Jun 18, 2017
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#73
!Myranda IX
20th day, 5th Moon, Long Summer, Short Spring 294 AC
So we've been in Gulltown for seven days now, so many things have happened so fast. We've not had time to keep up with our journal until now. Prior to leaving Iron Oaks, I got Lady Waynwood more interested in additional garments and possibly other trade. I also learned via Mya through the servant gossip, that the Waynwoods might be having hard times financially.
On the way through the Vale of Arryn traveling toward Old Anchor we got a chance to take a closer look at some of the various fields. As I had noticed before, this place has close, but not perfectly analogous plants. The Vale of Arryn grows something like corn, pumpkins (or squashes), wheat and barley. We realized that the corn we ate directly (which I thought were small in size) was specifically selected large eared ones best fit for eating by hand. Normally they are much smaller than that. They are like a blue or multicolored large version of typical earth sized 'ears' of wheat. The crops my mixed up memories actually translate into 'wheat' and 'barley' seemed the same; at least they matched what I've seen of depictions of wheat and such on TV. The 'pumpkins' had the shape of a pumpkin, but were more reddish than orange. Pumpkins back home I've seen up close and personal, my Grandma grew some; I've carved them on Halloween and so on. These are a too red, and smaller, than the typical supermarket sizes. Their seeds also have a rounder shape. They do taste like pumpkin though. The Vale of Arryn is great for growing several things, and the less arable higher altitude parts grow mostly the mountain flax used for linen production. There are also various ores in the mountains, but I'm no geologist.
The road between Iron Oaks and Old Anchor which goes through the most of the vale was rough and in need of a lot of improvement. We suggested to Lord Melcolm, to look into building up the road between them if trade goods are going to flow down it on their way to the Gulltown markets. We don't know if that will ever happen given cost, and the almost automatic dismissal of the idea since it came from a woman. We had to concede the point though that large quantities of goods could just get floated down the river that ends at Old Anchor. Also, Old Anchor is deep enough for ships, and could, if it grows enough, compete with Gulltown as a port. However its main flaw apparently is an imperfect protective harbor for its ports. This might be solvable with seawalls or something of that nature, but I have no idea about whether or not that is even feasible.
At least we had some consolation in selling some garments to Lady Melcolm, and did so again to the ladies at Runestone, and at House Grafton in Gulltown on the first day we finally arrived. This is the second time Myranda had been to Gulltown. The first was when she bought furniture and sort with her Dowry. So this is what it is like to be in a major medieval city, Myranda's prior memories did little to prepare me for the sights and extreme smells of the place. We stayed in an apparently mid-level inn, "3 stars" I guess in earth-terms, but only when compared to other inns in the city. On Earth I'd give it zero stars. Despite being 'mid-level' it was still filthy, itchy and buggy. Damn I really want some insect repellant, lice are a real problem. As soon as we made a boatload of sales, we changed our stay to the best inn in the city. Worth it, but even that one still had bugs! You can't seem to escape them.
We have a guard, father made sure of it. Yet despite this, we thought we had been dressing conservatively. We certainly were compared to 2016 standards. But my god, I already ranted on how they treat women. The leers, the stares, the comments, gropey dudes on more than one occasion, proved they were without restraint. Rudy, the bodyguard our father assigned to us, beat one of them up good. Others disappeared in the crowd. Our father wore an "I told you so" expression all day. We went even more conservative in dress the next day. Of course a larger number of guards would free that up I guess. We saw some obviously wealthy merchant's wife or daughter with 4-5 men at guard and nobody messed with them. After this, I felt really vulnerable despite my guard. Even with additional guards, Myranda kept reminding me of tales of robbers and bandits on the roads who would kill your escorts and carry you off, maybe even sell you into slavery across the narrow sea, after they had their way with you of course.
Back home, I was a total anti-gun activist, but after all I've seen so far, combined with Myranda little horror stories whispering in my ear, just no, that's not going to work here. We decided to make ourselves at least feel a little safer. We have been growing our hair long for a few months now, and been wearing it in a bun held in place with the hair sticks Albar got us. Well, I'm thinking to use a hair dagger instead, and looked into the cost to make such while here in town, thin, long, pointy, sheathed and concealed. Of course we should probably learn how to use it; maybe Rudy can teach us. I got the idea from some movie I saw, I don't remember the name.
To get our inventory sold I rented a market stall space at first. This worked for a couple days, and we managed to sell the second sixth of my inventory, though at less profit than I was hoping at first. (The first sixth had gone to the noble Ladies of the various houses at a higher price.) To increase traffic we consider hiring someone to model, Mya actually offered but considered how we got treated for wearing 'normal' clothing while going through the streets. I vetoed this as a very bad idea. It ended up not mattering by day three.
We suppose word had gotten out of a new tailor or seller of clothing, several (all male) members of the 'Guild of Tailors and Weavers' came around and wanted to know where my guild license was. If we had not been the daughter of Lord Arryn's steward, with several guards available, and a 'noble' despite being very low on the totem pole; we feared things would have gone much, much worse.
We saw the billy clubs the toughs they had brought carried, but in the face of mailed guards with swords they backed off very quickly. Unable to simply chase these 'unaffiliated' tradespersons out of town, they threatened to try legal means. When I made an attempt to buy a guild license, we learned that they (of course) did not even allow women to join. This means they knew we didn't have a license to begin with and it was just a pretext once they realized they couldn't just chase us off. Our father wasn't really of much help beyond keeping us safe (though I guess that is a lot of help) I don't know if he was expecting this or not, maybe just letting me try it out and see if I would stick to it or give up.
Well, I decided that if this world wasn't going to play fair, than I wasn't going to either. This was about the time that we changed to the better inn. We stopped renting the market stall and took all our wares to our room. We made a small deal with the owner of the inn. I'd sell things out of the lobby, and use my room for fittings. A couple days later, after we had hired some local bards and we gave Gulltown its first taste of an advertising jingle. Coupled with the 'privileged' and higher class nature of the inn, along with a little money passing hands, I had a private showing room for a few days. "Upper class women only" My guards lent an 'air of protection' that made the patrons feel more comfortable in undressing to try on and get fitted for the bras in my room. This time I did let Mya model, since the street cretins could be kept at bay.
Every bra and undergarment (except the ones we are wearing) sold out by the fifth day. By then I had literal line of customers. We had a bidding war on the last ones. Mya (after asking if it was okay) even decided to sell the one I helped her make for herself, at a nice profit, and went back to using a handkerchief version until she made a new one.
A few of the meter bars and tape measures had been sold also, initially to a few tailors, until they became of aware of whom we were and the whole guild thing came to a head. Then they stopped (or more likely were pressured) into not buying any more.
During the stay we did get a lot of the supplies we were in need of, parchment, inks, sewing supplies, wire, lacquer, bolts of cotton cloth and we bought a dress mannequin. Our father had his own list of goods to get for the GotM and the Eyrie. We also bought a lot of small containers, metal tins, wooden boxes, and small glass bottles. These were for various medicines, we bought from various herbalists. Sylla proved a good help here. She spied a few Essos plants that Yerund had once upon a time, but had long since run out of. Sylla knew how to find the good stuff and ignore all the snake oil.
We also discovered sponges! It seems Gulltown has a lively industry of sponge fishermen. We bought a lot of them, for eventual cosmetics and healthcare usages. Too bad that we have not been able to find something analogous to a loofa sponge, and then I could just grow them as a crop. Maybe aquaculture could be done here? The fisherman said there are some shallow, sheltered tide-pool areas just outside the city.
While I was out visiting with them it seems they also have sea urchin, but they were just throwing them back in the water! Oh I am such a sushi aficionado! Myranda protested, but I got her to agree to at least try some. Do they not know how delectable their roe tastes? Apparently no one eats them, and they find them a useless annoyance. To be honest though, I have no idea if these are the same type of urchins on earth, they are obviously analogous, but are they 100% the same species? What if these were poisonous?
Anyway, I found a fishwife crazy enough to try preparing the sea urchin and decided to risk it. That was probably stupid of me, but YUM! They didn't have rice so I suggested steamed, de-hulled corn kernels wrapped in seaweed. This 'stunt' had gathered a crowd actually, a few other brave souls gave it a try. I think we've started a new fishing crop. There was another reason I wanted the urchin though. I wanted to know if that thing they did on an episode of Lost where they substituted an urchin spine for a medical needle would actually work.
The answer is no. They are too brittle; they would shatter if they were pushed into someone's vein and leave pieces behind. One of the fisherman though said a different type of urchin might work, once I explained what I wanted to try. He had one for me the next day; surprisingly this variety might actually work. I have some needle spines now, but I'll have to test them on some animals first. The taste of this particular urchin though was not as good as the previous, but not too bad either. This other type of urchin doesn't look like anything I've ever seen on earth though, but I'm no marine biologist.
We also had passed by a jeweler's shop, asked if he had any 'obsidian'. One he figured out that I meant 'dragon glass' he said he did, as part of jewelry, but not any raw stone which is what I wanted to look at. I've known surgeons had obsidian scalpels. I'd like to try and recreate that here since there isn't going to be any surgical stainless steel around.
Likewise I discovered "Myrish Eyes" are effectively spyglasses. I'll eventually need good glass workers and lens makers to get a microscope developed. We don't know how to do that yet, we certainly weren't going to buy the pricey spyglass. It was not what I needed anyway. Truth is I will need a hell of a lot more glass products than just lenses. Syringes, medical and chemistry equipment, I don't know what we'll do for flexible tubing or other seals though.
The toughest thing to get accomplished was talking to a smith that could make scissors faster and cheaper that back at home. Everyone except one guy dismissed me or outright turned me down. I think the guy that agreed is an independent too. He runs a pretty poor shop on the outskirts of town. He works alone, kept his face partly covered, does all the cheap jobs and was pretty desperate for work. We don't know what's going on there, but we didn't really have anything to lose, and exhausted all other options. I showed him the scissor designs, and explained what I wanted. He said he could make them. We left him a small bag of silver to cover expenses, and a general promise to buy at least a dozen the next time we were in Gulltown. Which, given the relative success, and how long it might take us to make more inventory, could be a few months away yet.
For what progress we have made, it has been hard sometimes to see how much the small folk still need help. The poor are plentiful; women sell themselves on almost every corner. We want to do a lot more but are held back by so many constraints and impositions that this society emplaces on us. Money is the quickest way around these issues. It often pains me to have to look away at some things due to my own lack of time or funds. I wanted to take in a deaf girl at that first inn we stayed at, she looked abused, but our father said we can't take on charity cases. Boarding Sylla was enough, as he relented to letting her also function as a sort of hand-maiden for us.
At the same time I also foresee having to give in to some of the realities of this place and of human nature. The stand-off with the tailor's guild is just one example. I'll have to fight and play dirty. The recovery by using the inn was one aspect, I know I'll have to cave to some of the tiny things I never cared for on earth, advertising, hiring more models just to get interest in future garments. (In the here and now that basically means hiring prostitutes or female minstrels, (who are often also considered to be prostitutes even if they are not.)
We have to take advantage of the competitiveness between showy merchants or nobles trying to outdo each other in displays of wealth to make real initial funds. The key areas of those displays are in Jewelry, clothing and soon to be cosmetics. We had to stoop to give Rudy some money to visit a brothel; sure he was confused, but willing. It was because we saw that some of the ladies were wearing some basic red blush. It didn't match their complexion that ideally and there was no eye-shadow or lipstick. Well not true lipstick, they had something smeared on their lips. We asked him to find out about how, who, or from where they obtained their cosmetics. When he returned he said some woman named Nina made the 'face paint'. He offered to go back again and ask for Nina, but I declined to cover that expense, I felt bad enough sending him in there the first time.
We will be wrapping up and heading home tomorrow. It was two days longer than Nestor wanted to stay, but I think I have made a few good contacts, and possible enemies. We would so much rather be focusing on health care and more practical innovations, and even finding some why to advance the rights of women and commoners. To have any hope of achieving that though on a wide scale, requires more money and influence than we currently have, and since money can buy influence, we'll just have to find a way to make twice as much.
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Jun 19, 2017
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#75
!Edmure X
26th day, 5th Moon, Long Summer, Short Spring 294 AC
"Time to get up." I said as I jostled Kirth Vance out of his berth. Would have liked to have brought Trystan but the fewer the better, and don't want him to possibly be forced to tell his father.
"What? It's not even sun-up yet, what's going on?"
"It'll be sun-up soon enough, and I'll tell you when I we get there. Get dressed, leathers, but pack some light armor. Wyndel's getting the horses ready." Need to make this trip as quick as possible. I double checked the light chain mail under my over shirt, for reassurance. Don't know if any actual fighting will happen, but I want to be prepared. At the same time just three people might be a risk. Just hope Edmure stays asleep a while longer, and doesn't give me grief.
Fat chance of that happening. My father is going to be 'pissed' by the time you get back, nor do I think this is a wise idea.
Damn it. We talked this over before. It's happening. If this leads to a way for me to get home it will be worth it, even if not just knowing more information about what the hell happened that did this would help. I walked outside while Kirth got dressed to look for Wyndel. It was still in that darkest before the dawn stage of night but a nearly full moon gave some decent light.
You know he wants to keep us well protected and for good reason, you have already gotten him very suspicious and this is only going to make it worse, even if we do manage to get there and back in only a few days. You are worried or you would not have put on the chain and armed yourself.
And yet you don't actually think Tom will show up, and think that the idea that he'll bring thugs even less likely. We'll we've got a couple thugs of our own.
One thug, Kirth not so much, you could at least bring Trystan anyway, or Delp or Long Lew…
You know why not Trystan, he got freaked out the last time, and there is no need to repeat that. The others are your dad's men, not mine. Kirth, at least more or less works for us now, and you've been friends with Wyndel since forever.
Yes, and he does not deserve to get punished if things go awry, neither of them do.
"M'Lord?" Wyndel asked. "More mounts?"
"Sorry, and no, probably draw attention, you can just call me Edmure you know. We know each other well enough."
"Ha, no M'Lord Edmure, not while we are in earshot of Riverrun or others I will not" Wyndel responded.
Kirth ran up and got ready, now came the unavoidable noisy part, as I got the attention of the night gate guard.
"Early morning trip M'Lord?" the man asked.
"Well, just got the urge to go and visit Jenna's, open the gate if you would please."
"Of Course, M'Lord."
Several slow and creaking minutes later we trotted our horses outside the gates of Riverrun. I tossed a silver stag to the guard. "Close the gate up when you're done, and take the rest of the morning off." I said, "I think I smelled Dinah making some pastries on my way out of the keep."
"Thank you, M'Lord". He said as we watch the gate descend behind us, we took a brisk trot toward the southeast.
"Where are we going?" Kirth finally asked, as sun was peeking over the horizon.
"High Heart" I said. I sure wish I had some donuts and coffee right now.
I sure wish we were actually going to Jenna's.
27th day, 5th Moon, Long Summer, Short Spring 294 AC
"We are here, but why have we come back to this haunted place M'Lord?" Kirth asked as we stopped to make camp on High Heart.
"Come to meet some people, so be on the lookout, while you gather firewood." I said, as I helped unload the horses and set them to graze. Though evening, the sun was still up, and nightfall would not descend for a while longer yet.
Not going to mention the rest?
Only if I have to.
After Kirth had ventured off to get firewood, Wyndel moved closer.
"So Edmure, who is it that we are meeting, that gives you enough caution to come armed and armored, yet with minimal guard to know who it is you have come to meet?"
"I don't actually expect any trouble, I'm just being cautious. One man, Tom the minstrel. I doubt he'll be traveling with anyone but don't know for sure. The old woman we ran into here last time might also be about as well, if we aren't scaring her off. Be on the lookout for either."
"Tom? That I certainly didn't expect. Delp said you let him go at Fairmarket after threatening to hang him."
"We came to an arrangement; we're here to see if he will hold up his end of the deal, and end that damnable song."
"A rope could have ended that song far more easily."
"True, but I'd rather make peace and turn him into an ally instead."
"If you be seeking to sponsor a minstrel, there be plenty of others besides Tom."
"I have my reasons, and if he doesn't show, I'll use some of them instead." Least of which I don't like the idea of hanging a man over free speech.
"Right, reasons that require us sneaking out of Riverrun and you only taking two guards and risking Lord Hoster's fury when we return. Well then, I will be keeping an eye out for you then, and let you tend to whatever you are going to tend to." Wyndel said before wandering off to help Kirth gather firewood.
I got to work preparing a place for the campfire, an old often used fire pit from past visitors.
Wyndel is not stupid
No he isn't, nor is he stupid enough to pry, or keep asking questions either when he knows he shouldn't.
A fire had been started and the sun was finally beginning to kiss the horizon, when Kirth came and got our attention.
"A man walking up toward the hill, alone."
It took a while before I could recognize it as Tom. I invited him to our fire; Kirth had already tucked himself into his furs. After checking Tom for weapons, Wyndel stood aside to keep watch.
"Was that really necessary?" Tom asked, "I want my knife back."
"You'll get it tomorrow. Glad to see you decided not to run off." I said.
"I almost did, but I was too damn curious to know how you, of all people, could claim to know a song more popular than anything I could have ever heard of. I am nay convinced of that, so right now I think that bag of silver is the better option. You going to share any of that?" Tom asked gesturing to the wineskin.
That is really rude, for a commoner
Ha, and yet I get it, so don't get on your high horse yet, we just told Wyndel he didn't need to be so formal all the time.
"Take your hat off" I said. Tom looked confused but did so without asking why.
"Now say, 'might you please share some of your wine with this humble minstrel, M'Lord?'"
Hat in hand, Tom looked half annoyed and half confused for a long moment, before acquiescing. "Might you please share some of your wine with this humble minstrel, M'Lord?"
