeling awkward for a moment and responds lightly "Well at least you still have your head milord."
Snorting at that Marcus offers in turn "Well there is that, but that is not what I wanted to talk to you about."
Waiting a moment and staring into the sea he asks Davos earnestly "I have a job for you if you are willing?"
Davos frowns at that and says "I'm out of the smuggling business milord. Retired!" and emphasize the point he dangles the pouch with his recently severed finger joints.
"I'm aware of that. The job I have for you is nothing complicated or illegal. I simply need some volcanic ash delivered to me once Dragonstone is secure once more." Marcus responds.
"Volcanic ash! What could you possibly need with that milord? Not that I'm prying or anything." He hesitantly asks.
"Does it matter? I'm willing to pay you ten silvers per barrel and would accept all the ash you can bring me. It s a simple trade job, that could get you quite the amount." Marcus adds.
Frowning at that as to Davos's ears it would seem the offer is too good to be true so he hesitantly questions further "So if I'm to bring you a hundred barrels of this ash you would pay me a thousand stags milord."
Marcus thinks it over and responds "Sounds about right. The catch being that we would have to wait until the crown retakes Dragonstone, but after that is done yes. So are you willing?"
"Just last one question milord. Why me I'm a nobody milord." Davos questions bewildered.
"You are a good man Davos and if we make a deal you are skilled enough to avoid trouble on the sea" Marcus says with finality looking Davos in the eyes.
"Well in that case I accept milord." Davos responds.
"Very well once you are able load up on as much of the stuff as you can and head for the Bite. There you are to send a man to Moat Cailin and inform me of your arrival. Then I will arrive to pick up the barrels and pay you for the load." Marcus instructs.
Davos frown at the odd request, but nods his affirmation regardless.
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Once they reached Storm's End they could see the beginning of a massive construction effort was underway to construct a royal Armada.
The only inconvenience was that he needed to buy a horse and some warmer clothes for the colder northern weather. He managed to procure everything easily enough after all he did still have a pouch full of gold.
The problem was with the clothes themselves they were rough, coarse and very itchy. The issue with that was that they were supposedly of a quality by local standards that was worn by most mid to low level nobles. It was nothing like the fine silks and linen he was given in Dorne. Those were of a quality that would have been considered more than good enough even for his old world.
The woolen garments he was currently wearing over his satin shirt were barely more than rags by any standard and the problem was that he could tell that the peasants were wearing even worse clothes, there for the possibility that he was being swindled was nonexistent unfortunately.
From there the journey to Riverrun itself took a little over a month. It would have probably have taken less time if he didn't lose his way several times. However for his first time navigating Westeros it was surprisingly quick journey, but then again it wasn't difficult to get directions especially as he was willing to part with a few coins here and there.
At last he reached Riverrun. He was grouchy, tired and all in all not in a good mood.
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Marcus found out that he was just in time for the host to head north two days later they made north.
The mood was somewhat jubilant, if a little muted by the fact that Lyanna was apparently dead and of the Lords that went with Lord Stark to rescue her only Lords Stark and Reed came back and with an infant baby boy that Lord Stark claimed as his own.
Marcus was certain that the child wasn't his, but decided not to bring the issue up at all. Considering the new kings view on anything to do with the old ruling family. The truth was likely to reignite the war.
A few days after the journey north began Marcus met Catelyn Tully for the first time and Immediately disliked her even if he tried his best not to show it and give her the respect she was due.
She was very beautiful there was no denying that. He could see why Littlefinger wanted her so badly and was obsessed with her.
Marcus figured that he could come to tolerate her, but for the moment he couldn't reconcile the image of the spiteful woman she would become. Her current circumstances weren't ideal to say the least and he did have to give her credit for sticking to her word and acting in such a way to preserve the family honor.
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The host was nearing the swamps of the Neck the Reed bannermen would depart and the host would make way for his own lands of Moat Cailin.
Lord Stark approached him soon after the host entered the Neck to talk to him in private.
"It is still not too late you know." He comments to Marcus.
"Too late for what my lord?" Marcus questions.
"To choose different lands. The gods know that there are plenty of good empty keeps in the North that you can have as your own and no man here would question you skill or character. You don't have to settle for a ruin of little value." Lord Stark says.
"That is where you are wrong my lord. It has a tremendous value. True it is a ruin now, but I plan to turn it into a city that will rival the grandest in the known world. All I need now is people willing to work and a lot of them." Marcus comments.
"That is a bold claim to make Lord Lane. How exactly do you plan to make that happen?" Lord Stark questions honestly curious.
"Well there man plans that I have, but the biggest has to be the building of a canal. That is why I requested the lands in question." Marcus answers.
"A canal! What good would that be when winter comes and the smallfolk starve?" Stark continues the line of questioning.
"The answer is simple my lord. Trade. We would be able to go by boat from Bear Island to the Karhold without even leaving the North. I am confident that it would lead to nothing but good thigs for our people in the future." Marcus answers honestly.
"That is a nice dream to have indeed, however I'm not sure how possible it is." Stark says.
"It would take time a decade at the earliest, but I am confident in this endeavor and I am willing to stake my good name to it." Marcus says defensively.
"I meant nothing by it my lord. You have my blessing in this endeavor, if you are this certain that it will benefit the north. You are yet to lead me astray Lord Lane." Stark says conviction filling his voice.
"I won't let you down my lord you can count on that." Marcus says looking Lord Stark in the eyes.
Lord Stark for his part simply nods and with a farewell trots off to the head of the column.
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The journey to Moat Cailin took over two months, but that was normal considering that all the troops had only a single road to walk upon. They had lost a few people to the swamps felled by swamp fever or one of the many other dangers in the swamps of the neck. The swamps themselves looked like no other Marcus had seen in his life. It reminded him more of a thing straight out of a horror movie. He was half expecting a swamp monster or two to jump forth and drag any unsuspecting men into the bog. The swamp was spooky and deadly he could see why only fools would march through it north. It would take monumental stupidity to march on the North during winter let alone through this place.
Lord Stark had come to ask Marcus twice more, if he would instead like lands somewhere else. So much so that Marcus was beginning to worry what he might find on the other end of the causeway what the northmen called the only way north.
Soon enough the war host came upon the sight of the Drunkard's tower. Marcus rode ahead in a gallop giddy with anticipation and came upon the sight of his new holdings.
The three towers were the first thing he saw. They were the last left standing out of reputedly twenty, however considering that they were erected more than ten thousand years ago was actually no small feat.
Then he laid eyes upon the settlement. It wasn't that small considering that it rested at the mouth of the only over land trade route in or out of the North. It housed maybe a little over fifteen hundred people, but he couldn't tell by giving it a once over. He hoped there were more, but then again it could be less than that. The village looked downtrodden and miserable. Made of shanty wooden structures.
To a man like Marcus that had for near two months rode through a nightmarish swamp it looked like he had entered an entirely new world. Not that he hadn't done that before, but nevertheless it was a welcome sight.
The host had assembled outside the village and Marcus had formally sworn loyalty to the Starks of Winterfell and was made the new Lord of Moat Cailin, custodian of the Fever river and defender of the Gates. This was seen by all the noblemen save for Lord Reed who had departed much before the host's arrival at Moat Cailin. At the of the modest swearing in ceremony Marcus had stood up and humbly requested that they send to his care all those that were a drain on their resources. The poor, the unemployed, the homeless and the unwanted. Marcus had to word that part carefully in between his boasts for the future of Moat Cailin.
The boasts and the requests were viewed with amusement and bewilderment respectively by the gathered lords, but in the end he had managed to get at least half of them to accept to send him people to help his town grow into something better.
Soon after that the host went further north and Marcus lost sight of them. He then ordered his new captain of the guard a northerner by the name of Andrew Finnegan to take the men and garrison the Drunkard's tower while he went and occupied the Gatehouse tower.
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The next month passed uneventfully as Marcus was making a cursory examination of his new lands and holdings. He had to let go any dreams he had of draining his southern lands as the swamp and bog were something like the swamp equivalent of the Amazonian jungle of his own world. It wasn't all bad news. He had discovered by talking to the villagers that there was already a coal and a iron mine already working to the north east of Moat Cailin. The region was also rich in limestone and Sandstone as he had discovered for himself. There were no mines dedicated to mining it as of yet however.
During that time he had sent ten of his guards in two groups of five to spread the word to the farms and smaller villages that they were now beholden to the new lord of Moat Cailin.
He had managed to make a total count of the people living directly in Moat Cailin and was quite glad for the number. The total number was around two thousand eight hundred individuals both male and female not counting children to young to walk.
Marcus was also building the first ever vodka still in his free time. That is to say most of his time when not exploring his new holdings. He had chosen a pot still since it was easier to build, but ran into a problem almost immediately. The problem was one of measurements. Westeros has a very rudimentary system of measurements it would seem that was entirely nonfictional for his needs. There for before he could begin building anything he had to invent new measurements. He had quickly decided on the metric system since it would be easier to implement in his mind.
He had taken two metal poles and a yard of tin cloth and set about painstakingly create the measurements. The process was annoying and took two whole days. That was a lot longer then he thought. He had left one of the completed metal poles with the village blacksmith and one of the strips of finished cloth with the village seamstress as samples and molds for future making.