I handed the skin of wine to Tom. "So how do you summon the old ghost?" I asked. Tom just sat silently taking a long swig of wine before he pulled his harp out and began to play a soft wordless tune.
Tom finally stopped. "I suppose, she'll come when she feels like it, possibly not 'til the morning. Got any food to go with that wine? M'Lord" he added after a pause.
The stars shone brightly in a cloudless sky, I gave a bit of jerky and bread to Tom, who ate and tuned his harp before going to sleep. Kirth kept snoring. Although I was hoping to have had answers tonight, I went ahead and went to sleep while Wyndel stayed up on his agreed upon shift.
28th day, 5th Moon, Long Summer, Short Spring 294 AC
Some hours before dawn, Kirth woke me and went to sleep again. I fed the fire some more and waited, as morning neared, finally I heard a rustle, and I saw the old dwarf woman peeking out from behind a bush.
"Why have you have come back here interloper? This is not your place." The albino dwarf woman said.
I gestured for her to keep her voice low, pointing out my sleeping comrades. "I wanted to have a chat, ask you some questions."
"The fish Lordling wants to know my dreams? Questions require payment."
"I've got silver coins here" I said.
"I cannot eat silver; it will do me no good. Give me wine or a ride on that pretty young snoring one over there." The dwarf cackled, pointing at Kirth.
That is just wrong. That's just wrong. "Wine, yes, rides no." I said. I reached over to take the wineskin from where Tom had left it, two-thirds, drained.
"A song then; that is why you brought the minstrel is it not? But you are no common seeker of news and dreams, and your presence disturbs this place. A song alone will not fill my belly after you have had your fill of words, or keep my voice low enough to not wake the others whom you seem to not want to overhear."
"The song then, I think he mentioned Jenny's song?"
"Yes my sweet Jenny's song."
"But not until after we've had our talk and I've asked all I want of you." I pulled a wrapped loaf of bread, a plum, a hard cheese, and a cut of smoked fish out of my pack.
"Oh a delightful feast, but I have so few teeth left; you will have to chew them first to soften them up for me. Four questions for four things, and my song at the end." She said before taking several gulps from the wine skin.
"I'm not chewing anything for you." I said as I pulled out a bowl and a knife to chop up the plum, cheese and fish into small pieces. "A stew instead. Pour what's left of that wine in the bowl and it will soften it up well enough."
"Oh, a Lordling will be my servant! I thought the Old Gods were playing a trick on me when they showed that to me."
"My questions, what do you know about me?" I asked quietly, while preparing the meal for the old dwarf woman.
"I know little, fish Lordling, only that you are the interloper, you wear a skin, but are no skin-changer, and that your presence makes the trees shake and whisper."
"Who is this white sorceress you mentioned previously?"
"Another that does not belong, the gatekeeper's daughter, the white maiden, the weaver, she is all of those things are more. She sits as a spider in a web unraveling strands, and making more anew. I have dreamt her waking the dead, and cutting babes out of their mothers, her white garments stained with blood. I have dreamt she enchanted a hag, who mounted a stag, who give birth to a crowned fawn."
"That's not quite, as specific, as I was hoping."
"All that I could make sense of. Dreams that were once consistent are now ever-changing."
"What other recent dreams have you had?"
"I dreamt a broken young wolf near dead falling upwards while the sun moved west to east, and the same wolf falling down again, lithe and squirming on a rope into the arms of a giant while the sun went the right way again. I dreamt the fish lord and the falcon lord took drink from the same cup, and neither awoke the next morning. I dreamt of a mighty stag felled by a boar, a great lion drowning in rushing waters, and of a starving wolf trapped in a cage. I dreamt five figures standing askew in a great hall, a dreadful man, a wailing man, a dead man, a widow and a king. In a thunderous roar that shook my skull, I saw the smith, slay the man of dread, silence the wailer and destroy the corpse, while the widow and the king dropped to their knees. All their bones were ground and baked, and squeezed dry of red, boiling blood. But every dream does twist and turn so much they make my old head ache, quickly do I lose the sense of many of them, they shatter and unravel with every angry whisper."
"What are these whispers saying? And who is doing the whispering?"
"The trees, I told you! But that is two questions, 'who are you, who are you? Stolen promises, stolen hope, broken prophecies', they whisper over and over, driving all hope of a peaceful sleep from me. Wine! Wine dulls my throbbing head and lets me rest. Give me more, fish Lordling, you now owe me for five."
I stood up and retrieved an unopened wineskin from the saddlebag of my horse, and made sure my companions were still asleep. By the time I had sat back down, the old dwarf woman was licking the bottom of my bowl with her slobbery tongue, and had stuffed all the leftover rations into her dirty clothes.
"Two more questions, one for the wineskin not the wine, and for the bowl, because I don't think I want that back after your tongue has been all over it, and you'll need both to make more stew from all the food you just stuffed god knows where."
"One" she spat between mouthfuls.
I looked over at the others again to make sure they were still fast asleep. Satisfied, I asked quietly. "Who's the smith you speak of?"
"You know not?" she asked, clearly surprised. "You, interloper, while I do not see your visage in my dreams, I see the wake of your disruptions with every action you take, whether in the form of the fish Lordling, the smith, or the alchemist. Just like the gatekeeper's daughter, who walks as the weaver or the white sorceress, her face is hidden but her actions make ripples of change that make the trees shake and whisper and the flames flicker and contort. Now I'll have my payment, a song for my grief."
I strode over and tapped Tom with my boot until he woke up.
"What, what?" he said groggily.
"She wants her song, Jenny's song."
"Same damn one every time."
"Oh you do this a lot do you?"
"I guess you had your chat then?"
"Close enough. I guess you earned your silver, unless you want to hear that song I mentioned. But play hers first."
As Tom began his song to the old woman I grabbed a handful of silver stags out of the bag and dropped them in my saddle bag.
He never knew how many I had in there.
Wyndel and Kirth stirred and got up, and I started to break camp.
"Guess we are not staying long M'Lord?" Kirth asked. "Not even to break our fast? Hey, where did the cheese go?"
"No, not long, there are some plums still left, and whatever you brought yourself."
"The fish, bread, and a wineskin are gone too." Wyndel said. "I will beat that minstrel if he took them."
"He didn't take them, I gave them to the old woman I mentioned."
"What?" Wyndel asked.
"Who?" Kirth asked in unison.
"Her tale of grief and misery moved my heart and I took pity on her." I said.
"Of course, M'Lord." Wyndel said his sarcasm obvious.
"That is my story and I am sticking to it."
"What? What is going on?" Kirth asked.
"Nothing" Wyndel and I said in unison.
"Go ready the horses' boy." Wyndel said, as Tom approached.
"She's gone" Tom said, "What about that silver?"
"I thought you were curious about the song I mentioned."
"It seems even less likely that you could come up with something such as that now that I've had time to sleep on it."
"Oh I never said I was the one who came up with it. Just that I'd heard it before."
"From who?"
"From who, M'Lord. No one you have heard of, a long gone musician from a faraway land."
"I still doubt that I would not have heard of this fellow."
"Fine" I said, and tossed him the bag of silver. "Where are you headed next?"
"Acorn Hall, Lady Smallwood has always liked my strumming." Tom said with a grin.
"Has she now?" I said. "We'll travel there with you. We need to pick up some more provisions anyway before heading back to Riverrun.
"Can I have my knife back?"
I nodded to Wyndel, who pulled Tom's knife out and handed it back to him.
We half-rode, and half-walked toward Acorn Hall. We let Tom, who had no horse, to occasionally swap with Kirth. After a few hours of Tom catching me whistling the foreign tune in question, he finally broke down.
"Fine, tell me what that tune is, I've truly heard nothing like it before." he said.
I reach my hand out. "The silver", I said, waiting for him to hand it back over.
"There are lyrics, the melody is meant to be played on a string instrument, kind of like a lute. The wood harp might not be the best fit for the song. Here," I pulled out a picture I had drawn previously of the instrument. "They usually have six or eight strings. One hand plucks while the other one fingers the strings at the end of the neck."
Tom had taken the picture, and looked at the drawing. "I'm familiar with the lute, but this looks like a Dornish guitar."
"Really? Maybe it is then." I said, Edmure hadn't remembered the word until Tom spoke it, it may have been unique to the Dornish dialect, or a left over from Valyrian.
"When did you learn anything about instruments?" Tom asked. "And what kind of strange parchment is this?"
"I read some books." I lied. "I'll tell you the rest when we get to Acorn Hall, where it will be easier for you to work out the rhythm. You can test it out on the folk there this evening. If it's not a hit, I'll give you back the bag of silver, and we'll call it done. If it is, then you owe me a new song, and service on the solstice at Riverrun." I ignored his second question.
When we got to Acorn Hall, I finished teaching Tom the song. I had to change a few minor words here and there to make it fit better with the times.
Deep in the Riverlands close to Piney Springs
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play the guitar just like ringing a bell
[Chorus]
Go go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Go Johnny go
Go
Johnny B. Goode
He used to carry his guitar in a canvas sack
And sit beneath a tree by the wagon tracks
Oh, the wagon-drivers would see him sitting in the shade
Strumming with the rhythm that the wagons made
People passing by they would stop and say
Oh my that little country boy could play
[Repeat Chorus]
His mother told him someday you will be a man,
And you will be the leader of a traveling band
Many people coming from all around
To hear you play your music when the sun goes down
Maybe someday your name will be in books
Saying Johnny B. Goode played here
[Repeat Chorus]
It was a smash success that evening, even without the guitar. Tom of course altered some words even more, Changing 'Johnny' to 'Tommy', and 'Piney Springs' to 'Seven Streams', implying that he was singing about himself. I decided I didn't care about that bit, but he agreed to sing for me on my Name Day, and would stay with the Smallwood's and travel with them to Riverrun when the solstice neared.
We departed the next morning on the 1st day of the 6th Moon, expecting to arrive in Riverrun late in evening of the 2nd. Then I'd surely have to face Hoster the morning after that.
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#80
!Edmure XI
3rd day, 6th Moon, Long Summer, Short Spring 294 AC
Wake up!
Fog began to clear from my mind as Edmure's memories from that morning began to fill in. He had 'woken up' before me and already gotten dressed and downstairs, and eaten some eggs, fruit, and bread and drank some wine. We got in late last night, though Edmure 'nodded off' while we were still riding on horseback. This morning he'd been chatting with Maester Vyman and Utherydes a bit during breakfast. Vyman told us a raven had come from Uncle Brynden, saying while he appreciated the invitation to my upcoming Solstice Festival/Name day party, that his duties at the Bloody Gate prevent him from attending. Edmure thinks it more likely that his strained relationship with Hoster is what is keeping him away. Utherydes had several 'applications' for 'market stall' rentals during the planned festivities, I guess I had not adequately explained my intentions there. He seemed a bit annoyed and said Hoster wanted to know what in the hell was going on. Then of course, there was the whole 'sneaking off to a whore house with minimal guard' thing we were getting accused of.
Which I warned you about, so now you need to wake up because we are about to talk to 'our' father about this mess you created.
Settle down, just let me clear my head more, and you draining a second cup of wine for breakfast right now isn't really helping with that.
I needed to do something to stall.
Enough then, I fought briefly with Edmure, to put the cup down, by then it was over half-empty. We don't need to be drunk before we talk to him either.
Do not be so sure of that.
"M'Lord?" Utherydes asked again expectantly.
"Yes, sorry, very thirsty. I'll go and speak with Ho-" my father "right away." I stood up to turn toward the door to the stairs to go to his solar.
"M'Lord, as I was saying he is downstairs…he had his bed moved while you were gone, this way."
It was immediately apparent why he had moved as soon as I went into the most prominent 'guest' room on the lower floor. This was one of the rooms I had installed two ceiling fan in, along with other bedrooms on this floor and the entire great hall. It was noticeably cooler than small kitchen nook Edmure had just wolfed down breakfast in. Hoster was sitting upright in his bed, recently eaten as plates were off to the side on a bedside table. He looked thinner, but also more comfortable, his cooling rags set aside on the table as well.
"I see you've decided to take advantage of the cooling breeze." I said, gesturing to the ceiling fans above, smiling. "Sorry I couldn't get any installed upstairs, not yet anyway, trying to run rope and pulleys up there to keep them running wasn't very feasi-"
Hoster had merely glanced upwards at the fan before cutting me off. "I do not care about that, you need to explain why you felt it would be alright to run off with only one guard, and stay gone for over four days. As well as explain all these other...things… you have been doing and planning."
"Kirth was with me also…"
"Kirth has barely sprouted hair on his balls, he is no guard. You did not even take your own squire, or a host of other men. What if you had been waylaid by bandits? You are my only son and heir, you need to put all these irresponsible actions and foolish notions behind you and take responsibility for the position of High Lord you will need to fill. The boy may not have known better, but the bastard should have. If it weren't for my promise to your mother, and him being her nephew by blood I would have him cast out for this."
Really, fuck you Hoster; you can't even call Wyndel by his name?
Hey come, on, what did you expect? I told you he would probably punish them
"Don't punish them for what I ordered them to do, the fault is mine. I didn't want to be slowed down or deal with the expense of a large retinue, since you've been complaining about the cost of all my projects recently."
"The fault is yours, and thus so is their punishments for not telling me or insisting on additional guard. You want to save on cost, docking a month of the bastard's pay plus whatever additional shit assignments Ser Robin comes up with ought to save something there, and if it happens again he will not be employed here anymore."
"So what are they to do? They're bound by laws and oaths to do as their Lord says, and-"
"Yes, their Lord, which is me, not you, not yet, till I breathe my last." As if on cue, Hoster in his anger entered a coughing fit, and reached for his cloth. I waited patiently for the episode to be over with, and when he finally settled down drank some water he continued, in a somewhat quieter tone. "Courtesy titles are just that until you ascend to the position truly. You need to be thinking about marriage, not ridiculous projects and flights of fancy, or creating complication for yourself by seeding some common whore till she is fat with a bastard in her belly. Now the only reason I am letting you have this festival is so you'll get introduced to the unmarried sisters and daughters of your future vassals. Strength lies in important strong marriages; we survived the King's rebellion by tying our house to the North and the Vale with your sister's marriages. We need to do the same with your future wife."
Well the story of visiting a whore seems to have been upheld.
Yeah, well that is going to fall apart, if Kirth is questioned or when the Smallwood's show up for the festival, and talk about our brief visit.
"I said I'll meet and treat with the ladies at the festival, but let's not pretend you're not aiming a lot higher than that. Otherwise you would not have sent a letter to Dorne inviting Princess Arianne to Riverrun, and the only other prospect's among High Lord's is Lady Margaery Tyrell, and she's only 11 or 12, and neither of them are going to be at the festival. So don't be surprised if I…keep my intentions …limited… toward whomever local ladies are trying to ensnare me."
"You know about the letter, do you?"
Yes, because paying attention to servant gossip is actually useful sometimes.
Princess Arianna is rumored to be quite a beauty too.
"Yes, father I actually have been paying attention you know, at least I have been recently. I know it's not what you're used to, but I have to grow up sometimes right? That's what you've said to me often enough, so I apologize for my occasional slip-up. But I hope you can see that the things I have been working on are not just flights of fancy but things that will actually improve our lands and income. Isn't that just as important as marriage alliances, maybe even more so?"
"More so? Doubtful, and so far they have been naught but expenses, I am already cringing at what I am hearing you have planned for this festival and the expense it will be well beyond what I initially made allowances for."
"And I also know you've sent both Utherydes and Maester Vyman to check up on my little farm plot more than once, surely they've reported that yields ought to be four times higher than normal if most of it comes to harvest."
"More yes, four times? Hardly. You are deluding yourself boy, and that is also only if it survives and does not get washed out by the spring rains and floods. You are not a farmer boy; you are the son of a Lord Paramount, leave farming to the small folk."
Fuck you Hoster. "I asked to use land not inside the flood plains but you wouldn't let me use it."
Would you stop that? This is not helping
"Of course I did not I will not going to risk good arable land on your foolish ideas."
"We'll the first spring crop of peas and beans will be harvested this month." And they'll have fixed nitrogen into the soil. "But I'll just let the numbers speak for themselves. They won't get washed out either, that's why that levee is there, and we should build more to recover even more useable land and prevent future flooding."
"You cannot tame rivers, Edmure."
"Oh why not? I think we can and should. If the Valyrians could tame freaking Dragons, if Harren could build his once massive castle, if Brandon could build a massive ice wall, I think the Lords of the Riverlands should be able to tame their own rivers. You're always telling me about how important those marriage alliances are because the Riverlands are so vulnerable to invasion, and part of that is because of the barriers that our rivers create to the movement of our own forces. You've looked at them as a weakness and never as a strength. They are barriers to the movement of enemies too you know. So imagine instead that we had quickly deployable boats that can function as floating bridges or transports to go wherever we need them, whenever we need them. That would mean we would have mobility where any potential invaders wouldn't. By controlling our rivers we'd force them to use known bridges and fords and prepare accordingly, while we're free to move wherever we want."
"More grand expensive projects-"
"Yes, which can be paid for by a significant increase in trade income, because our rivers are a network of quick and easy transportation routes which should even be extended further with artificial waterways. You keep worrying about the cost of this or that, well think about how much it costs to transport several tons of grain or any other good by wagon over land vs. how much it cost to haul that same amount on a barge with just one horse pulling it from the shore, yet we don't even have an adequate system of tolls in place to tax river traffic."
"The floods are too sporadic-"
"Control them with Levees"
"The depth and the shallows-"
"Can be surveyed, charted and dredged."
"The banks-"
"Can be cleared or made accessible with pulling paths.."