He had finally had what he needed to create a basic pot still but first he needed to build a temporary building to house it. Fortunately wood was plentiful on all sides.
The building construction and still construction by the blacksmith were two separate projects. The still took the blacksmith four days, while the building took ten.
He had finally managed to set it up and finding enough potatoes wasn't difficult. Marcus took five local lads that were slightly older than him and looked trustworthy enough and began teaching them how to make vodka.
He made two batches of vodka. One smaller and one large in order to teach the lads the process. In the end he felt almost comfortable in leaving them to make vodka by themselves. They seemed eager enough and he was paying them to make it and supplying the ingredients. He was paying them a handful coppers a month and the lads seemed to worship him for it. He was probably going to make quite a bit of money from vodka in the future. It was cheap and easy to make and historically quite the hit with colder regions on his own world.
Marcus gifted the first batch to the local tavern and told the proprietor an old ugly hag with barely any teeth give it out for free. Suffice it to say by the next day there was none of it left. The outcry from it was quite positive. He could almost say it was a smashing hit if the number of vomiting people or those that had passed out on the streets was anything to go by.
By the time the second batch was made he was well into his third month as lord of Moat Cailin. He still spared and trained the troops whenever it took his fancy. Considering however that there was little to do as of yet it was a common enough sight to see him train the men in the empty space between the three towers. He was planning to turn the towers into a small fort\barracks for the men, but that would be well into the future.
By the time the fourth month of his rule rolled around he was becoming extremely bored with the lack of anything to do. Besides training the men or helping the lads at the still there was little to be done with his meager resources. He had however sent fifteen to collect two of the smaller nearby villages and relocate them near the iron and coal mines and have the men work in the mines. The labor of the mines would then be shipped to Moat Cailin for Storage. The workers themselves were on the same paying scheme he had set up for the lads working the still. He would need to appoint someone to oversee them soon or it was likely to turn into one giant money sink with little to no benefit. However at present he had no one that he could put to the task.
He had erected two large wooden barns during his fourth month one to store food and the other to store coal an iron ore. They were a far cry from what he would need, but would do for now.
At the beginning of the fifth month however he decided had had enough of squatting in a tower and was time for a shopping trip to White Harbor. He had taken five men and headed that way all the while surveying his lands as he passed.
His lands had a certain charm to them and reminded him a little of his onetime visiting a friend in Scotland. He was saddened once more by the realization of all that he had lost in coming here, but quickly shook it off as he was becoming better and better at it.
The trip took around a week and soon enough they reached White Harbor the seat of House Manderly and his closest neighbor. It was also the largest settlement in the North and main port. It was probably the smallest of all the large cities in Westeros and Marcus could easily see it as he entered the city.
He was walking around the cities market square and marveling at all the different things on sale not because they were novel to him, but because they reaffirmed his belief that Westeros was very shinzo tech. It wasn't that bad, but considering how much of the world around them they seemed to know about granted in a roundabout fashion. It would seem they were one slight push away from a renaissance or an industrial era. That or become even more shinzo tech. The only thing this world seemed to have that came even remotely close to scientists was the maesters of the Citadel as far as he knew.
His musings were interrupted as a pair of Manderly guardsmen recognizable by the white merman with dark green hair, beard and tail on a light blue field approach him and request that he accompany them to New Castle as it would appear that his presence has been requested. He takes one of the five littler barrels of vodka he brought with himself and instructs his guards to find an inn to stay and that they are free for the night to do as they please and gives them each fifty stags so they can let the top off.
Marcus is then quietly escorted to the castle that sits atop the hill overlooking the city. He met with Lord Manderly at least once he is sure of it. During the victory feast of hell after the Battle at the Stoney Sept. There could be other times, but he couldn't remember. Not that he remembered much from that particular experience other than the fact that he was a really fat man with a funny beard.
He was soon led into the Mermen's Court as the hall was called. Marcus was really hopping that this was a meet and greet and not something else. Not that he could think of anything else that this could really be.
He came upon the sight of Lord Manderly and his two sons seated at a large table to a large feast. Marcus couldn't however tell whether it was a feast of some sort or the three Manderly's dinner. They war after all larger than life and such big boys needed a lot of food.
"Ah Lord Lane! Come sit with us." Lord Wyman Manderly said jovially with a chicken leg in one hand and a flagon of mead in the other the flagon spill in on his clothes a little as he waved it around.
"Marcus please Lord Manderly we are all of the north here are we not there is no need for formalities." Marcus says as he places the vodka on the table and sits down.
"Ha! Marcus it is. Then call me Wyman. These are my sons Wylis and Wendel." The fat lord says jovially as he motions with the chicken leg at his sons.
"A pleasure to meet you good Sers." Marcus responds.
"Say what is that you have there Marcus?" Wyman asks as he notices the vodka barrel.
"This well. It is a gift actually. I have been thought never to go into another man's house empty handed. It's something I've been working on as of late. It is a very potent alcohol that goes down real smooth." Marcus answers with a wolfish grin on his face and pries the barrel open.
"Ha! Splendid! It must be something great if it has your stamp of approval. I remember you complaining constantly how bad the wine was when we were south. Have it here. Servants pour us each a cup." Wyman says with a eager glint in his eyes.
"Careful it is some strong stuff." Marcus says as the servants move to pour each man a cup.
"There is something I wanted to ask you. There are some strange rumors flying around from the south." Wyman says in a less jovial and more even tone.
"Oh and what might those be I'll be happy to shed some light on the situation for you." Marcus says as he takes a sip from his vodka.
"Primarily the ones that say you killed some scary western bannerman and rescued the Martell girl" Wyman clarifies.
"I did do that yes and our lord knew of my actions and supported them. It wasn't my decision who to tell. I'm sure that he merely forgot to mention it. The days after King's Landing weren't pleasant for our lord" Marcus answers.
"Hehehe the very image of a knight aren't you Marcus. The Beast of the Bells, the Demon of the Trident and savior of damsels in distress." Wyman proclaims loudly before taking a rather large sip from his own cup of vodka.
"I do what I can." Marcus responds simply.
"Damn this is some strong stuff you got there Marcus. Good though." Wyman proclaims loudly. After making a face. All three of the Manderly's immediately begin to develop a slightly reddish tint soon after.
With Lord Manderly's stamp of approval the night progresses in jovially full of drunken boasts, load proclamations and much merriment.
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Marcus awoke the following morning with a splitting headache nestled between two buxom girls he didn't remember. He was really hoping that they weren't anyone's wives. He was in no mood for annoying honor duals.
It would appear that he had once again decided to gamble and thrown the dice on medieval STD's. He carefully extracted himself from the embrace of the two sleeping girls and quickly dressed.
Heading afterwards for the town and looking for any merchant guild that called the city home. Marcus gathered his guards and the two remaining small barrels of vodka that he had brought with him and gifted the merchants gathered at the guild with both as a sample of his product. Hoping to peek their interest and promote some trade and hopping that by the time they came to his town he would have more product to showcase.
The rest of the day was spent browsing shops and making some minor purchases, but it wasn't entirely inane. He had managed to snag a pair of experienced miners to put as foreman at his own mines. He would still need to assign someone to the mines to manage them, but at least now the workers would know what they are doing instead of swinging blindly at a rock with a pickaxe.
The night was largely uneventful as he spent it at an inn with his men and retired early with no buxom maidens this time.
The following day he bid goodbye to Lord Manderly and set course for home with the miners in tow and his purchases.
When he arrived back at Moat Cailin he was presently surprised to discover that the harvest had began and that the good captain Finnigan had already sent men to collect the taxes. The food barn was already full and a new one would need constructing as there was still produce coming in. The ore barn was somewhat disappointing however as there was barely any coal or ore in it.
He ended up constructing three new barns that month. The second and third were for storing wool and as they were constructed one was already half full. The farmers were selling him what wool they weren't outright giving him for penies.
During that month people began to trickle to his town that the other lords had promised him prompting him to begin building the canal or at least the portion that would connect to the neck. As the population was steadily increasing.
He started with two hundred able bodied men and by the sixth month of his reign that number had increased to five hundred and was still increasing and they were making good pace or at least he thought so. It was a small miracle that so far they were digging predominantly through sandstone and some limestone. While the dirt was disposed of the lime and sandstone were being stored for future use as he was likely to have great use for both.
The place was much less boring with the work on the canal starting. There was always something that could use his supervision or could be tweaked for better results.
At the beginning of the seventh month and he really needed to find what the correct date was soon a man came seeking audience with Marcus. The man claimed to have been sent by Ser Davos Seaworth.
Marcus immediately gathered some man and several carts and headed for the shores of the Bite. There he found the now knighted Ser Davos at which he broke into a mad grin. He was even more ecstatic when the man showed him that the ship was full of volcanic ash. Even the upper most deck was packed to the brim. All in all there was over four hundred barrels of the stuff.
He paid him and promised that, if he should need more he would write him a raven at Dragonstone. Marcus was ecstatic over events. He joked and drank some vodka with Ser Davos while the men unloaded the barrels. It would take several trips to deliver all the barrels to Moat Cailin, but he was in no hurry to return. He used the time to catch up with Ser Davos.