"Our vassals…"
"Should do as their Lord Paramount says, and otherwise can probably be won over with a share of the revenue."
Hoster just stared at us for a long while without responding. What's he thinking, did I finally get through to him?
No, he is still angry
"There will be no more of your whoring, and no more trips away from Riverrun without my approval. Go talk to Vyman and Utherydes, and fix this mess of a Festival-Name day thing you have made. You have let rumors build up that it will be a grander thing than it should be and people are thinking there will be tourneys. You want responsibility, then the expense and planning of this thing is in your hands now. I do not care if you have to sell your armor and horse, or use up all the unspent coin I have given you over the last year."
"Thank you father I won't disappoint you."
That was supposed to be a punishment
That exactly what I wanted though, but will we have real freedom to plan it as we see fit or is Vyman and Utherydes going to micro-manage it the whole time?
My father will not let us fuck-up, even if he is expecting us to. He would lose way to much 'face' as your saying goes, with a lot of people if this went awry. So I would expect he has already put out instruction for 'a back-up' plan.
I just…he's not going to sabotage us just to see a failure and prove he was right and had to step in will he?
I do not think he will go that far, and if he is getting sicker, he may not have energy to anyway
Maybe he didn't have the energy for the planning it in the first place, not that we ever intended to make him shoulder that alone.
"I said you can go boy, have you gone deaf too?"
Shit. I apologized and slipped out the door to find Utherydes and Maester Vyman, we had a lot to plan over the next month.
You have to admit this idea did get way bigger than the simple brewing contest you initially thought up.
Finally done talking with Utherydes and Vyman about the solstice Festival / Name Day celebration, and got the chance to write again. Hopefully I explained things well enough, and they have an understanding of how I aim to plan, prepared for and run this event. Maybe Hoster will finally give me some credit once it's over with.
The primary Solstice festival will be a two-day event, though it can be expected that plenty of Houses will arrive some days early and staying some days late. I just hope retinues or guard escorts don't get excessively large because not everyone is going to be able to get hosted at Riverrun. Typically though this is known enough that Houses bring along their own tents to set up for their men at arms and other servants. I've designated a large open field area for this already.
The actual goal here is to make a profit off this festival.
TODO:
Pay Wyndel his docked wages and then some out of my own pocket.
Prep the 'Tent Field' for latrine and waste handling.
Mark and prep the 'Animal fields' to house the various horses and other beasts. One for nobles and knights, one for small folk. Hire animal tenders and charge a small fee.
Mark and prepare the 'Market Stall' areas. Just squares cordoned off with ropes along the also marked out avenues for the Festival grounds. Rent these out to local merchants, prices differ based on square location. This is already known to the places near Riverrun. They have to bring their own supplies and tables (or rent a table and other such things from me)
Hire Carpenters to build lots of tables and benches.
First Tournament. Lists for Lords or knights only. I need to limit total participants to 16. (Because of time and space constraints). First come, first serve, bracket elimination. Entry Fee required ($$ TBD). They have to bring their own horses, armor, etc. I'll provide tourney lances. That's a maximum of 6 break-away jousting lances per match. 31 matches, 186 lances. (in actuality far less will probably be needed, as not all will be broken) Entry fee to cover cost of lances and prize purse.
Second Tournament. Squire's Melee, un-mounted (much less space and multiple matches can occur simultaneously). Still limit entrants to a max of 32. No Entry fee required, but no purse awarded either. Knighting as award instead? Need to get Hoster's permission. Do I need to make wooden weapons available? Or let the honor system have a shot and disqualify anyone that tries obviously dangerous moves?
Set up some betting pool gambling brackets: The house wins. Ignore the side bets that will surely happen.
Apparently can't sell seats to Lords and Ladies watching the lists. It would 'look bad'. I can sell seats to small folk though. Build two set of elevated watching benches/stands, one side of lists for lords and the other for small folk.
Sell Permits to sell food in the stands.
Use all my failed paper batches for paper plates and napkins and what not for food services.
Brewing contest. All entrants are required to provide a small keg (2-3 US Gallons) of their product. This is their only entry 'fee'. They can sell whatever they have in excess of that if they bought one of the permits. These drink samples will be the main source of booze for later festivities in the dining hall.
Also sell busking permits.
Have a chat with Tom again.
Have our guards out enforcing all these things. Especially sanitation issues.
Have actual event scheduling with bells and criers to let people know what is going on when.
Main dining Hall dinner. Lords and Ladies invite only (for eating, drinking and dancing.) Can't charge money for this as it's the main hosting feast for the guests. Can use the brews and let the Lords and Ladies (and myself) be judges. This covers the wine & beer costs.
The Feast: use cheap food that no one has eaten before. Sandwiches, Hamburgers, Pizza, Nachos with various bean, cheese, spinach, and sour cream dips. So long as it's unique and tasty. Still keep some traditional fare in reserve. (Wish I had some fries and guacamole)
Invent a Pizza Cutter and a bread slicer.
Sell some of my Brandy at the event. (How much?)
Show off some of my paper and pens at the event? (if completed)
Derrick will be helping plan all this out with me also. Vyman's opinion of his progress has been positive so far. Chat with him after the festival about what I want from him in exchange for sponsoring him to study at Oldtown sometime later in the year.
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#82
!Myranda X
15th Day, 6th Moon, Long Summer, Short Spring 294 AC
We took a life today, not on purpose, but it was a sobering experience none the less. Her name was Nan and she was two years old. As a doctor I have to tell myself that these things happen, patients die, and sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. What really eats you up inside is when the death could have been avoided but it happened because you made a mistake. You misdiagnose, you calculate the wrong amount of medicine, something goes wrong in a routine procedure, or you're just not giving 100% of your focus to the task at hand, and the patient dies. You question your entire career after that, if it's still intact, and wonder if you can ever practice medicine again.
Fortunately Nan was only a goat. She died because we gave her too much milk of the poppy or we prepared it wrong. She was one of a few failures along with a few successes while we have been practicing following the instructions for preparing and administering milk of the poppy and some of the other medicines that Maester Coleman's books had in them. A butcher and the cooks took care of Nan, and she tasted delicious.
You are being morbid, as well as taking the death of the goat too seriously
No I am being practical. If that had been a little girl and not a goat we would be feeling something entirely different. This practice is a necessity, especially for *you* Myranda, because it definitely was not *me* who was feeling queasy and repulsed when Nan was dissected.
Coleman's books call for administering Milk of the Poppy (some kind of morphine, codeine or other opioid) and all other drugs orally or topically, as they don't know of any other way. Well actually they did describe an enema. We are experimenting with intravenous delivery. Results have been mixed. Our main obstacles are a lack of proper tools. The urchin spines do indeed work as needles, though we've lost over half of them now due to breakage, animals won't stay still even when they are tied down. Boiling them thoroughly and bathing them in alcohol seems to have kept localized injection site infections in the animal test subjects to a minimum. In general however, given that they were animals and not kept in a sterile lab setting…who the hell knows how conclusive that is.
Means of intravenous delivery has been the real problem. No syringes, nor rubber stoppers, to push contents into the needle, no tubing and the list goes on. We've been trying a makeshift bladder-skin to induce pressure, with wax sealing around lacquered hollow reeds for now.
Also there are no markings or any standardized system with which to precisely measure liquid substances. Well, we've made a meter bar sub-marked down to centimeters and half-centimeters. (And millimeters eventually we hope, with enough engraving precision.) We guess we can figure out how to make standardized liters, milliliters, and such. I think a liter is a cubic decimeter.
So we've done all this in the two weeks it has been since we got back to GotM. It seems longer than that, and now I think it really was, compared to two-weeks on earth. I am fairly convinced now that the days here are longer than earth days, as it is the only explanation that makes sense.
Increasing word of our healing talents has spread among the small folk. We've been visiting the local ones more frequently, or have had some show up asking for services. Our father is starting to ask more questions about it and I think the 'petitions of sick people' are starting to annoy him.
It has been difficult to overcome or handle a lot of prejudices. First we are a woman, second, Myranda, in age, is only a young teenager. Many people rightly question our experience for being so young. Septa Ana's own form of fervent propaganda offsets this some, as well as our 'noble' status, as low as it is. Those who are desperate enough though don't care, and success speaks volumes.
After the care of so many folk though, I have gathered more evidence of age discrepancies. We have now treated children in the range of 3 to 6 that look and act older than is claimed by their mothers. We've treated young teens that look and act two to three years over their claimed ages. (Just like Myranda and Mya has.) It is most visible in the young, due to the drastic changes in maturation during childhood and puberty, especially with reports of the average age of 'flowering' for young girls being eight to twelve! For the adults (especially the geriatric) it is harder to judge purely on maturity or physical build. Often the small folk don't even know their own ages, but when apparent, the discrepancy between claimed age and apparent age (if on earth) grows the higher the claimed age is.
I finally got a more concrete comparison when we came across the claim in Coleman's books that the average duration of pregnancy is 32 weeks plus one to three days. This number is confirmed by the midwives and mothers we have questioned. On earth pregnancy lasts 40 weeks, and like on earth, here it is measured from the last preceding menstrual cycle.
So if 32 weeks plus two days (226 Westerosi days) equals 280 earth days. How many hours long is a day?
280ed / 226wd = ….
Okay long division time, damn I wish I had a calculator.
What about an abacus?
Oh yeah those bead things… didn't we see one in Coleman's study? You know how to use one…
Only the very, very basics, certainly not how to do 'long division' on it.
No calculators any time soon.
…Should we learn to use an abacus? Or at least obtain one?
280 / 226 = ~1.238938 earth days
1 Westerosi day = (1.238938 * 24) = 29.734512 earth hours?
~30 hour days….damn…I would think this would have been a lot more noticeable than it has felt so far, and that is still just a rough guess.
It is all perfectly normal to me.
I suppose so, and a third of that time is still spent sleeping.
Well at least it is for most people, since we have become quite the weird case.
And I guess humans here have evolved to that day and night cycle, as well as everything else. It doesn't come close to explaining your weird 'long seasons' though.
30 hour days…approximately and still 340 and 1/7th days in a year, in terms of total hours, that is longer than an earth year. ~10200 earth hours vs. 8766 hours….
Ugh… more math
…Everyone is about 16% older in earth years than they actually are in Westerosi years. That is about one extra year per six. So a six year old is really seven, a twelve year old is really about fourteen, and an eighteen year old is really about twenty one.
So Instead of '15' I'm actually…
Over seventeen and a half… nearly eighteen.
Which make my romantic history more comparable to yours at that age…I think you owe me an apology.
I... okay I'm sorry, it was just very confusing. At least this explains Harry siring a kid, at 'age thirteen'…not that it is much better…but it makes more sense that he was biologically over fifteen at least.
Finish your writing I am going to sleep
Would you please stretch before going up to the Eyrie tomorrow, check on the spinning wheel progress, and see how much new inventory we're built up?
Yes, mistress… and father wants us to check and restock the food supplies, and see what needs to be purchased in preparation for the solstice festivals. You do it, I don't want to.
Yes mistress…
And like that Myranda 'shut herself off'. It's strange. I can do it too so long as one of us is awake. If not, it's falling asleep the mundane way, although even that has been getting easier. We've gotten into a good rhythm, I'm more of a night owl, so stay up late to write out and design plans for improvements and innovations, or handle other things around the house that she doesn't want to do. Myranda is more of a morning person so gets up early and does her share. It gives us each several hours to ourselves, (about five or so if my figures are correct) before we have to share again.
To outside observers, it also means we are sleeping half as much as normal. This has definitely been noticed by some of the staff as well as Mya and Septa Ana. They have expressed some worry for a while and said we should sleep more, but since it has not noticeably been affecting our ability to function, the comments have tapered off. If there are thirty hours in a day as I suspect, that leaves about twenty-five available for us to actually get things done. I can't complain about that.
And more of our TODO list for getting things done? We had to set a couple broken bones over the past two weeks, splints were all that were available, but one of them really needed a better immobilizing cast. I know Plaster of Paris was used for orthopedic casts for a long time before modern materials. It comes from a soft mineral but I am having trouble remembering which one. I know that it will harden in water and casts are made by soaking bandages in the plaster before wrapping up the limb. This more old fashioned material was still being used during my year in Africa. Bleach is another thing I really wish we had. I recall, from somewhere, that it is made with seawater and electricity. There is plenty of the former, none of the latter.
As to the trip and profits from sales in Gulltown they were good. Our father Nestor quizzed us on that though, profits were not as high as we had first considered, once transportation costs were factored in. Those costs will increase as load and inventory sizes increase. He thought we were going to give up after the experience though, that was probably why he let us try. He is mistaken though about giving up and we need to plan for the next trip back.
Transport costs could be reduced greatly if we just moved to GT. That would be a pretty big step though, but it does make sense. There is nothing about our work we could not do over there as opposed to here. The obstacles are that space to work and sleep here is free, Nestor probably wouldn't approve, and we don't know how obtaining property in the city would work. Our goal for the next trip is to bring more garments than last time, and find a way to maybe deal with the tailors guild situation. We'll try our hands at making soaps and shampoos to sell too, maybe the toothbrushes designed so far, but we still need to improve the tooth powder and make it an actual paste somehow, oh and dental floss.
Our interactions with Kent our smith has improved, he is starting to get more receptive to some of my tool ideas. We've done a lot to work with the wire we purchased in GT. We need improved ways of making pins, needles, underwire, hook and eye closures, and strap buckles though. Our few interactions with Brynn the weapon-smith though haven't changed much at all. Hopefully the smith we contacted in GT will work out better for the scissors.
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#87
!Myranda XI
16th Day, 6th Moon, Long Summer, Short Spring 294 AC
Well, Caroline is still 'asleep'. I recalled she left the parchments with food supplies lists and other things my father had asked of us on our desk when I awoke. I handed them off to him this morning after he had come down to break his fast. I was already up, dressed and broke my fast by then. I have been letting the servants resume their tasks of dressing and aiding me in the mornings, ever since having these mornings to myself. Caroline still insists on doing things herself in the evenings. She knows I still resent what has happened to me, to have become a passenger within myself, but I too know she never did any such thing herself on purpose. The Seven must have their plans somehow. The wealth of knowledge that Caroline's memories has brought to me is staggering at times, as I am sure mine is to her. Perhaps it does take two minds to handle everything that we have since planned over the last half-year. I still trust in the Seven's judgments, even if Caroline is still reluctant to recognize the magical and supernatural even in the face of what has happen to her and I. Our cooperative approach is so, so much better that what I was faced with before.
I am forced to admit that many of her suggestions have helped a great deal. I have shed over a stone of weight, my back does not hurt anymore, and my posture has improved. Even my father and brother have had positive comments in some areas. I am looking at myself in a large polished silver hand mirror now. I wish I had one of the large full length mirrors that Caroline's memories bring to mind. She still thinks me vain from time to time, but I do not care or know why she disdains it. Caroline's memories of her own self show she was quite attractive in her own way.
Strangely though, our hair seems a little straighter than usual nearer the base, and we keep finding stray blond hairs coming in. A few that we have plucked have shown a clear transition of blond to brown from base to end. The vast majority though are still my normal brown. I do not know if this is normal or some other strange effect of what has transpired upon us. I feel my clothes fit strangely sometimes, but much of that has been due to the weight lost and much muscle built up. I had been so, disapproving, before of her desire for a 'workout regimen', but I now find myself liking the feeling of strength I get; even if this is one area my father and brother look down on me over. It does make traveling up to the Eyrie much, much easier anyway. I am not winded anymore when not riding the mules. Mya is still far stronger than me, despite these workouts, though she joined in on them too. Perhaps her strength comes from her father's blood. Neither I nor she know who that is, and the one time I asked my father of it, he refused to answer.
Well, I had already stretched first thing in the morning, and was pleased to see that our first spinning wheel was completed. Joyce, Ashley, and I had given it a try this morning. I paid the woodworker a bonus as agreed. Caroline wants a second built as soon as can be done, but not till after everyone has given 'feedback' on the one that was made.
Caroline's memories of an 'assembly line' keep popping up as we try and work on these garments all in turn doing a different part, though I imagine the actual weaving jobs will be put out to local villagers, if the amount of yarn this spinning wheel produced this morning stays at that rate. Joyce and Ashley both have noticed that it is less quality than distaff spun yarns and threads they have done before, more fuzz and stray fibers. Though the assembly line idea keeps coming back up whenever we work our fingers to aches using 'pliers' and 'wire-cutters' on the wire rolls that were purchased from Gulltown. We are bending all the closures, clasps and buckles used in the garments by hand. It is slow and we use a lot of them. Kent is also making them for us, after some convincing with coin. There must be some way of making this easier. And that thought there is something that Caroline would have thought. That happens more and more the longer we are together, and sometimes it frightens me.
Will I still be me, tomorrow, next week, a year from now, ten years from now? Will this ever end? Caroline has these thoughts and fears too, as I have felt and experienced them just as much she has felt mine. Right now she is apparently 'sleeping in'. I certainly like the extra time to be me, so I will not wake her. Our movements and senses have, for the most part, ceased to cause each other to wake when the other is doing things. So we can each do more independently of the other.
Presently Caroline dreams, vividly of things from her past life, as I ascend to the Eyrie, of her childhood, her parents, high school, past lovers, co-workers and other events. They play in my head as she does so like a 'movie' from her earth. She has described much the same effect about mine when I dream while she is awake. It is when we both dream simultaneously that things get interesting.
I am at the Eyrie now and Caroline still sleeps, dreaming intermittently as if searching for something. I gave a prayer to the Seven that she would find it, to ease both our troubled minds. Nolan should have more pages transcribed, and I bring his weekly bribe. I doubt I'll find him awake yet. He has little to do here presently so I am surprised he had not gone back to the Bloody Gate. Maybe it is only the wine that keeps him here. Everyone sees me and Caroline for ailments now except those so stubborn about letting a young woman treat them that it actually exceeds Nolan's inhospitable manner and alcohol soaked breath.
"…Grafton's men…burn it all….clear a path to the port…." Nolan mumbles incoherently in his sleep.
"Wake up" I say as I prod him. He yawns, scratches himself in his nethers and rubs his eyes
"What, woman…"
"Lady Royce"
"Oh feeling entitled today… Dowager Lady Hersy?"
I ignore his correction, and keep my face a mask "How many more pages did you complete?" I ask as I sort through his work, as usual, the first dozen or so are usable, then they steadily get worse, in a predictable path of how drunk he got while writing. I fold up the good ones and tuck them under my arm.
"You have my wine? Give it here."
"No, you are wasting expensive parchment and ink when you get too drunk to hold the quill, this stack is not usable." Caroline stirred but didn't awake and I wondered what kept her subdued. She was dreaming of her time in Africa again, helping Earth's version of healers tend to the sick and injured.
"If you do nay like it you can do it yourself if you are so keen on doing learned men's work lately."
"I will if I must, you said you would do it in exchange for regular bottles of wine. Are you changing your mind? Nothing is keeping you here; you can go back to the Bloody Gate."
Nolan chuckled. "Lord Arryn, and your father, mind you, know I am here, I am tending the ravens to forward any news of import to King's Landing, and someone, I think, ought to keep an eye on you. Speaking of news, your late husband's daughter married her cousin Ser Trevor, he is the new Lord of Newkeep now and she the Lady, you cannot even hold that title pretense anymore. Ha." Nolan chuckled.
I hid my disappointment, but the peerage laws are even hard for me to understand. "But did your provision allowances grant you this?" I asked as I showed him the bottle. His eyes lit up. It was not the usual cheap fare. "I thought not, finish the pages correctly, and teach me how to use that." I pointed at the abacus on Maester Coleman's desk. Caroline had been thinking of it the prior night, and I wanted to increase my usefulness.
"What has gotten into your head woman? You read and copy books beyond your ken, and you want to meddle more in arts that are nay proper for the fairer sex."
"I already know the basics. The late Maester Janus taught me himself alongside my brother when we were young. I seek a greater mastery…
"Ha, even though men of my order are all required to know beyond those basics, I have no link for the mathematical arts, woman, and even if I did that would take too long for a single bottle of wine, and I doubt you would grasp anything of use."
"You said that about the healer's tomes." I opened the bottle up and poured out a cup, for myself, and drank it front of Nolan. His eyes watered, and I waited a bit before speaking again. "A week then." Nolan nodded reluctantly as he held his cup out as I filled it. He guzzled it down and added to the growing stains on his robe. I kept my grip on the bottle when he tried to take it. "And copy the pages properly."
I knew Caroline, and by extension, myself did not feel entirely good about how we treated Nolan, even though he acted the arse with consistency. In truth he was an addict, and his drug of choice was alcohol. It was Caroline's memories of dealing with the addicted as a health care worker that made us know how to manipulate him. We were in truth enabling him, and hastening him to an early grave when his liver gave out on him. It was not right. But neither was his, or this world's attitudes toward women and toward many other things, and we needed every advantage we could get.
Caroline still slept within my head, and then I saw something in the internal movie her dreams was playing. She was tending to a young dark skinned child in the African place, preparing a cast. The box there sat to the side, 'Plaster of Paris'…..'Gypsum powder' written on the side. That was what she was looking for. Once I knew the word, Caroline's vague, scant memories of the mineral itself unlocked. I myself knew little about rocks and mining in this world so I knew of no equivalent name in my world to bring to mind.
"One more thing." I said to Nolan "Do you know anything about the minerals used in plaster?"
Caroline awoke.
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!Edmure XII
Summer Solstice, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
It's maybe an hour or so past dawn. Today is the day, Edmure's 22nd Name Day, and the first official day of the 'Short Summer'. Vyman though did make some offhand remark yesterday that it was not quite lined up anymore to the actual solstice. The calendar is a bit off I guess. We (myself, Edmure, Vyman, Utherydes, Derrick, and many other helpers) have been super busy this past month getting ready for the festival. Several merchants have already arrived and setup camp and started preparing their stalls yesterday, a few as early as three days ago.
Numerous Lords and Ladies arrived last night, all the guest quarters in Riverrun are full or reserved for Major Riverland Lords which RSVPed. A few lesser Lords and Knights are staying in 'boarding houses' in the nearest village to Riverrun, (which doesn't have a true inn).
Notes:
Should I build an inn at the "village" that will develop around the demo farm/furnace site?
Follow up, make sure the small folk who shared their homes were treated fair and compensated properly.
Others, mostly lesser knights, and accompanying retinue are outright staying in tents they brought with them in the area we had designated. As of last night at least, all lords were either guesting at Riverrun or staying in small folk houses in the nearest village.
While Edmure is still 'asleep' or whatever it is, I can look over all my check lists for handling everything today, and make sure all is going well. Hopefully he won't bother me for a while. I went to bed early last night just so I could have better time this morning. Being raised on a farm has made me more of a morning person anyway. Edmure is quite the opposite. Unfortunately noise alarms haven't worked for a while anymore, and I awoke this morning with my memories filled in with Edmure having gotten up anyway to hangout and go drinking with the Vance brothers and Lord Lymon Goodbrook.
I don't know if I can completely fault him for keeping up old ties and thus appearances, but I really didn't need the risk of any hangover effect this morning.
I go through my notes, looking over all the family lords and knights that had been sent invitations.
From family, Ser Brynden Tully, Edmure's uncle had respectfully declined by raven message sometime earlier. Edmure's sisters, Catelyn and Lysa had been informed by raven but were not expected to attend, as the distance is too far. Well wishes were received from Catelyn by raven message from Winterfell, but nothing from Lysa. Edmure's Aunt, Lady Whent of Harrenhal was invited and arrived last night by wagon, with her escort of knights, guards, and various attendants. She is staying in the main guest quarters, the one Hoster was briefly in, but he moved back into his old room several days ago.
Noble Houses:
Blackwood: Invited in person and by raven message; received acceptance by raven message. Lord Tytos, his wife Lady Amara (Mallister, Lord Jason's cousin), and their sons Ser Brynden, Ser Lucas, Hoster, Edmund 'Ben', Alyn and Robert, their daughter Bethany, and Tytos' niece Brynna Blackwood, arrived by wagon the prior night. They are taking up two rooms in the far end of the guest chambers, and their men and retinue are tented on the northwest corner of the Noble's field. Brynna is allegedly sixteen and unmarried.
Blanetree: Invited by rider and accepted via the same. Lord Zacharias and his wife Lady Paulyna (Lynderly), their sons Robert and Herman, and his sister Dowager Lady Nataly Lychester (Blanetree) arrived the prior night. Lady Nataly, a widow without children, is twenty-four.
Bracken: Invited in person and by raven message received acceptance by raven message. Lord Jonos, his sister Lady Nalia Bracken (who was once a betrothal prospect for Brynden), and Jonos daughter Barbara and Nalia's son Hendry arrived by wagon yesterday. They also have two rooms on the furthest opposite end of the guest chambers from the Blackwoods. Their men and retinue are likewise tented on the southeast corner of the Noble's field. Barbara is supposedly sixteen and unmarried.
Butterwell: Invited and received acceptance by raven. Lord Geryld, his son Ser Finyck, and his unmarried daughter Lady Daria, accepted and arrived last night. I'm told that Daria 'will be 16 near the end of summer', but she looks older than that to me. As do so many others. Why in fact do so many people look older than they claim to be?
Charlton: Invited by raven, but received no response. They are a vassal of the Frey's so this might not be unexpected.
Darry: Invited by raven, but declined by same, little explanation given.
Deddings: Invited by raven and rider message, and accepted by rider msg. Lord Davyd, his wife Lady Leya, and their daughter Aloria arrived early yesterday. Aloria is unmarried and fifteen.
Frey: Invited by raven, no response. Hoster thinks that in the unlikely event anyone is sent that they'll arrive late.
Goodbrook: Lord Lymon, Edmure's close friend was invited by rider msg, and accepted immediately via the same courier. Lymon isn't married, so only brought himself and several guards. Interestingly he opted not to take a guest room but chose to stay with his men or with the Vance brothers.
Grell: Invited and accepted by raven. Lord Uther (Desmond's elder brother), his sons Ser Mord, and Toby and twin daughters Falia, and Emma. Falia and Emma are unmarried and fourteen.
Hawick: Invited and declined by raven. Lord Hawick claimed the travel distance is too great from the Saltpans for minor festivals or tourneys, but sends his best wishes. Can't really argue with that much.
Keath: Invited and accepted by raven. Lord James and his wife Lady Shaera (Ferren), their sons Ser Marcus and Horath, daughter Isybel, and Ser Marcus' son Abnar arrived the prior night. Isybel is unmarried and thirteen years of age.
Lolliston: Invited via rider during business arrangements for procuring additional wine and brandy barrels and accepted via letter when said barrels had arrived. Lord Trevos, his wife Lady Kyra (Byrch), their sons Toma and Aston, and their unmarried thirteen year old daughter Omala arrived last night.
Lychester: Invited via rider, declined in answer immediately via the same courier, claiming poor health. Lord Lymond is a lonely old Knight with no living heirs or wife, and a keep that is falling apart. I should consider what, if anything needs to be done here. The least of which may be who obtains his lands when he finally dies?
Mallister: Lord Jason and his son Patrek (another friend of Edmure's), were invited by rider and accepted via the same. They arrived the prior night.
Mooten: Invited by raven and declined via the same. Lord Mooten does not think they could possibly arrive in time due to the distance and the lateness with which the invitation was received. Yeah Maidenpool is far, my bad there. Need to decide what to do about that this later.
Piper: Invited by rider and accepted via the same. Lord Clement and his sons Ser Marq and Lewys (two more friends of Edmures) arrived the prior night.
Roote: Invited by raven, but despite no response, Lord Marvyn and Lady Anyse (Shawney) arrived last night. They are a young newly married couple with no children. They did not even bring a wagon, apparently Lady Anyse was content with sleeping under the stars and riding horseback during the trip.
Rygar: Invited by rider and accepted via the same. Lord Evan Rygar (Ser Robin's cousin), Lady Denyse (Blanetree), and their son and heir Ser Reginyld arrived two days prior.
Shawney: Invited by raven but no response. Inquire from Lady Anyse about what she knows of the Shawney's intentions.
Smallwood: Invited in person during last visit and accepted, formal invitation sent via rider as well and accepted via the same. Lord Theomar, Lady Ravella (Swann) and their heir and daughter Carrellen arrived last night. Carrellen is unmarried and eleven. Jesus, that's even younger than I first thought.
Terrick: Invited by raven and respectfully declined by the same. Lord Terrick claims distance and health as reasons for himself and other members of his small household being unable to attend.
Vance [Atranta]: Invited by rider and accepted via the same. Ser Ronald, Ser Hugo, Ser Ellory arrived yesterday. (Kirth was already here, and all are friends of Edmure.) Their father, Lord Norbert, (who is blind) respectfully declined, but he sent his sons in his place. This was not unexpected.
Vance [Wayfarer's Rest]: Invited by raven and accepted via the same. Lord John, Lady Norma, their son Ser Karl, his wife and three daughters Liane, Rhialta, and Emphyria arrived two days ago. Liane is unmarried and seventeen.
Vypren: Invited via raven and accepted by the same. Lord Lucias, Lady Lythene (Frey) and their son Ser Damon arrived last night.
Wayn: Invited via Rider and accepted via the same. Lady Martha (Utherydes cousin) and her attendants arrived yesterday. She is staying in Utherydes room, and Utherydes is staying with Maester Vyman.
Knightly Houses
Knightly houses Cox and Wode, who are sworn to house Whent, were invited along with Lady Shella Whent, and arrived with her as part of her escorts.
Knightly house Paege was invited in person and formally by a rider. They are directly sworn to house Tully, and near Riverrun. Ser Halmon and his brother Ser Damon, and Helmon's heir Garret arrived last night.
Knightly houses Erenford, Haigh and Nayland were not directly invited as they are sworn to House Frey. If the Frey's show they might be part of retinue.
There is just no way in hell I can marry any of these teenagers. Why is this place so fucked up?
My stomach growled, so I headed down to the kitchens as soon as I got dressed. I wanted to check up on food preparations for the day anyway. All the lords and ladies will be in for something different for breakfast today too. Relatively normal faire was served yesterday to our guests, so today will be for the surprises. I ran into Sally the head maid on my way down.
"Sally."
"Yes, M'Lord?"
"Please let me know when Lady Whent is up, and tell her I'd like to share breakfast with her."
"Breakfast? Ah you want to break your fast with her this morning. Of Course M'Lord."
"Thank you, that will be all for now, go about your duties."
She nodded and left and I went on toward the kitchens. I've had to compromise with Edmure a bit with my interactions with the staff. I needed to retain enough formally while wanting to still address them by their names and adding in 'Please' and 'Thank You' from time to time to not have it feel so distant.
I chatted with Dinah the head cook for a bit, checking up on all the preparations, and had myself some sliced buttered toast with jam to quiet my stomach for the moment. The sliced bread had become popular among the household staff, and my workers. Even Hoster tried one of my sandwiches, though at the time I don't think he knew I had come up with them.
The bread 'slicer' was really just a three sided open box with thin, evenly spaced gaps along parallel walls. Using a regular knife was still required to do the job. If I want to take this further, I'd need uniformly shaped bread pans and maybe some multi-bladed bread knife apparatus to go in all the slots at once. That's still a non-mechanical version anyway. When the kitchen staff started using the bread slicer to also cut blocks of ham and cheese, I had two more made with thinner slats just for that purpose. So now there is also more evenly sliced meat and cheese as well as bread. I just wish they had tomatoes, and avocados, and a host of other things. Ham (or bacon) sandwiches are typically topped off with lettuce, onions, pickles, and mustard. Mustard is imported though so it's used more sparingly. I've tried having our cooks experiment with creating some kind of mayonnaise, but other than egg whites and salt, I don't remember what else it is made from.
The lack of tomatoes disrupted my plans for introducing pizza (and ketchup). I tried to substitute Alfredo sauce. This again, was something they didn't have, but at least I know how that was made, and they had everything for it, or so I thought. The most important is parmesan cheese. After sampling numerous cheeses over the last several weeks, I have yet to find one of suitable taste. This means also making that from scratch and finding some cheese makers to do so.
Fortunately I actually know about this because when I was a kid, our farm did have dairy cows. We didn't make the cheese, but sold the milk to someone who did nearly every day, because it supposedly required only grass-fed cows, which we did. Frequent visits with my pa got me a few tours of the place. I remember enough to point some local cheese makers in the right direction. The problem is that aging the cheese properly takes up to twelve months, so I have ten more months to wait to see how they turn out. So maybe, with luck there can be white sauced pizzas for next year.
For this event, for lunch and dinner the lords and ladies of the Riverlands will get their first tastes of sandwiches, corn chips and dips, (various cheese, bean, sour cream, spinach and crab dips), tacos (meat, chicken and fish varieties) topped with shredded lettuce, onions, cheese, and so on. Even beef and bean burritos are on the menu. There is some more traditional faire too.
For breakfast though, buttered pancakes and crepes, (both new food types), toast and jams, sausage, bacon, eggs, fresh boiled milk and juices. Many though would probably still insist on 'morning beer'. Fruits and fruit juices are those which are in season, mainly plum, apricot, blackberry, raspberry, and a variety of melons. Though I wish there was orange juice, it's non-local and too expensive. We did bring in a few baskets of peaches from orchards near the Stoney Sept, but there are none left. The good raw ones needed to be eaten or face spoilage, and the rest got baked into cobblers. The peaches serve as a grim reminder of the transport limitations of perishable goods
The best discovery (though not entirely new to Westeros) is maple syrup. I have learned that this product is House Blanetree's thing, after inquiring upon notice that they had maple leaves on their heraldry. The 'syrup' is sweet enough to be useable, but still a bit on the thin and less sweet side. It is not a perfect translation of maple syrup as I knew it on Earth. I don't mean American imitation syrup either, but the real stuff. I guess it is an 'alternate' version just like corn and pumpkins and other squashes I have seen. I've been talking with House Blanetree to inquire about refining the recipe some more. This 'maple syrup' has not actually been in use as a commodity for very long. It has only been collected by the Blanetrees for a couple generations, and they are a new House, appointed as Lords by Edmure's great-grandfather.
Sally came and informed me that my aunt was ready and I went up to the guest room, where the servants had set up a table. It could have been in the dining hall, but I wanted to have a private conversation with my aunt. After a bit of pleasant small talk, I opened up to why I wanted to speak with her.
"As is most likely obvious to everyone, my father is planning out my eventual marriage-"
"And you wish me to provide my opinions and assessment of the prospective ladies?"
"Well, yes. Is it that obvious?"
"I must say I am pleasantly surprised that you made the request. It is good to see my nephew thinking more intelligently and responsibly for once. Beside my good-brother already asked me to do this very task last night."
"Well, at least there is something H- my father and I can agree on."
"I would think that you and your father would be aiming much higher than the noble maidens presently in attendance."
"He is actually; I am as well I guess. He is hoping Prince Doran will accept his invitation for Princess Arianne to come to Riverrun."
"Or Lady Margaery Tyrell?"
I had to stop myself from snorting boiled milk through my nose, and cleared my throat. "She is only eleven right?"
"She will not be eleven forever, and betrothals can be lengthy. Lord Hoster said you mentioned her."