They talked throughout the night as Ser Davos regaled him with tales of the assault on Dragonstone and its subsequent taking by Stannis Baratheon.
When morning came and he walked on the beach he saw that his men had worked throughout the night to clear all the cargo and they would be returning with the last batch. He made a note to give the men a night off after this.
On the road back Marcus was almost giddy with anticipation. Now construction could truly begin on all the projects his head had spawned, but couldn't act on due to lack of resources.
He would soon be able to lift himself from the squalor he was currently in. He could hardly wait. After all he felt most at home when working on one of his projects.
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Marcus stood atop the Gatehouse Tower and surveyed his lands from on high. The village below looked less like one these days though and more like a refugee center. It would seem the other lords were true to their word or simply wanted to get rid of the unwanted elements within their own lands. Either way the result was the same people seemed to be coming in almost daily now. The problem rested with the fact that there was nowhere to put them and the slight issue where most of his guards were needed to maintain order. He had tasked his captain of the guard to train another fifty men, but it was slow going at best.
He was almost ready to begin construction. There were enough able bodied men still left to put to the task of construction even after accounting for the steady increase in workers on the canal project. There were two major projects awaiting his approval at the moment. First and foremost was the housing project. He was considering building Soviet style apartment buildings for the simple reason that they were easy enough to build and were nearly indestructible to anything available in Westeros short of dragons. The problem with that however was that with no running water the conditions might deteriorate fast, not to mention that people throwing buckets of shit from the fifth floor might be a bit of a problem and while the second project of constructing a sewage system would help with that particular issue it still left him with no fresh water supply. The biggest issue however with the construction was rebar or the lack there of. He could make cast iron rebar as it has been done on his earth prior to the advent of mass produced steel, or he could simply opt out of rebar entirely for the early test models. They were after all to be a proof of concept.
Marcus was initially planning on placing the exit of the sewage system at the canal, but that would deprive him of the only substantial fresh water source nearby. On the other hand, if he made the exit somewhere in the swamp it would create a possible weakness in his defense. Not to mention the very real possibility of swamp monsters making it their new home and he was far more worried about the denizens of the bog.
The only way he could think of to rectify the issue was to build a water treatment plant of sorts. It wasn't as difficult to make one. It was actually quite easy; however it was far from ideal and would certainly require a pump of some sort. He was yet to make a decision on that; however in consideration was a gravity purifier. That was the simplest solution he could think of for the moment, but would also require quite the large facilities.
The whole point was moot considering that it would be at least a year or two before he could connect the canal to the Fever River. Maybe he was trying to pre-plan things just a little bit too much.
His quazy cement and concrete factory was completed, just a day earlier and all the needed materials were being stored in preparation for the impending construction effort that was about to take place.
He wasn't going to begin any military projects any time soon, considering that the labor force wasn't used to the new materials or its uses. Trusting them with a military project so soon was a mistake he wasn't willing to make, even though Captain Finnegan was pestering him almost weekly about building at least a wooden palisade to encircle the three towers.
His musings were interrupted however as the Captain in question cleared his throat behind him.
Marcus turned to face him and promptly addressed him "Captain."
"Forgive the interruption m'lord, but there is a maester that would like to see you."
Marcus beams at the news and exclaims "Well it is about time! Lead the way Captain."
Finnegan does a commendable about face and proceeds to lead his liege Lord to where the maester is situated inside one of the many rooms inside the tower, and then promptly left Marcus with the maester.
The maester was young and looked utterly ordinary. He had a smallish chain around his neck and was dressed in a brown robe. The perfect image of a maester.
Marcus took a minute to take a measure of the man that was to be hoisted upon him. If he was to be honest he wasn't sure what use the man would be. That is to say other then his personal librarian. Any books he might have brought with him however would be useful, if for no other reason than to alleviate his boredom every once in a while.
The maester soon began to fidget under Marcus's gaze and chose the break the silence by speaking up "My Lord Lane I am maester Daeron and I have been assigned to Moat Cailin by..."
Marcus decided to interrupt his stammering and said "I already guessed who you might be maester and your purpose here. We have been expecting you for quite some time now."
"Apologize for the delay my lord, but these things take some time and the trip from the Citadel was somewhat unpleasant to say the least. The Rivirlands are beset by bandits and all manner of brigands these days." Maester Daeron stammered in apology.