"That was not my intent when I mentioned her… I think… I think that for the here and now, since there is no guarantee any invitation will be accepted that it would be good for there to be a second choice, I guess?"
"You had best not let your future wife ever know she was a second choice."
"Quite right… Did my father really send an invitation to Highgarden also?"
Shella shrugged. "Ask him yourself. Tell me though, not that I would not have done so anyway, why did you want me to review and opine about these ladies? Why not ask your many friends?"
"HA! I did ask them. But most of them are young men. I am sure I will get many opinions on their appearance and the like, but I need something much more useful than that."
"Oh, and what is that?"
"A woman's perspective."
Shella smiled… "Oh you flatter me, and seem to have changed much since I last saw you when you were young."
"My flattery is not entirely selfless." Shella raised her eyebrow as she ate more of her meal. "I would like you to stay a bit after the festivals are over, so I can show you a few things I have been working on."
"I see, some of your 'strange tinkering's that your father has mentioned?"
"Partly, yes. We've been at odds lately; it might do well for both of us to give each other some space for a bit. His health seems to be improving, so it may help to avoid some stress. So I would also like to accompany you back to Harrenhal and stay for a bit. I would consider it a favor if you could help convince my father to let me."
"You are a man grown, could you not just go on your own?"
"Yes I could, but that is not the wisest option right now. I could ask but he may say no just for cause, but be more open to your request."
"What cause would that be, and what in Harrenhal would you be occupying your time with?"
Because I want to expand my tour of the Riverlands and see with my own eyes what stone supposedly melted by dragon-fire looks like. Edmure's memories of visiting the place as child aren't enough. "I hope you will allow an explanation of that after the festivities have concluded, which I need to go help organize presently. The first round of the lists will start soon, and I need to be there."
"Are you participating?"
"No I am helping judge them."
With that I took my leave of Edmure's aunt. She was elderly, but younger than Hoster, but only barely, but her mind was still sharp. Harrenhal had huge amounts of unused land. If Hoster was going to be stingy about what I could use locally, I'd just have to look elsewhere. Given that also, when Lady Shella finally passes, I'd probably inherit Harrenhal in a legal sense, I wanted to know what kind of blowback that might cause, apart from just wanting to know what the area is like.
Ser Desmond Grell, our master of arms, was the master of the games. Hoster was officially the host, even though I had done nearly all of the organizing with some help from Utherydes. Derrick played the role of my assistant. I put Wyndel in charge of all the security for the fields and festival grounds.
Despite the fact that the rules had been laid out in the invitations, some participants were grumbling a bit about the way the tourney was being run. First it was only open to sixteen spots and restricted to fully anointed knights or Lords only. This was not uncommon, but kept a lot of would be participants out (hedge knights and untitled lancers, and those who did not sign up fast enough). The only major grumbling that facet got was from Lord Grell and Lord Keath, who arrived after all the slots had been assigned, and thus could not participate. They were placated at least by having a member of their house participate in the squire's melee.
To keep things open, each house was only allowed to field one participant. The larger houses with lots of knighted sons or such didn't like this, the smaller houses thought it more fair. The entry fee, although not unheard of, was not typical of 'the way things were done.' However, it was accompanied with the fact that, the participants were not required to give up their horse and armor to the victor if they lost. Since the entry fee was cheaper than the cost of a horse and armor this made poorer houses happy, and wealthier houses either approved or disapproved largely based on the skill of the knight they were fielding. The fact that horses and armor did not have to be at risk, also meant that some joined up that might not have otherwise.
Still, there was enough blowback that a compromise was set up. If each party consented, and it was witnessed by the master of the games, the combatants could place a personal bet between themselves regarding the loser's horse and/or armor.
The first third of the entry fee was placed into the final purse to be awarded to the final winner. The second third was awarded to the winner of that match. The final third went into my pocket (well technically Hoster's pocket), 'because tourneys cost money to organize and run.' Many of the lords and knights are educated and can do basic math, so in no way did I even tried to hide this fact. It was outright stated when inquired about. The opinions about this were mixed, though when I off-handedly suggested that if not this, then the alternative way to pay for tourneys and festivals could simply be higher taxes, most of them changed their tune.
The sixteen participants in the lists were: Ser Brynden Blackwood, Lord Zacharias Blanetree, Lord Jonos Bracken, Ser Finyck Butterwell, Lord Lymon Goodbrook, Lord Trevos Lolliston, Lord Jason Mallister, Ser Marq Piper, Lord Marvyn Roote, Ser Reginyld Rygar, Ser Ronald Vance, Ser Karl Vance, Ser Damon Vypren, Ser Quincy Cox, Ser Wilas Wode, and Ser Halmon Paege. It would take all day for eight bouts to eliminate half. I was greatly relieved that Ser Bryden and Lord Jonos did not go up against each other, and neither made it past the first round. The number of somewhat 'too old for tourneys' lords choosing to instead participate was a bit unexpected, but not unexpectedly most of them lost to younger lords or knights.
The Ladies giving out their favors, and the expected crowning of a queen of love and beauty by the victor is going to happen, but thankfully not by me since I was not participating. It doesn't really affect the financials so I don't see any harm. It did however disappoint many of the ladies who were here to woo me. My excuse was that I was to remain a neutral party. I had to be since I was also running the gambling brackets for the tourney too, and that was looking to make a fair profit.
Both sides of the stands were full, as was the hillside overlooking the lists and melee field. The weather was beautiful, and many seemed quite happy that they didn't have to go back inside for lunch when the rounds of sandwiches and nachos, wrapped in cloth or 'strange corn husk parchment', and of course beer were passed around by various helpers and servants.
The squire's melee wasn't a full melee but unmounted one-on-one fights going on at the same time as the lists. There was no entry fee for this, but it too had limited spots available. Kirth had entered, and got his ass beat. This wasn't surprising since he was barely a teenager. My own squire Tristan Rygar fared better and will be in the next set of rounds tomorrow as will Patrek and Lewys. As older teenagers they had a better chance, all the young ones got soundly defeated by the older teens. I'd have really liked one of my friends to win, but there are even older teens that will probably do better. If Wyndel had been allowed to enter, (of course Hoster had said no) he would have soundly beaten them all.
Prior to the festivities, I had hoped that I could convince Hoster to knight the winner of the squire's melee, and that was part of my reason for wanting Wyndel to participate. Ultimately though he declined to offer such an honor as a prize and then went on to lecture me about knighting needing to mean more than that. Despite the fact that it seemed rather hypocritical that Edmure himself got an 'easy pass' on his own knighting because he was the son of a Lord Paramount. The only argument that I had to concede was that since knights were mounted warriors, winning an unmounted melee contest would not be sufficient to prove their skill, but there was just not enough space or time available to have had a second set of lists. So I decided to just take this as a challenge to include one next year.
At the end of the afternoon, Lord Zacharias Blanetree, Ser Finyck Butterwell, Lord Lymon Goodbrook, Ser Marq Piper, Lord Marvyn Roote, Ser Ronald Vance, Ser Damon Vypren, and Ser Wilas Wode all made it to tomorrow's rounds in the lists.
The squire's melee was done part simultaneously, starting with four pairs of combatants, then another four, to complete the first round. Robert Blanetree, Horath Keath, Lewys Piper, Patrek Mallister, Tristan Rygar, Jon Cox, Kevan Wode, and Hoster Frey (a squire for Ser Damon Paege) made it to the second round. After a decent rest period, another four pairs of combatants left Jon Cox, Kevan Wode, Horath Keath, and Patrek Mallister standing. After lunch, round three began and ended with Kevan Wode to fight against Horath Keath in the last round. Horath was the final victor by the end of the afternoon.
Edmure had woken around lunchtime, and had been contented enough with watching his friends in the lists, and ogling the ladies trying to woo him. I know some mixed signals went through to them as we fought for control a few times. I won most of the time, but it was mentally exhausting.
House Shawney arrived after lunch. They were the family of Lady Anyse Roote. The Rootes had claimed to have sent a message by raven which also included the Shawney acceptance, but I guess it never arrived. Maester Vyman didn't seem concerned. 'Ravens die or get lost sometimes, that is why for important messages we send two.' he said. After traveling with the Shawney's for a few days the Rootes went ahead when Lord Shawney's carriage broke down, which had caused their delay. They were not happy about having missed the chance to enter their sons in the lists or the squire's melee, but that couldn't be helped. They'll have to be happy with entering their daughter Sarah (Lady Anyse's younger sister) into the other 'competition' going on. I armed myself with notes on the leading ladies of worth before I'd be entering the main battleground later on this evening, the dinner and dance party.
Too heavy of a breakfast and lunch, and too busy to find any moment to myself, I desperately needed to grab some corn husk papers and find a moment alone to look over my notes with Edmure without us appearing distracted to everyone.
A brief chat with Shella and a few of my friends earlier in the day had resulted in a few opinions on the prospective ladies that I had jotted down. There were a lot more women contending than those I had asked about, but the list was very quickly distilled down to about a dozen. All others were, effectively 'too low of station or merit' to be worth considering. Not my words, but that was the gist.
Well it is true, they are not. You think my father is being problematic now? You are more apt to move a mountain than get him to consent to a 'lesser' noble woman.
Give me the time and right tools and I could move a mountain, or at least tunnel through one.
Brynna Blackwood, age sixteen.
She is old enough that she should have been married already, so I wonder why not?
How can you say that about someone who is only sixteen?
How can you NOT say it?
Marrying into the Blackwoods would piss off the Brackens, but pretty well secure their loyalty.
But that might not be enough to make up for the loyalty loss of the Brackens.
Also only the niece of Lord Blackwood not a daughter, less 'prestigious' I guess.
Dowager Lady Nataly Blanetree (formerly married to a Lychester to be precise) age twenty-four.
She is attractive for an 'older' woman, but didn't seem too interested. She gave out no favors to any knights in the lists. Although, unsurprisingly, most knights paid their attentions to the younger ladies.
Her hips seem fertile, but that might be questionable.
Her 'hips seem fertile'? Really? Questionable indeed…
No Yes, Alright yes it was crass, but I mean at her age, after being married twice she has had no children? She may be barren.
Or tired of heartache, married to one Lychester son as a teen for him to die in Robert's rebellion, married the younger brother for him to die in the Greyjoy rebellion. She may be older than 'you' but is still the most reasonable, age-wise, of them all.
Hoster will still question her fertility, and there is little advantage otherwise
Barbara Bracken, age sixteen, Lord Jonos' eldest daughter and principal heir, since he has no sons. Whoever marries her is going to become the next effective Lord over Bracken lands, which are sizeable, and border Tully lands.
Yes, indeed, she does have 'huge tracts of land'
Stop it. Any children will inherit the Bracken estates.
And inherit the potential feuds as well.
Right the same problem as with the Blackwoods.
Marry a Bracken, earn the enmity of the Blackwoods, and the loyalty trade off might not be worth it.
Don't forget it may be only 'de jure' Lord of Bracken lands, the extended family they have in the area might make it more 'de facto' of their side, especially with being busy in Riverrun itself.
Lord Bracken certainly will not be at a loss for finding cousins and nephews to marry all his daughters to in order to maintain the family name and ties
Yes I am noticing that seems to occur a lot for noble families with no sons.
Still if forced to pick between a Blackwood and a Bracken bride, we should choose Barbara Bracken. It has greater long term potential benefit.
Plus you like her huge tracts of land.
So do you!
She is a teenager damn it!
But it is still true.
Lady Daria Butterwell, age fifteen. She is the Lady of the house because her mother died in childbirth some years ago.
Fifteen by summer's end. She is rather plain in looks though.
This should be more than about what they look like. They're dairy farmers. That's at least something I am familiar with. They have vineyards as well; they can bring in some wealth.
Some, but not a lot, not like the wealth they had in days gone past, and they are on the other side of the Riverlands. Furthermore, their small-folk are the dairy farmers and vineyard keepers, not them directly. Riverrun has farmers, fishers and boatmen a plenty, but my father and I need know little of it.
True, though Hoster likely knows more than you give him credit for, you're the one who has had deficient knowledge we're trying to correct. Plus, your aunt Shella also says Daria has the best mind among the lot of them.
By the seven, you thought something positive about my father? What are you finally managing to get a little bit drunk?
I look down at my empty cup; Edmure was wearing on my resolve. Can we just get through this please?
Aloria Deddings, age fifteen. Opinions are that she is both pretty and intelligent, and presently the only heir of the wealthy Deddings house.
Yet the Deddings recent ancestors come from up-jumped merchants, my father would say their lineage is not ideal for the bride of a Lord Paramount, nor the quantity of the banner men they could summon. Such a marriage might infuse someone with money but not strength.
Recent is a bit of a relative term. Sometimes, enough money can buy strength. Yet still if the rest of that could be ignored she might be one of the better prospects. Assuming the whole inheritance of her house comes with her. Other opinions are that her mother is unlikely to have another child. Besides, if not for 'us', then maybe she'd make a good match for a loyal vassal that it could strengthen.
Oh what is that now? Thinking about using marriages to strength alliances among our future vassals? You do not think trade, armies and taxes will be enough? My father would be proud.
God damn it.
Just say I am right for once. I already know you are thinking it, you cannot hide that, so just finish the thought.
Alright, yes, you're right. I guess part of all this also needs to be an assessment for good matches between those that I can get on board to my side or whatever.
Carrellen Smallwood, presently the only heir to House Smallwood, age eleven. Just…no.
Well for once, I agree. I am sure she will make a lovely wife for someone some years from now though, and bring the whole Smallwood lands with her. If it were not for that, she really would not be in consideration.
Liane Vance, age seventeen, eldest daughter of…
And absolutely gorgeous, a fair number of Knights sought her favor.
And also very aggressive in pursuing us, and our mixed signals aren't helping. She is also supposedly older, so why haven't you wondered why she isn't married yet?
She is playing this miniature game of thrones with the assets the seven has given her, and her house is not a minor house. My friends and their father Lord Norbert would approve of a match with their distant cousin. A marriage there would strengthen relations with both the Vance houses.
It's just the way she has been doing it thus far. It's reminiscent of some of my old manipulative ex-girlfriends. It feels like there are some red flags there.
Or it is just that she is only seventeen and has not matured yet. You are thinking that too.
Meh…I'm supposed to be the one talking sense here.
Omala Lolliston, age thirteen... Come on, that's better than eleven, but still, even if her house makes good oaken wine/brandy barrels, I don't think we really need to consider this.
Hooper's can be found in any good sized town, we do not always have to get them from clear across the other side of God's Eye Lake you know.
Yes I know, but they did prove to be of much better quality, I consider the extra transport cost the price of improved relations.
Isybel Keath, age thirteen. Not any better…
Too young, too fat, too boring, too ugly
Well... she's only thirteen; she could grow out of that, God what the hell am I thinking..
You do not think am I wrong.
Who cares she is thirteen it's not going to happen.
Falia and Emma Grell, both aged fourteen and are identical twins. 'Lovely girls with above average wit.' Although they are Ser Desmond's nieces, the Grell House isn't as high on strength and wealth when compared to others. Would you stop having twin fantasies? You're creeping me out here.
I just realized, now that I know about genetics from your memories, that if the same man sired a child on each of them, they would be true siblings, rather than half-siblings? And if twins married twins their children would be genetic siblings rather than cousins.
I let out a sigh and rubbed our forehead. Yes, you've made quite the revelation.
Last one. Sarah Shawney, age seventeen. 'Pretty, lively, unusual, feisty?' Ser Ronald thinks her 'too tall and shoulders too broad for a woman.'
She is the tall one, with the long black hair, that was loudly cheering from the front row of the 'stands' at the lists.
Yes, never turned her head when they landed blows either just got more into it instead. Her sister Lady Roote said she had wanted to ride ahead with her and Lord Roote rather than stay with the broken carriage, but their father didn't approve.
Yes, of a similar mind to her sister.
She's tomboyish, maybe. That explains aunt Shella's brief comment. 'She does not seem content with womanly things.'
You are considering her? If she is of a defiant nature as you imply, it could be a bit scandalous. My father may not approve.
Given their ages how can I not consider only the eldest among them? Hoster does not approve of any of them anyway, you know that already. This whole thing is a farce of compliance and playing along, until he hears back from Dorne about Princess Arianne's invitation.
That said though, it is who, in the running? Lady Nataly Blanetree (24), Liane Vance (17), Sarah Shawney (17), Barbara Bracken (16), Aloria Deddings (15), and Lady Daria Butterwell (15). Even if you consider Lady Nataly more age appropriate, my father is more likely to say no to her than any of the others.
Shit that really would put Liane in the potential lead.
It is time for feasting and facing the music then, literally and figuratively. Maybe 'Tommy' has actually followed through on his end of your deal, though I will be happier if he did not and we can hunt him down.
I had to consent; it was time to get up. I got up off the crapper to deal with the rest of the day. God I really need to invent running water and flush toilets.
The feast and festivities were due just before sunset, which was nearing. It had been a long, exhausting day, and I still had to deal with a couple more issues before that was dealt with. I coasted on autopilot while Edmure made small talk to various lords, ladies and knights he ran across, till I found Wyndel, Derrick and Utherydes for an impromptu meeting before the final events of the evening.
After the four of us had gotten seated in a small room away from the bustle, Hoster and Maester Vyman unexpectedly walked in and sat down as well.
"Can I help you father?" I asked.
"No, continue as you were." Hoster said with flat coldness.
What kind of game is he playing?
He is not playing a game; you wanted us to run this, now he is watching you do it, all parts of it.
"Alright, Wyndel, Utherydes what are your reports? Utherydes you start."
"About a dozen Busker permits were sold; several though were chased off that did not comply, and plied their trade outside the festival bounds, some half made enough outside to purchase permits and return, already accounted for in the dozen. It was much the same for merchants hawking wares, the wandering ones anyway, selling from their packs or carrying stands, a score in all paid permits. Some twenty and five merchant stalls were rented; all those you had marked out, half of which made use of table and chairs offered for rent, none were left over. Though, I counted thirty two stands that had set up outside the bounds, haphazard and unorderly. I instructed our banner men to let them be so long as they were not on the roads as you asked. It was as you said though; that the bulk of the patrons kept to within the grounds in the 'high traffic' areas. I would think they would have had more customers if they had rented a place to set up."
They should still be run off though, lest the ones who did pay be become upset at freeloaders who do not
That's another problem with common grounds. They are on it and can use it for a number of things including setting up temporary stalls.
"That is not unexpected. There will be an unavoidable number of leeches trying to make a profit off the events without paying into it, even if the fees are miniscule. Forced removals also open up a potential legal mess that is not worth the bother for only a two day temporary event; so long as they do not interfere with road traffic and thus access to the primary festival grounds. By the end of the day tomorrow though, they all need to be cleared out."
Utherydes continued on a bit more mundanely about how the festival was progressing. Derrick added in comments on occasion when asked, as he acted as assistant to Utherydes, myself, and Wyndel occasionally, and general runner between the three of us during the day. Nothing too unexpected was mentioned, though revenue was not quite as high as I had initially hoped.
"Peace has been kept well enough. There were a few minor fights among small folk in their cups this afternoon over where to sit on the hill to view the tourney. Those involved were escorted off the premises. The greater problems have been with maintaining 'sanitation' compliance. Many folk are not used to not being able to relieve themselves where they will on the side of the road or such. The small folk comply quickly enough, once given the options of turning over coppers and being handed a shovel lest they face worse punishment. They are used to deference. There are about three bags filled with copper pennies from violations though, that is only from what we have caught. It is however much harder to tell a Ser or daresay a Lord where they can or cannot relieve themselves."
Hoster, who had been quiet the entire time, let out an 'hmmphf' before becoming sullen again.
"There has been more compliant usage though now that another row of latrines are being dug."
"Men are not beasts so why do some still act like such." I said sighing. "Any other issues?"
"Aye, some Bracken and Blackwood banner men got into a brawl in the retainers field, including Ser Lucas Blackwood. A dozen in all, they are detained within their tents presently. No serious injuries."
I glanced over to Hoster to see what his reaction was to this news; his expression didn't change at all. He probably already knew.
And that may be why he is here.
"This is your festival, so this if your problem. Handle it." Hoster said, and then he and Vyman got up and left.
"Wyndel, I should have been told immediately after it happened."
"I sought you out M'Lord but you were indisposed."
"All the men involved are to remain confined to their tents until morning, and may only leave one at a time under escort. Please send for Lord Jonos and Lord Tytos to see me immediately."
Wyndel left to find the lords and I sent Derrick off on some other errands. I went over more minor details with Utherydes until I was informed the Lords arrived and Utherydes began to leave as well.
"Shall I send them in?" Utherydes asked.
Best to get it over with now.
No, let them stew for a bit. "No, not just yet, do you have the inventories reports on the food stores, related to the festivities? Including the extras that my father decided to obtain in advance?"
"Yes, in my office."
"Fetch them for me please."
"I would think Lord Hoster would want the Current situ..."
"He wants me to handle it, well I am, but I will do it in my own way. Fetch the reports." I said with extra conviction.
No please this time? They will be aggravated at waiting.
"Should I send them in after-"
"No." I said, Utherydes nodded then left. They can be aggravated, I'm aggravated. If this is just another one of Hoster's tests, I'm not in the mood for it. Utherydes is surely going to be reporting to him about the whole ordeal anyway.
He may want to see how you…no 'we' handle this, but it was not staged…
No, I don't think it staged, but if Hoster is really going to let me handle things, then he needs to not have Utherydes and Vyman so transparently trying to micro-manage and advise me on things either.
Their advice is not without merit.
That's an interesting sentiment coming from you, as often as you have ignored their advice long before I ever got stuck in your body.
I just do not want relations with my father to keep getting strained.
Then perhaps he should layoff and actually acknowledge when my ideas are right and viable, and things have gone well.
Utherydes returned with the reports and handed them to me. I glanced over them for a bit.
"You may go, and send in the Lords as you leave." I said without looking up.
"Of course, M'Lord." Utherydes said. Was that a hint of real sincerity?
Lord Jonos and Lord Tyros came in, "Take a seat." I said while I continued reading. We haven't even gotten into the stores of extras Hoster bought, this is excessive. There will be enough left over for three more days of feasting, which certainly isn't scheduled. Some of its going to spoil too if not used soon. This much would have only made sense if I had not brought or procured ANY food whatsoever to my own damn event. Did he really think I was going to fuck up this badly?
It was Edmure's turn to mentally sigh, though I felt it escape from my own breath as well. I guess he probably did. I had expected some but not even this much excess.
Then we should try and suggest letting the servants and men partake of their own little after party in the following days to not let the perishables spoil, or even sell back some, but that should NOT be our problem this time.
The Lords cleared their throats in turn, in an attempt to express their impatience. Are you going to address them or should I if you will not?
No their egos need to be deflated a bit.
After more moments of awkward silences, Lord Blackwood was the first to give in. "Are we awaiting your Lord father?"
"No, he doesn't want to be bothered by your petty bickering."
They both took that as an invitation to speak and both started up at once, blaming the others men naturally. I could barely hear what they were saying, not did I care.
"BE QUIET!" I yelled. Both men fell silent.
Well they surely were not expecting that.
With your reputation? Doubtful.
"I do not care who started what or why. Your men nearly restarted your feud, while being the guest of myself and my father. I assigned you to opposite sides of the encampment, and opposite ends of the guest rooms precisely so that this kind bullshit would be less likely to happen. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to have to make those kinds of arrangements?"
I do not think they have ever heard bullshit and pain in the ass, you should have said 'arse' by the way, in the manner that you have just used them. Though I find it certainly appropriate, they may still view such as belittling their concerns in general.
Lord Bracken began to say something but I cut him off. "I am not done talking. All the identified men who were involved in this are not to leave your respective camps, except under escort for good reason. At dawn tomorrow morning, they will be escorted out of Riverrun's ground where they are then to return to your lands.
"But my son will miss—" Lord Bracken started.
"Will miss the rest of the tourney? He was not participating, and if he had been I would have had him disqualified. Your son should have known better, so should have your men." I heard Lord Bracken let out a little snark, and I turned to glare at him as well. "That goes for both of you!"
I waited a few moments before continuing more calmly. "The behavior of your men, reflect on yourselves, and you have all been under guest rights. I expect you to speak with those involved, punish them appropriately, and send them home in the morning. If there had been any serious injuries, this would have been much worse. Those not involved, your selves included, may stay and continue the festivities. Make no mistake, my father and I am not happy. If this lack of discipline among your men results in another altercation, then at the very minimum, both of your houses will be asked to leave. Now you may go."
I do not know if you have made things better or worse with them
I don't care, but if they want any favors it will only go to whoever is the more sanely rational. I don't know if it was me or Edmure who then filled my cup up with yet another glass of wine.
The feast, party and dancing afterwards was typical. There was a lot of idle chit-chat, gossip and small talk. I was becoming increasingly numb to it and let Edmure handle most of the witty banter, flirting and dancing.
Tom was playing music at the feast, I wanted to chat with him, about some of my plans that involved him, but never found the spare time. I'd have to do it tomorrow. The fact that he appeared at all, and apparently with my okay, was one of the floating topics of conversation. Derrick gave Tom a busker permit at no cost the prior day, and I had heard him playing 'Tommy Be Goode' a few times out on the grounds for the small folk and banner men, but he kept to traditional stuff during the feast and dances.
After the feast, Edmure had danced will all the contending ladies except for Lady Nataly who didn't even try, and Carrellen, after I was forced to bluntly tell Lady Smallwood that her daughter was too young. The rest of them asked of their own initiatives (or at their urging of their parents) Liane actually asked more than once and which we had to turn down after the first, just to give chance to the others.
After the dancing came gifts and desserts and my mind was getting foggy after several cups. Edmure was bantering on though thanking each house as he was presented with 'guest gifts' which also served as Name day gifts.
Vyman shuffled up to my table with a heavy tome in his arms.
"May I present to a completed translation of 'Myths and Legends of Valyria' from Valyrian to Westerosi, I hope this meets with your approval."
"Splendid!" Edmure said, "Thank you for your hard work, Maester Vyman."
I really need to get started on a printing press.
He completed it in just under six months that is no small feat.
Lord Bracken presented a small cask of Ale. "Spiced honey mead! A pleasure!" Edmure exclaimed while sampling a quaff.
Please we have had a lot already.
Lord Blackwood in turn brought forth a large full wineskin. Edmure open the top and took a whiff. "A Dornish Red? You have outdone yourself." Edmure smiled.
Then Marq Piper held up a silver chalice. "And our gift here is new fine drinking cup to sample it from!" he said as he slammed it down on the table in front of us.
No more please. But we are obligated!
I had little resistance to offer as Edmure poured the Dornish Red into the silver cup, and drank then filled up the many other cups of his guests which they held out with the gifted red wine and spiced mead. The lot of them drank heavily, and I had lost count of what Edmure had imbibed.
"A bottle of spiced rum too! For other tastes!" Patrek Mallister said putting yet another gift of alcohol on the table.
"There be a gift of another oaken barrel for you that I have had carted to your cellar." Lord Lolliston exclaimed. "If not wine now then wine later."
"A barrel of maple sap since you were so keen on it before" said a Blanetree, "A box of spices" said one of the Deddings." It all became a blur as more wine and ale were brought as gifts.
"Ah Lady Daria!" Edmure said as I jolted awake from zoning out. "What doth you present?"
"It is not wine, but your Maester said you were keen on books, and after his example." She said with some reluctance.
"Ah don't be shy, I am finding some value in words… though I do not think I will be in any condition to read tonight." Edmure said while other about him laughed. Daria carefully placed a book on the table. "Old Places of the Trident". An interesting read I am sure. Have some wine!" Edmure stacked it on Vyman's book and shoved them both out of the way to make room for a cup to fill for Lady Daria. She accepted it and then slinked off.
That's possibly a more useful gift than everything else. That's worth making note of. I thought but Edmure seemed to be ignoring me.
Several barking yelps and a wet tongue on my face startled me back to my senses again as Edmure took a small puppy in hand.
"I am told his sire's sire was a wolf. He will grow up to be a fine prize hunting dog." Lord Goodbrook exclaimed. "While the bitch that birthed him and his litter mates was in heat, she fought off all but the best."
Speaking of bitches in heat.
"Oh, I am sure there are better, softer things that might caress your cheeks than the tongue of a dog." Liane slurred as she pulled out a cloth bundle from…somewhere…, and rubbed it on her face before learning in close. "Just a starting gift for you." She learned back and unfurled the cloth, revealing a nice men's silk sleeveless undershirt, which smelled strongly of her perfume. "I had it made myself, something from me to keep close to your skin and heart."
What in the hell am I supposed to think about this?
That's clearly an invitation! And it is my name day. "Wine for the Lady!" Edmure said as he poured Liane and ourselves another cup of Dornish Red.
"Oh I am so in my cups I am seeing double" Edmure said, "No that is just the twins. Falia, Emma. Wine for the lasses too!" Several of the drunken guests laugh at the poor pun anyway.
"Beggin your pardons, make way, make way. " I noticed Dinah carrying a platter with a large cake resting on it, which looked like it was on fire. "A Name day cake M'Lord, as you requested with twenty-two small candles on it. Spiced Rum with spun sugar frosting."
What I don't remember asking for this?
I asked for it
Oh right, but how come I didn't remember you asking for it either?
Because I forgot until just now
"Why all the candles M'Lord?" Liane asked.
Birthday wishes….My head throbbed
"One for each year of age, I read somewhere about the custom of some other land that if you are able to blow them all out in a single breath and make a wish, that it will come true!"
"Oh an intriguing, but silly custom." Someone said from the back.
"What will you wish for?" Liane asked. She wasn't the only one who asked that but was the closest and loudest.
"Ah, the other thing I read was that you cannot tell anyone your wish, or it will not come to pass." Edmure said as he took a deep breath and blew out the candles.
I wish I was back home.
As do I!
Barring that I wish I had a lot more leeway to get everything I want to do, done.
And I wish you would grant me more freedom and control for once to let me celebrate or do as I will sometimes.
Everyone cheered as Edmure, just barely managed to blow out all the candles. The Rum cake was delicious, but also the rum was not fully cooked off. "Dinah this is the best!" Edmure shouted but she was already long gone. The cake was cut up passed around by the servants and devoured by all the lord and ladies that had gathered.
Wait… sugar? In the half year I've been … I haven't eaten any sugar here…. Honey for everything. I was hoping I had stumbled….. Boiled maple sugar, molasses. Where did the sugar come from? Trade good potential of sugar is huge.
I couldn't think straight, Edmure was ignoring me, and he was equally drunk. The combination of the effects of the sugar and alcohol on our brain, and the day's exhaustion made me blackout.
Finally some peace and some control. Mike was thoroughly passed out, though I had nearly joined him after continuing on into the night in camaraderie with my friends and the other revelers. I think the fact that I 'woke up' past noon compared to his waking before dawn, is what has made the difference here. By now, most of the guests have filed out. It seems I am free for the moment of my current hosting obligations. It is my Name Day, by the Gods, mine, not his.
There is so much anger I feel at not having control of my own self, sure there have been the occasional times where I could take over but they were few and fleeting. Mike Killian is very much of a controlling and take-charge mindset. Useful I guess considering his memories, running his father's farm briefly after his father had passed before his step father made that impossible. After that it was college, joining the army as an engineer, running projects there in a war zone no less, and again as a civilian for civil projects.
But that is part of the problem, Mike is all work and no play. Even though he did not want to admit it, the stress is getting to Mike and to me too. This whole situation, even though I knew it was not Mike's fault, is stressing. The only thing stranger than having a person from another world dropped into your head and taking over your body was how calm and collected the both of us have responded to it at first and sometimes still. It seemed far more reasonable that we both would have suffered a 'catastrophic mental breakdown', as Mike would have said. Yet that did not happen. Perhaps whichever of the Gods did this had shielded us from such effects. There were philosophical and existential question there to be sure.
Also to be sure, I have no interest whatsoever in exploring such academic questions, especially while being mostly drunk. I have my wish, freedom, for the moment, for however long it will last this time around. I tiptoed unsuccessfully though the tables of the feasting hall, but even when a snoozing Lord Keath dropped a wine cup Mike did not stir.
It is all I can do sometimes, just to reign Mike in from making silly mistakes, even in just his/our speech on some occasions, with his colloquial or Earth derived phrases. His attitudes toward my father though are worst of all. I understand the reasons why he is upset, I feel it intimately so, but my father is a man of his times, and not entirely wrong about the vulnerability of the Riverlands and its need for strength via alliances. It is painful to see a rift get created between me and my father because of Mike's views, especially as he moves towards the end of his life. I cannot, will not, let that continue unchallenged.
Furthermore, just because we come from a less advanced society than where Mike is from does not make us less intelligent, and Mike has more than his fair share of memories about how stupid people from his time can be too. Of course he thought the exact same thing toward me when comparing the nobility vs. the small folk of my own world.
A perfumed aroma came over my senses, and I pulled out the silk shirt that was Lady Liane's gift which I had tucked under my arm. It really was nice, and an invitation to be sure, clearly Lady Liane Vance wanted to do more than one kind of dancing tonight. I stumbled into the hall to the guest rooms. Which room was it that she was staying in?
"Oh hey your gifts are not over with yet." Patrek Mallister said as he came up beside Edmure. Tristan, Kirth, and Vance brothers, followed him and steered him toward the outside.
"Well I was thinking about enjoying another gift-" Edmure tried to speak
"Aye this way! Like old times, and it has been too long since you have been on the rounds with us! Get your head out of that workshop of yours more often" said Ser Roland.
"I could not agree more!" Edmure said enthusiastically.
It was dark and late into the night. Many revealers had retired to their rooms. But the after party among the banner men around the barracks and adjoining village was still underway. My friends led me to a series of small tents surrounded by hay bales. Banner men and prostitutes were lounging around drinking and coming into and out of the tents. This was definitely not one of the approved 'merchant' areas, as it was outside the grounds that had been set up by Mike, and off to the side of the 'unofficial' parts of the faire.
"Happy Name Day for you, M'Lord! A special arrangement just for you!" Ser Hugo made a guffaw as he slapped my back, and threw a bag of coins to a man standing in front of the largest tent. Other girls walked up to my friends and led them to other nearby tents. The man opened the large tent flap and I was pushed inside.
The tent was spartan but functional, leather tarps were laid out on the floor and piles of straw and lumps of hay were covered with blankets. A tiny campfire surrounded by stones burned in the middle of the tent, its smoke wafted up through an open flap at the top which also let in moonlight. A lantern sitting on what looked like an old milking stool gave additional illumination. A wash basin filled with water and a cloth draped over its edge sat on the ground beside it. Not Ideal, I thought, but there were not real inns nearby and the nearby farm houses were filled with temporary stays of lesser lords and knights.
A tall woman in a loose clinging long tunic sat barefoot on the blanket covered lump of hay. She was turned away from me and had long golden brown hair that played in the firelight. She turned at my entrance as the tent flap closed behind me, and she struck a perfect silhouette of her very shapely body. Two deep blue eyes stared back at me as she turned fully round to face me and stood up.
"M'Lord," she curtsied, "It's a been too long. You've not a visited me inna while so Ah thought Ah might just visit you." She said smiling as she stepped up close, I could smell the faint trace of lavender on her neck.