"You are finally here and that is what matters. You are to set up in the Children's Tower as it will be your home for the foreseeable future. Get accounted with the Moat and rest up there will be work enough for you soon." Marcus says and turns to leave there were a hundred little things that needed his attention today and he needed to get to it. There was little time for idle chit chat. He thanked all the gods that would hear him that there was no paperwork in Westeros, because that would have made his life more hellish than it was at the moment.
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5 month
285AL
It had been a little more than a year and a half since Marcus took control of Moat Cailin and many things have changed since then.
The canal project was going extremely well so far and if things continued like that the western side that connected Moat Cailin to the Fever River would be completed some time next year. He was initially surprised by the revelation, but then he discovered that the portion was along the line of thirty kilometers and was positively tiny compared to the Eastern portion of the planned canal. There were now more then three thousand people working on that particular project of his. All is however not peachy with the work force even though there have been a dozen deaths due to various accidents or the more common cause illness. The workers were oblivious so long as the money kept flowing and they did. By Marcus's own reckoning they weren't being paid very much, but as a lord with treasury of over half a million golden dragons that weren't diminishing at all it would seem. Most of his own projects were covered by the taxation and trade that passed thru the land.
Trade was seeing a slight increase due to vodka sales. The smallfolk have begun to call it firewater due to its colorless state and burning taste. This all meant that traffic through the Moat was slowly increasing, both in a northwards direction as well as southwards. It wasn't quite substantial as of yet, but it helped to spread the news that there were paying jobs to be had for all those that sought one.
The brewery itself had to be expanded once and then there was the modernization so to speak, that saw it moved from the wooden building to a all together better concrete and brick building that could see to all their needs and accommodate further expansion. The biggest improvement however was the move from a simple pot still to a column still. The product produced from it is superior or it would be better to say it became superior once the people working on it became used to the new method of production. That required Marcus's oversight and guidance and while he at first thought that it would be unnecessary it quickly became abundantly clear that was not the case. The construction of a small water tower was added after Marcus realized that in order to cool the still a more permanent source of water was needed. This further increased the work force from the previously expanded fifteen to thirty. The tower needed to be filled by hand and pump through brass pipes via a hand pump that Marcus had to design himself. The plus side of this was that it gave him needed practical experience of designing primitive pump systems. The four hundred liters of vodka the place produced every two months also helped in that regard and the end product was quite drinkable and not at all like the moonshine had he previously produced. There were ways to go before his product could compete with the likes of the fine dornish wines or the almost golden tinted wine the Arbor. There is one thing however that his product had that theirs didn't and that was affordability. He had a long way to go before his product could compare with theirs, if ever and quite a few tweaks before then.
The town of Moat Cailin itself was booming and expanding every day. Currently the population was stable at around ten thousand people and considering he had started with a little over fifteen hundred that was a tremendous increase. At first the population increase was due to the quazy refugees the other lords were sending him. The Lords especially northern Lords valued the given word a great deal, even more so when they promised something in front of all their contemporaries and their liege Lord. For them to not fulfill such a promise would be a great embracement and an enormous loss of face. The northern Lords might not have the pomp and love for sweet talking political overtures like their brethren down south, but that didn't mean they had none at all. There's just happened to be a lot more direct. When a noble Lord had a grievance with someone they quite literally gave them the axe. Blade first of course.
The biggest portion of the influx came oddly enough from the south. There seemed to be numerous bands of outlaws, brigands and bandits that harassed the riverlands as an afterthought of the rebellion and Hoster Tully seemed oddly lax in dealing with them, probably because they stayed away from the bigger castles and towns and mostly attacked villages and small farming communities. The second contributing factor was the fact that the Vale's mountain clans were acting up again and with Lord Arryn acting as hand of the King the vale lords had no central command or authority to guide and focus them against the tribal's. Every lord was doing their own thing for the most part and few of them ever worked together due to age old rivalries and petty feuds. Moreover they cared little if at all as to what happened to their smallfolk. A few of the arrivals even claimed that their village was sacked by valemen and not tribal's. Some even claimed that they were attacked by both tribals and valemen. They were all in are sorry state at least the ones that managed to reach this far north and while the arrival of more people was a welcome sight to Marcus it left him with problems that weren't easily solved. Such as the problem of security. He had ordered at first for his captain to train another fifty people, but that wasn't enough. Then he ordered him to train another hundred people. It was still not enough as two hundred people could hardly control ten thousand people. He had again ordered another batch of troops to be trained this time two hundred and was hoping that it would be enough.
This however led to another problem of where to house the troops as the tower was currently becoming smaller and smaller. Very soon he would have no choice, but to begin the construction of the fort around the three towers as a barracks and a fortification of the entrance into Moat Cailin and the North proper.