"Jenna!" I said "What an unexpected surprise. You have come all this way?"
"Your friends ah quite generous, Ah welcomed the chance ta come along on this venture, and they paid for you ta have the whole night wit' me. Ah have been savin' myself just for you."
"You save yourself? You jape."
"Is true, well at least not since mah last moon time, Ah've had no one since then durin' my travels here or ta-night."
Jenna leaned forward again and started to undo the laces on my shirt, my thoughts raced about whether or not Mike would wake up and ruin this but also dredged up all the memories of STDs and other things he had warned me of. She sensed my hesitation.
"Is somethin' the matter?" Jenna asked.
"No.. I've just had a lot to drink…" She reached down and grabbed my groin suddenly.
"It dunna feel like anythin' is wrong at all, M'Lord."
I was lost in the moment before managing to stammer something out. "Are you healthy?"
Jenna let go and leaned back again, slightly confused at first "Very healthy" She responded as she reached each hand up to her shoulders and with a single flick of her wrists sent her tunic tumbling to the ground.
By the Gods, it is my Name Day, Mike's opinion be damned.
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Jun 24, 2017
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!Edmure XIII
1st day, 7th Moon, Long Summer, Short Summer 294 AC
I thought I was having a wonderful dream, and then I heard a distant rooster crow and I began to wake up. Immediately Edmure's memories and feelings from the entire prior night, since blacking out some time late in the evening, rushed into me.
Shit! Shit! Shit! How in the hell could I have not woken up through all of that? Wake u-, no… It's best to not let him interfere with anything right now. Stay asleep you asshole, for as long as possible.
I tried my best to look myself over in the dim light, the campfire was down to smolders, the lantern was out, and only dim starlight tinged with faint orange came through the smoke hole. Where the hell are my pants?
Jenna stirred as I relit the lantern and got dressed, and the rooster let out another crowing. "You be up early dis mornin' M'Lord. That crowin' cock wake ya? Still dark 'nough tho, I can crow your cock once more 'fore the sun's fully up." She said as she crawled over a few steps on her knees, still naked.
Damn, that really is tempting; I can almost forgive Edmure for his lack of will, but only almost. "No, get dressed."
"Wot?"
I really need to get rid of her, permanently, and immediately or Edmure will just find her again. What in the hell was he thinking; right I know what he was thinking, but still. We were evaluating prospective brides that very evening and he goes and does this? He was upset at me for creating tension with Hoster, who actually 'forbade' him from more whoring, and yet he still goes and does this? Does he think word of this isn't going to get back? Plus I have the rest of the damn tourney to judge, and all the other crap I have to do today. Shit, shit, shit. Jenna was still staring up at me confused. "Get dressed, now." I said forcefully. Jenna quickly complied.
Good the bag of silver we had is still on me. I assume the rest of my friends and other soldiers are sleeping the night off outside or in other nearby tents. Jenna, whose commoner dress was far simpler than the fancy multi-piece, button and string laced nobleman's party outfit I had put on yesterday afternoon, finished getting dressed before I did. "This was such a mistake" I mumbled aloud.
"Did ah do somthin' wrong? M'Lord?" Jenna asked. She appears genuinely concerned, but it's probably more concern for herself given her position as a commoner vs. Edmure's position as a noble.
"No, I did" I threw the bag of silver at her, as I finished getting dressed.
Jenna worried expression went to joyful, as she peeked into the bag.. "Oh blessed be the Seven! M'Lord, you are so generous. I will stay near for as long as you wish me."
"No, that is for traveling expenses. You need to leave the Riverlands, immediately."
Jenna's expression turn back to one of abject shock and fear, "Wot?! Why?... M'Lord" she said, adding the title hastily at the end.
God damn it, just blame Hoster. "I may have put your life in danger. My father did not want me whoring around again, and I fear what he might do."
An actual tear eked out of her eye as Jenna pleaded. "But Ah thought Ah was your favorite? Ah am no one impohtant to Lord Tully, surely…"
"You will go, because I told you to go." I said. "My father put whole villages to the torch in King Robert's rebellion; do you really think he would not bat an eye at dispatching a common whore?" Jenna quivered, truly quivered, and let loose more tears. Did she think she actually had some special relationship with Edmure? Some long dream of hoping to become his mistress or something? Or is she just really good at playing the part? Edmure's memories indicated she was indeed his favorite. He has probably slept with her more than anyone else. However he still never viewed Jenna as anything other than a prostitute. But she is a person, and probably deserves better than this. "I am sorry I really am, but this is the best thing to do, gather your things." I said as I walked outside.
I found my friends and some banner men lying about or among the tents. Trying to hide or deny any of this? No, it's too late for any of that. It still it needs to be gone though. I roused them all, "I know you all meant well, and it was certainly the unexpected Name Day gift, but my father will not approve at all, and all of this, needs to be cleared out by noon." There were several grumbles, but reluctant acceptance.
"And the three of you," I turned to Lord Goodbrook, Ser Marq, and Ser Ronald., "are competing in the rest of the tourney rounds today. "I would think you need to get ready for that soon. Getting into your cups the night before you joust is not the smartest thing to do."
"Ha, that is precisely why I bought you so many drinks!" Lord Goodbrook said to Ser Ronald, "Try to stay on your horse long enough for me to knock you off of it."
"That is not fair! Gods my head hurts." Ser Ronald exclaimed.
"Nobody forced you to drink them, friend. Besides if I win, I will buy you a few more."
"You did the same to me, but we are not tilting this morn." Ser Marq pondered.
"Aye, but you are up against Ser Wilas, him I know I can beat, so I would rather him win than you."
"That is none too friendly Lymon."
"If it makes you feel better I am less sure of beating you, and although I would rather Ser Wilas win against you in a tourney, I would rather you by me in a battle. Victory drinks are offered all the same."
I left them to their japing to make sure Jenna had not slinked off. I wanted to be certain she actually left. I ran into Long Lew and told him to follow me, given the dangers of traveling alone, especially for a woman; I didn't want her to die either. I then found Jenna who had gathered her things up in a small satchel.
"Lew, I want you to escort Ms…." Edmure doesn't even know Jenna's last name, if she even has one. "Jenna, do you even have a surname?" I asked her.
Though visibly still upset, the question took her by surprise and she thought a moment. "Mah pa died when Ah was young, Ah didna know him. He was the son of James, then he died too and Ah had to fend for meself."
"Right." How unexpectedly appropriate. "Do you have all of your things?"
"This is everythin' Ah own."
"Well I am sending you down the river," literally and perhaps figuratively. "Lew I want you to escort Ms. Jenna Jameson to the boat yards and find a boatman heading to Saltpans. Wait there with her until I send someone with instructions and funds." I might as well take care of some other things on my TODO list at the same time. "Sorry that you will miss the rest of the tourney, but you will be escorting her downriver and delivering some letters for me."
"Of course M'Lord" Lew said smiling, "It will be a fun journey I am sure."
I looked at both of them, then back at Lew. "No Lew, it will not be a fun journey, understand?" Lew's smile disappeared and he nodded his head in affirmation.
After I watched them head off, I headed back to the fairgrounds and the keep to look for Derrick. Edmure wasn't 'awake' yet and I wanted to make sure they were on their way before he did.
When I got back I found some regular parchment. No need to let the new stuff out of Riverrun until it is fully ready. I wrote out a couple of quick letters over breakfast, to Lord Mooten and Hawick.
…My apologizes for not notifying you sooner….may host it again next year…If I do will send word after the new year…with more advance notice, …and so on, with other pleasantries.
I sent Derrick off to bring the letters to Long Lew with funds for the trip, and instructions for him to deliver the letters to Lord Hawick and Lord Mooten, and deliver Ms. Jameson to Saltpans, and make sure she was on a boat to Gulltown or King's Landing before he returned. Sure I could have used raven messages, but the letters were more personal and let me go into more detail. Thusly, I also asked the Lords to send back reports on the state of trade and other details I might find useful. By the time Derrick had gotten back, Lord Goodbrook's ploy had worked. In the tourney, he defeated Ser Ronald, and Ser Marq was defeated by Ser Wilas. Lord Zacharias Blanetree was in the midst of his second tilt against Ser Finyck Butterwell when Edmure 'woke up'.
Seven Hells! You sent Jenna away? We should go and stop them.
I felt Edmure twitch our legs but I kept our feet planted in place. I did us both a favor; you are never going to do anything like that again. Your care for her isn't genuine anyway, apart from how well she can get you off.
Do not presume to know who I care for! I would have let her stay near just like she asked
But I do know! That's how this shared mind mess works doesn't it? And yeah you would have let her stay near, and that would have caused major problems. Stop thinking with your cock for once. Lances shattered and the crowd cheered, some stood but I kept us firmly in our seat. Lord Blanetree was unhorsed for the second time by Ser Finyck, who thus won the round.
I am tired of your control and leaving me raging in your head, estranging me from my father and jeopardizing my friendships.
Edmure would have screamed if he could. Our heart raced, our muscles clenched, I felt sweat coming from everywhere. Time slowed to a blur, I wanted to yell. It felt like we were in the midst of a whole-body heat cramping as if we had exercised in the heat without drinking any water. Fortunately all eyes were on the next set of combatants.
This is the worst possible place for us to be doing this right now. Your father is seated only fifteen feet away and we are on the stands in the middle of a crowd. We're supposed to be helping judge the rounds.
Ser Damon Vypren and Lord Marvyn Roote charged at each down the lists shattered their lances of each other. Lord Roote nearly fell off his saddle but recovered.
I do not care anymore, maybe I should just tell my father what has happen, tell my friends and anyone else who has a mind to listen.
Yet you still fear what would happen and rightly so, we would be seen as madder than Aerys.
No, we would not be going around burning people….
"M'Lord, M'Lord?" a serving girl asked, breaking our internal debate.
"What!?" we both screamed unintentionally, giving the girl a fright. A second smash of lances though drew all attention away as Lord Roote hit the ground.
"More wine?" the girl asked sheepishly.
"No" We need to excuse ourselves, I said and thought as I stood up and hurried down the stands looking for some place to disappear.
You cannot run away from this or me
Stop fucking around with our ability to walk! And DO NOT grope that woman!
Or you will do what exactly? I say having more control is good for me. I say last night was a long time coming. But of course you know that, you enjoyed it even though you were 'asleep' you cannot hide those aspects of your thoughts as you reflected on the memory of it, my memory of it, mine, all of the memories are mine. Oh you will send more away? Sandy? Roxanne?
If I have to…
Even Sally? She was only once seven years ago….
And now she is married to one of your banner men, with children, not even you are that stupid.
Well, how very not surprising, let us go hide in the garden robe. That is the way it is after all, push me aside, hidden, relegated to the background, while you are inconvenienced by the stink of my presence, you turn your nose up at me and my life. Let it continue and we can wake up hanging by a rope from one of your ceiling fans.
We can't bluff or lie to each other, it is impossible, whatever the hell this is, that is one of the constants. You have zero intentions of ever committing suicide and I just plain *know* that as much as you know the same from me.
No we cannot, so although I will not go around burning people in this madness like Aerys, I can and will put your workshop and farm to the torch! You know that is not a bluff.
Fuck no, I'll stay up or lock us in if I have to.
Yes, you would try, but that worked out so well, the last time you tried it, did it not?
Listen here you little frat-boy twat, you just as much know I never wanted any this. But all your memories show you're a spoiled noble brat who just pals around with his noble and thus elite friends with no real outside perspective on the lives of anyone else. I'm trying to actually make a dif—
"OW! Gods ow!" we both screamed.
What the fuck man, we are NOT Tyler Durdan!
By the seven, that bloody stings
Yeah, and now we have a bloody nose.
And yet somehow, unexpectedly it seems it is my turn.
Shit! Where the hell are you going? Not to the boatyards. We still have to watch the rest of the round in case we need help judge any ties.
No not to the boatyards, you made sure it would be too late to stop that.
Damn right I did.
We are drenched in sweat and now there is blood on our shirt, I am going to change. We have not had to judge any ties at all thus far, and my father would do it first instead of us anyway, as is proper for the sitting lord. Lord Roote has probably lost by now anyway, even the odds in your gambling bracket reflect that belief. Then there will be a break to let the winning participants rest before the final three rounds.
I know damn well what the schedule is I am the one who made it.
We wrote it
You were asleep!
That does not make it less true
I say it does, I know *I* didn't fuck Jenna any more than you feel that *you* sent her away!
Yet in the eyes of her and everyone else it was me! My character and my reputation is the one that is affected by everything you do!
And you ignore the good? Prior to my arrival, your 'reputation' could be summed up in two words: wine and wenches.
Good? If the Gods ever remove your cursed presence from my head, I will still have to live with all the actions you have ever done in my name. So I will tell you what you do not know or seem not to care enough about. You ignore simple requests to spar, you treat with the Lords, Ladies, and Knights only when you absolutely have to, and I have to pick up the slack. You consorted with woods-witches, you get too informal with the small folk, my banner men and even with the lesser Lords. You strain my relationship with my own father in his waning years. You fret and buck at all our social norms. The other lords see these things, my father sees these things, and it does not reflect well upon us, upon me. That is political 'capital' if you will, that you are wasting, and will hurt me in my future, and your plans too if, Gods forbid it, you are still in my head in the years to come! I would have never have told Lord Blackwood and Lord Bracken that my father though their complaints were petty bickering.
But he does!
But that is not the point and you know it
There has to be some middle ground here, because you can't stay up high in your ivory castle. Get your face in the dirt for once where 99.9% of this world's population lives.
Why is it you only start thinking about compromise when I am in the so called 'driver's seat'?
Come on, you know that's not entirely true. I could have worked up to it before our fist hit our fucking face!
'Could have, would have, should have.' I am not utterly useless! I have my own ideas and plans too, like following up on what I barely got you to admit to yesterday, after numerous goading, something that should have been done months ago. I intend repair relations with House Goodbrook that my father wrecked during King Robert's rebellion when he burned their lands and pillaged their wealth, and that you have neglected. I know at least that you want to fix this, but have not as yet bothered to do anything about it beyond giving thought to showing Lymon your innovations. Implementing them on his lands though will cost money he does not have, even if he wins the tourney. We both know my father will not make allowances for loans or even gifts, even if you succeed in your other schemes. He will see it as unjustifiable given the prior Lord Goodbrooks loyalty to Aerys, and as unwarranted favoritism. Yet your disdain for all our female suitors and the idea of political marriages in general blinds you to the obvious solution. Get Lord Goodbrook and Aloria Deddings to 'hook up' as you call it. My father would never consent to a marriage of me to her anyway, as she is too low in relative station.
Fine, yes, talk to Lymon during the break, but make sure you also talk to Tom and the other buskers I hired; no matter how much you dislike him. If you want me out of your head, and I want that just as much as you do, we have to follow this angle through to wherever it leads.
Agreed, for now, but this is not over.
I had to concede some of Edmure's points, even if he remained deluded on other issues. We talked to Lymon, well Edmure did, it was a sensible plan, and Lymon asked for her favor before his next tilt. It probably gave him an extra incentive to win. Lord Roote had lost to Ser Damon as expected while we were indisposed. After the break for lunch and our chat, Lymon won his round against Ser Wilas as he said he would. Ser Damon was victorious against Ser Finyck, and Lymon then defeated Ser Damon in the final bout. He crowned Aloria as Queen of Love and Beauty, announcing to all his intentions to court her. Lord Goodbrook and the Deddings agreed to stay after the festival for a number of days, and I'll show off my farm and other ideas to all of them as well as my aunt Shella.
I have no ear or stomach for music from this man.
No you don't, but get over it. Go back to sleep if you like, I'll gladly take over.
Of course you would, no I will take what time I have, and endure this ploy on the slim hope it bears fruit. Though I fear this change of attitude will make many question my motivations.
Prior to seven years ago you were totally fine with and enjoyed music, until Tom stole your whore, made his song and you got all in a huff about it, and unreasonably extended that feeling beyond its scope. This world is shitty enough without depriving yourself and thus us of music of all things. As I've said before, this is a really stupid reason to bear a grudge.
Still, I do not like it.
"Your face shows displeasure, M'Lord. I thought this was what you requested?"
Oh damn, at least just let me do the talking.
Fine
Tom had just finishing playing the 'propaganda' song I had requested him to create as part of deal. It was a good start but needed refinement.
"My thoughts were elsewhere for a moment. It is a good start. The harmony and rhythm are not bad. It needs to be a lot livelier though, faster too. Also when I said I wanted praising for the Riverlands and Riverrun in general, believe it or not, I did not want it to be only about praising my family name. This is not intended to be a song sung to nobles, nor even to soldiers or banner men, not even land bonded serfs. It is to be a working man's song. Your target audience is free tradesmen and craftsmen, skilled workers from various guilds. It is intended is to tell them about opportunities to be had at Riverrun for their trades, and entice them to come travel here for employment or to seek their fortune."
"If I might ask, what is purpose behind enticing such folk here?"
"I will need their skills for various projects. Do not worry about the whys. If you ever get asked directly just say that I am seeking to employ various such craftsmen if their skills are up to par. "
This is still a gamble; we do not have enough income, actually none as of yet, for a flood of such people. You are also thinking not all may be able to afford to travel.
The whole process will take some time, by then hopefully we have sold some paper and brandy. I am hoping those that can travel, can afford it because they were better skilled and thus had more disposable income. That or they were desperate but of a mind to be willing to take the risk. There simply aren't enough specialists in key fields within a reasonable distance from here, so I will take whomever I can get.
"It will take some time to make such changes to the song, M'Lord…. Will, um…"
"Spit it out man."
"Will you be hosting me during such time?"
What? ...No, do not...
It's a reasonable request and he'll need to teach the others.