Marcus had established what he would like to call the Moat Cailin construction company. It was basically a gathering of masons, carpenters and other medieval men whose profession centered on building large structures. Those men acted as foremen for the unskilled labor force beneath them. Each foreman had as little as five men under him, to as many as thirty depending on a series of factors that Marcus had to figure out by trial and error. The company has had two major projects since its inception. First came the sewer system. Marcus had to use some creative design for his part as constructing a modern sewer system was both impractical and the cost of the pipes alone would have been hideously prohibitive. Instead he had designed a catacomb like system around the roads; however that required him to improve and adapt the existing roads. This on itself lead to the construction of a dedicated limestone storage and processing facility. The facility contained a large courtyard for storage of the raw product, a animal powered mill was the main processing facility and warehouse to store the finished product. It was advantageous that the facility was next door to the cement and concrete quazy factories, whose setup was largely the same for the time being.
The roads themselves were made out of crushed lime and rocks and made to slope downwards so as to help the drain into the sewer itself. The sewer system was nothing fancy most could call it a man made cave with small openings on the side of the road. The sewer happened to be exactly beneath the road and the ceiling reinforced with concrete pillars. There would have been quite a few problems had Marcus not received that shipment of volcanic ash to mix with the cement. The sewer system expanded as the road network itself expanded. The exit as one was needed post haste was into the still unfinished canal. That at the moment it was nothing more than a large hole in the ground was irrelevant.
The second large scale building project that his fledgling construction company was tasked with was the construction of sorely needed living space that wasn't ramshackle huts and rickety wooden buildings. To that end Marcus had spent over a month designing an apartment complex patterned after the Soviet complexes of old out of sheer necessity. Each individual building was built out of concrete and bricks. It had twenty five apartments per floor with each one having two rooms no counting his new invention in sanitation as well as a small fireplace. The tenement for that is what it was essentially was only four story tall due to the lack of rebar and not particularly difficult to construct or so had Marcus thought when he began. The complex had two features that had the potential to complicate the construction. The first feature was the fact that it had improvised sanitation system. That is to say a secondary chimney system that instead of smoke was used to transport waste. Initially Marcus thought that it would be a good way to gain some experience in designing such systems. It turned out to be a headache both to design and a even bigger one to build what was essentially the first indoor toilet in Westeros. The second feature was a central heating system meant to be coal powered much like the ones the Soviets used. It turned out it was currently both expensive and difficult to build. While the cost of building it would hopefully be offset by coal sales overtime. This is the North after all. The headache of constructing a central heating system without the ability to weld anything was a tremendous pain and the most difficult part of the entire construction. The biggest challenge was however to design the entire thing with windows that held no glass and still be able to heat the entire thing. There were days where Marcus had honestly wished to shoot himself rid himself out of his own misery on the matter.
Each complex could comfortably hold over three hundred people or so Marcus had thought. The truth of the matter was that what he thought were slightly cramped conditions to fit three people were not made to account for the life style of a medieval peasant. Even though he had been living here for a little over three years and there were still some things he couldn't get used too.
The smallfolk managed to fit themselves quite comfortably, even managing to fit up to six people in a single apartment with no complaint. Therefore something that was made to accommodate three hundred people, now had anywhere from five hundred to six hundred people living in them. To Marcus this all sounded ridiculous, but was never the less a fact. The fact that there was a monthly rent did nothing to deter people not that he wanted to. The rent for a single apartment was one of the newer copper stars coined with the image of the new king that were now entering circulation or eight pennies. That earned him almost a dragon a year from an individual complex. That was a tremendous amount for something so trivial and it didn't account for the purchase of coal during winter for the central heating. The problem there was that as the largest job provider in the settlement he was effectively getting paid with his own money in over half the cases. He was hoping that would change over time, but it still at the moment had the benefit of keeping the money in the family as it were.
Marcus had constructed ten of these complexes in over a year and a half and two more were being constructed. Granted the first complex took six and a half months and required almost daily supervision and did horrible things to his blood pressure, but after that the locals were learning to handle the materials and work the techniques that he demanded of them. In the end as people in the company gained some experience and adapted to the construction process. The construction was ultimately shortened to a little over four months. That might have been helped by the fact that these days the company employed a little over one thousand people spread over the various construction projects. After the canal it was the second biggest job provider in Moat Cailin.
Close to two thirds of the town's population would call it home once all twelve were completed. It made Marcus glad that he had build the indoor concrete toilets as problematic as it was. That alone will save him further headaches down the line as people would have start dying from diseases and what not. Even thought the project was quite pricy it was also needed to alleviate his growing housing problems in regard to the smallfolk.
He was still amazed at the speed of the construction projects as well as the canal, but then again the people of Westeros might have a lot more experience where grand building projects are concerned then their contemporaries on his own earth from mediaeval time as even the grandest of castles from his home even in their heyday looked like nothing more than small keeps or holdfasts compared to places like King's Landing or Sunspear. Granted the city itself was nothing to write home about, but the castle was enormous in its entirety. On the other hand Westeros had few true cities unlike his worlds Europe. There were barely a dozen cities on the entire continent and some of those weren't really worth the designation.
He had tasked his newly appointed maester to train a dozen boys to read and write as soon as he was able to help with the menial tasks as well as for future use. Thus far only two lads have managed to learn and their performance wasn't that good.
Speaking of the good maester. He was a good man devoted to his job and studies. Daeron did any task assigned to him quite diligently and with little fuss. The man was turning out to be quite useful in setting up Marcus's household. Where previously Marcus lived like he was still with the war host campaigning, he now had maids, cooks and all manner of servants Daeron had picked for him. The maester had even reminded Marcus that he was expected to hold court in the literal sense of the word as he was expected to carry out the king's justice in his own lands and was to act as judge, jury and executioner.
With the number of people growing and Captain Finnegan struggling to keep the peace the sheer number of infractions kept growing. It all left Marcus thinking that as soon as he fixed one problem three more arose. He even had to construct a interim dungeon. Well it wasn't a true dungeon, since it was more of a wooden outhouse, but it served the purpose for the moment. The whole thing significantly cut down into his free time or his ability to work on his own projects.
Speaking of projects Marcus was working on a really important project at the moment or at least he thought so. He had already constructed the massive factory for his new steel works and an improvised assembly line for it. All that was left was to build the Bessemer converter. While he knew how to build one and even had all the materials that he would need and he did indeed have them in stock for it and its operation. What was slowing him down was that he had to make the thing like a giant jigsaw puzzle using what amounted to handmade custom parts and each part required precision and as far as the blacksmiths he employed were concerned was a custom job. Therefore each part was its own specific project as every part had to be made to specifications. Blacksmiths as a rule were more artists in this regard, the uniformity of the parts was alien to them unless they were working with a mold and that wasn't the case. It slowed the project greatly. Not to mention that Marcus had to make the process idiot proof and mechanized. The entire thing was extremely frustrating to Marcus. What he initially thought was going to take no more than a few months was going to take more than a year to set up and that is if he was lucky. While the westerosi were good with large construction projects, they were quite vexed when it came to large metal working projects such as the one Marcus was attempting. It was a new field for them altogether or maybe Marcus was trying to run before he could craw.
As things stood even after he had improved both mines with rail carts that eased the speed of gathering the resources immensely. After all before that each individual worker had to carry his haul on a woven basket on his back. That exhausted the work force and crippled their efficiency. The output of the mines had skyrocketed after he paid both mines a visit in order to figure out why the amount he received was so low. At first he had suspected corruption or idiocy, but when Marcus saw how the mine operated he wanted to face palm.
It wasn't the miner's fault that the way did things their whole lives was flawed. The simple introduction of steel tools and rail carts did miracles for the output of both mines and as the conditions in the mines improved so too did the mood of the workers. They weren't exactly jubilant, but they were slightly less disgruntled than your average miner. They were northerners after all and they didn't shy away from hard work.
This was all well and good, but it didn't solve the problem he was having and namely that was that even with the increased output from the both mines. The iron mine still didn't produce enough material for continuous operation of the Bessemer converter. He didn't at this point know if it was a production issue or the fact that it was two days away from Moat Cailin proper by horse drawn cart.
On the plus side however the coal mine was doing above expectations for the moment. It could be the fact that as of yet the coal use wasn't that high. This however allowed him to build quite the stockpile that would be more then useful in any of his future endeavors.
Marcus had accomplished much in the short amount of time he was active as a fully fledged Lord of the North. This all however had its downsides. He was burning the candle on both ends and it was starting to show. Marcus was often disheveled and with bags under his eyes these days. He was in need of a vacation and even Captain Finnegan and maester Daeron had suggested this much several times in fact. Both of them had argued vehemently that with their careful supervision his projects would be kept on track.
He was hesitant at first, but his current brain child was consuming to much of his time and progress was slow to materialize. Perhaps he should take a break/trade expedition to White Harbor to push his stockpile of firewater on the merchants there. There was also the added benefit that Lord Manderly knew how to have a good time even if he wasn't much to look at. The man threw one hell of a party and wasn't really that bad a company. This way he could kill two birds with one stone and as an added benefit get his two proto advisers to stop whining.
It was decided and who knows maybe he will get a fresh perspective on his project after his little sabbatical.