Not in the castle, I nor my father…
"Not in the castle, but yes. I will see about something in the village or a nearby farm house. You will need time to teach others the tune."
"Others, M'Lord? I thought this song would be my sole…"
"Ha, no. You are not going to be the only one doing this task. What if you get killed by bandits or decide to skip out on me? Where would that leave me?"
These folk skipping out on you are a high probability I think, there is no honor among the low born.
That thinking is just… There is an equal distribution of 'honor' or lack thereof among all people from all classes. The high born certainly have no monopoly on it, and there are numerous examples of where it is sorely lacking. Yeah, some might skip out on me, but that is a risk I am willing to accept.
"—the, um, ethics of sharing songs and acts among travelling performers, there is typically an arrangement of some kind, lest you be declared an act or song thief and be shunned or worse"
Well that's interesting. Seems they have their own informal laws or something?
"It is interesting considering you altered Johnny B. Goode to imply yourself as the source." Edmure spat out before I could adjust.
"M'Lord, my pardons, but I thought we did have an arrangement there, you said it came from some long gone musician from a faraway land, and as a High Lord I did not think you were about to go forth with it on your own." Tom stammered.
I took speaking back over. "Aye, we have an arrangement. I actually do not care about your alterations to it, you can keep them intact; although that brings me to a very important point I will get to in a moment. Our arrangement though was that in exchange for my letting you use that song as you would, you would compose this 'Come to Riverrun' song or whatever its final title ends up being, for me. That means it is for my use to use and distribute, or have taught to others as I see fit. Now, before you raise an objection, I have no problem with acknowledging you as the author. I also have no objections if you want to teach it to anyone else outside of those I designate, under whatever arrangement you want. But they will have that same allowance, since I want it spread across Westeros as far as it can. Our arrangement also included your performances here at my festival, which you have done, and half the income you made from performing 'Tommy B. Goode' during that time, which you have not turned over yet. "
"Well, you may have perhaps overstated its popularity, so…"
"I had people observing, I have a good idea of about how much you collected. But do tell me your opinion of the song otherwise."
You have only a vague idea at best from what Derrick told you.
He doesn't know that. I wasn't really concerned about what he made off it anyway.
"Well, erhm.." Tommy stammered a bit. "It is popular enough with us small folk and low born, some lasses especially like it."
"So I have heard."
"If you desire my honest opinion…"
"I do."
"It is quite different though, not a style that anyone is used to. I still say you mayhap over stated its popularity, and it does not 'feel' right with the wood harp."
"I will see if I can have someone find or have a Dornish guitar made, if you are willing to learn the instrument."
"M'Lord, all these things you speak of. Are you proposing to sponsor me? I must confess I did not expect we would be much involved after your festival was completed, and never even entertained the idea of something more."
"I am in a manner of speaking, yes. Considering keeping the half of the income you made from performing Tommy B. Goode as an initial investment, unless you decline my offer that is."
"What are you proposing?"
"Well first off, can you read? Do you know your letters?"
"Ah… maybe a few, but no, not really M'Lord."
Ha!
Damn, not unexpected though. More work for Derrick or others.
"Well first of all you are going to need to learn, I will want some of these songs written down."
"Beggin' your pardon, but music is learned by the ear, not by the eye."
"That song I taught you? I actually learned it from an old book, and there are others like it."
What happens when someone wants to see this book of yours? The one that does not exist, hmm?
I'll worry about that later. I'll make a fake if I have to.
"Eh, writ by this long gone musician from a faraway land? I still do not understand how one might put music to paper."
See even he does not quite believe you.
It doesn't matter. "Learn to read and write and perhaps you can find out. What I want from you and four others, the most popular buskers that worked at this festival, is your eventual travel to all the major cities of Westeros; King's Landing, Lannisport, Oldtown, Gulltown, and White Harbor. While there you will be performing the 'Come to the Riverrun' song as frequently as you can. You will also be performing the other songs I specify, 'Tommy B. Goode.' included, as frequently as you can. You will still be free and in fact expected, to work for yourselves as normal. I will send people to check up on you from time to time. You will also report back on any news, rumors or other noteworthy things of interest, and I may send you new things or songs that I want you to sing of, or spread the word about."
"M'Lord… you want us to spy?"
"More like I want you to gather information, and 'advertise' what I want you to 'advertise.' Most of your work in this area might be among the lower classes anyway."
There is no Westerosi word for 'advertise'.
"Advertise? I know not what this means."
"The Riverrun song is an example of an 'advertisement', by singing it to an audience you 'advertise' that Riverrun is a good place to go if you are a skilled tradesmen looking for work. Another example is that I am making a new kind of wine. I may ask you or others one day to make a song about it, how it is the best thing you have ever tried, in order to convince others to ask about it or try it themselves."
"But I have never had this new wine of yours."
"That does not matter, you would be paid to compose a song and sing it. It is all to get people to seek out my new wine and purchase it. However, that is not important right now, nor am I even ready for such a thing to happen presently."
"You have many strange ideas, M'Lord."
"I do, and if you are working for me, you will have to get used to that. Now here is the most important point that I mentioned I would get to later. That song I told you about, Johnny B. Goode that you renamed, as well as the others I plan on revealing if you agree to this proposal. There might be the rare other person or persons who knows about it or has heard it before. So if someone approaches you and insists that they heard it before from…somewhere else… or otherwise intently seeks to find out from you, from where or whom you learned it, I want you to find out who said person is and get word back to me immediately, without revealing who I am."
"M'Lord, this new information concerns me. How 'intently' might said person attempt to find this out from me?"
"Let me put it this way, If any such person tries to find out, which itself might not happen, I very, very much want to know who they are. Such that I will offer a 50 gold dragon reward if they are identified and they are whom I expect them to be. Does that remove your concerns?"
Tom's eyes widened. "Aye it does, but I still would not wish to lose my life over such, if there is risk of that."
Do you really think this White Sorceress is from earth, or will know these tunes? As much as I want you to be gone from my head, delving in such magical bargains should not be taken lightly.
Whether she is or isn't, I want to find out. That dwarf said there was another like me who did not belong. If magic brought me here, it stands to reason magic might be able to send me back. I sure as hell don't have any other explanation. I want to go home, and I have no idea whom to contact to even try to figure out how to do that. This is the only lead we have and we need some way of exploring it, despite how far-fetched it is.
That dwarf also said this Sorceress waked the dead, cut babes from their mothers, and enchanted people.
Yeah, but that could mean other things too. She called us a smith and an alchemist as well.
"M'Lord?"
"Right, Tom. It is not my intent for you to risk your life. If it makes you feel safer you could eventually teach the songs to others with the same instructions I have given you here, and offer them a cut of the reward. It will help spread the songs out further in any case. Now do you have any more questions?"
"If I agree to all these terms, how would your sponsorship, that is, the covering of my expenses, come to pass? Especially, if I am in some distant city."
"Well that is another reason why I will be important for you to learn to read. Letters will have to be exchanged. I will board you while you are here near Riverrun, learning what you need to know, and that will take some time and give us a chance to work out things in more detail. When you are ready I will pay for your travel to the city I aim to send you to with a stipend. After that, I will send couriers by horse or ship to exchange letters and bring any payments. Your stipends will be based very much on what kind of information you can bring me, how accurate it is, and how well you do the tasks I put you to. I will have people observing if you have made the requisite amount of performances."
Really? And who might those persons be? You have not put any of these things in place.
None of them in place, 'yet'. The couriers probably at first, I'll have to hire them too, beside it could take months for Tom and any others to learn to read. There will be time to put those things in place.
I continued my talk to Tom, "If I sent you to King's Landing, and a craftsman arrives in Riverrun seeking work, I will ask him where he came from and how he heard about the work and decided to arrive. If he tells me he came from King's Landing, because he heard your song, I will make note of it, and that will reflect very positively in what I choose to send you. If this happens many times over, I will make note of that as well. There could even be enough that you might hire other musicians to aid you as needed."
"This is a great deal to think about M'Lord. Might I ask for a night's sleep to consider it?" Tom asked.
"Aye, I have to speak to the other buskers tomorrow about this anyway, I might as well do that to all of you at once. Now I think you have some more music to perform, and I have guests to host, and brews to judge."
"Derrick!" I shouted. He had been waiting outside the room as I had instructed.
"Yes M'Lord?" the lad asked.
"Find Tom and the other buskers in your report a place to sleep tonight if they do not have one. Inform the other four that I require them to meet with me tomorrow."
"Of course, M'Lord. Also if I might add, a man named Jory from Fairmarket seeks an audience with you. He has been here two days and claims an invitation from you. He states that he is an ink maker."
"Oh really? Jory, I remember now… did he have a surname?"
"No, not as of yet. 'Inker' I think was suggested."
"Alright Find Mr. Inker a place to sleep as well if he is without, and inform him I will see him tomorrow, and put that on my schedule. You both may go." I told Tom and Derrick who each gave a bow and left.
Finally, but I still am not sure this will be a good idea.
Do you have a better idea? No? Didn't think so.
My father will not be pleased with all these extra low born people hanging about.
Yeah, I really do need to have an inn or some boarding houses built; maybe something like a Roman Insula.
During the evening, Edmure resumed his role playing gracious host, joking and feasting with his friends, some of the various lords, and dancing with the still competing ladies. At least Aloria appeared content with dancing with Lymon for the night.
And finally we come to the conclusion of the original reason for these festivities before they grew out of proportion.
Just remember to take only one swallow of each entry sample or we will be really hurting tomorrow morning.
Five of us sat at a table, Edmure in the middle, Lymon to one side, Ser Marq Piper on the other, as well as Ser Ronald Vance and Ser Robert Paege. We were all presented with small fresh cups containing a splash of tonight's round of entry wines and beers for the brewing competition, and give one or two thumbs up about our opinion of the brew. Derrick was to remain sober and tally the scores.
"And earthy flavor…" Edmure said going through one of the entrants, giving one thumbs up.
Yes, but, gruit.
"Interesting spices." He said to another.
Also gruit.
"A dark ale."
Gruit.
The rounds continued, and we managed to not get too buzzed. The servants kept swapping out clean cups to not contaminate the tastes from the prior entrant. Occasionally we would want an opinion from the floor by offering a glass of the brew being judged. It was really kind on somewhat informal and haphazard contest, but all enjoyed themselves. Though perhaps the participants were the nervous ones, still I was looking for something unique.
Gruit, gruit, gruit, gruit….wait was that hops? Take an actual second swallow.
"Aye this one does deserve a second swallow, do you not agree Ser Marq."
"Aye—" Marq half said while also letting out a loud belch, teetering on his seat.
"You are taking more than a swallow too often I think!" Ser Ronald said patting him on the back.
Edmure raised a thumb, and I raised the other one as well.
Seriously even if this one doesn't win, put it aside, why are there not more beers made with hops here?
I am not a brewer why should I know this? Hops are not unknown I suppose just not of frequent use?
"Send this one to the floor, what say you Lord Keath?" I added.
"A fine brew." Lord Keath said after taking a long swig.
"Not the traditional faire, but palatable." Lord Vypren added after he requested a sample.
"Aye nontraditional, and I still prefer wines." Ser Robert said, "No thumbs"
"You are too biased." Lord Goodbrook replied. "Two thumbs"
Eight thumbs in all, though I gestured to Derrick to make note of it anyway regardless of outcome. By the end of this final round the winner was a very good but very traditional well established wine maker which hailed from near the Stoney Sept. So established though that he would have little interest in uprooting himself, but it could serve as good stock for distillation if I didn't prefer to do it in house. An order would be placed none the less as the competition had specified.
Second place went to a traditional beer maker, and an order was placed there too, because why not. Third place went to the brewer that had used hops, and I requested Derrick to schedule a meeting with him tomorrow, and a few other contenders that had at least showed some competence and willingness to move to Riverrun to be employed.
The night came to close. The festival was over, and again I was exhausted, though less so than the night before.
Then you should go to sleep, you conceded to sharing, so the evenings belong to me.
You're not fucking Liane tonight, nor anyone else without mutual consent.
Damn you. You at least consider it a possibility though, I can tell that much.
No, not with Liane, not without a formal betrothal at least. Hoster still won't hear back from Prince Doran for some time, and we won't be lying with anyone at all in general, not any time 'soon' anyway, and I really haven't made up my mind for 'later' either. I'm only conceding that a life of celibacy is unlikely.
You'll have your late afternoons for sparring or whatever, pick your evening meals, and take your nightly glasses of wine, but within reason please. Just leave me unbothered during the working day to do what I can with my projects. Just maybe go to sleep reasonably for once will you? I'd still rather not have your body dead physically tired even if mentally I'm awake.
You first. Come on, this will never work if you do not make an effort to trust me.
Damn you too, because after what you did last night you've made that really hard.
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!Edmure XIV
2nd day, 7th Moon, Long Summer, Short Summer 294 AC
Fortunately, Edmure didn't sleep with Liane or anyone else last night. Though he did pal around and drink with his friends for a while before stumbling into bed. This morning's hangover wasn't too terrible. I declined the 'morning beer' and took juice and water with my breakfast. I really need to find out if coffee exists somewhere in this world.
I spent the rest of the morning sketching plans for standardized residential buildings to be put up around the demo farm and future blast furnace site; because my workers will need places to live and I don't think Hoster is going to be very accommodating.
Inspired by roman insula's, I drew up a five story building with an inner courtyard. There would be shops on the first floor, and an inner and outer ring of residential apartments on the floors above. All had balconies, and stair access/fire escape. All the large building I've encounter thus far have had basements, their main purpose being storing for the long winters, so I've incorporated large basements into the design as well; so long as the ground supports them.
Then I listed all the problems and obstacles. I can't use steel reinforced concrete. Even when I get a blast furnace up it won't be a modern one, and steel will be too expensive and hard to come by for the number of buildings I might one day need, probably for all of my lifetime here if I can't find a way home. It will have to be pure concrete, even though this goes against just about everything I was ever taught as an engineer. All that concrete also requires kilns, and I also need to invent the stuff. Modern concrete requires temperatures in excess of 1450 C. That's a damn lot of coal. No make that charcoal, because I still haven't located any coal deposits. So that's a damn lot of trees, and I don't want to strip what sparse forests are here in the Riverlands bare trying to meet that need either. Roman concrete supposedly requires lower temperature from what I recall from a set of papers someone published trying to recreate the stuff. I just need to find the right kinds of ash and aggregate, and the proper baking temperatures. There are also no thermometer devices, so that's an issue as well.
Since I don't have any of that, and it won't solve my immediate problem I shelved my design and just sketched a basic thatched roof wood and daub 2-story. Nothing someone in the here and now couldn't build. Concrete though is moving higher up onto my priority list.
I met with Jory 'Inker' later in the morning as well. We went over terms about him coming into my employ to produce current and research new inks that I would need. I may have him help on paper making too. I gave him a small initial sum of silver to cover moving expenses for him and his betrothed to return and get set up here near Riverrun. Intriguingly, he desired that I hold on to half the coin for him because he worried about the amount and getting waylaid by bandits. At least that is a good sign he intends to come back. Since Wyndel's duties were done after the festival I sent him along as escort to alleviate his concerns, and also so Wyndel could pick up more supplies for me in Fairmarket and check on the progress of my fountain pen nib with the goldsmith there. It will probably take them four or five days to get there by river barge and horseback and three times as long to get back by wagon. Hopefully I'll have some place for the Inkers to stay by then worked out.
"So I take it Tom and my assistant Derrick gave you all a brief explanation of why you are here, and the basics of my proposal?" The five minstrels all nodded, four were men, including Tom, and one woman.
One of the men looked to me to speak. "If I might say, M'Lord…"
"You may, all of you, speak your minds." I said, hoping to give them some more assurance.
"It is an intriguing offer, I am inclined to accept it, though there was mention of reading music from parchment, I know not how such a thing is possible."
"Right, what was your name again?"
"Rymund the Rhymer"
"I am told one of you knows their letters, Bethany Fairfingers, correct?"
"Yes, M'Lord" the woman responded.
"Well, a written letter is just a symbol for a sound. So likewise a written symbol can be made to represent a note, and the order they are written in can match the order in which the notes are played."
"If I may…" Bethany spoke up; I nodded at her to go on. "What you speak of is not unheard of or unknown, to at least some of us, but music requires more information than simply the order of the notes." A couple of the others nodded, Tom looked bored.
"Right, you need to know how long to hold a particular note, whether or not to play more than one note at the same time, and even how long to be silent before resuming play again. Well that all can be embedded into the written symbols as well"
"This is all in those old books of yours too along with those other songs you want us to learn?" Tom asked with noticeable skepticism.
Fortunately I had at least come prepared having written up some music samples before this meeting. All those music and band classes from sixth grade to senior year, and garage band sessions with my friends managed to be worth something. We were never good enough though for anything other than messing around with cover songs, till we all drifted apart in college. I pulled some sheet of parchment out of a leather satchel and passed them around. They five of them studied them for a bit, Bethany examined hers the most closely.
"I realize you don't know how to read them...yet."
"This is different to be sure, some foreign Essosi style of notation?" Bethany asked.
"Foreign certainly," I said ignoring the other part of the question. "You said you were not unfamiliar with the concept, what name do you give notes and how do you write them?"
"I know the basics, Ut, Rei, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Sa, but was not taught much more on account of my sex…"
As I listened to what Bethany explained I realized I may have been trying to introduce something that was already known, just not well distributed. Perhaps that will make it easier instead, merely doing a kind of translation or melding to existing norms. I don't want to spend the time to learn new systems, and Edmure has no musical knowledge, so I can only put out what I know in the way I learned it and let someone else learn that or translate it for my needs.
"An apprentice's tune" one of the other minstrels said unexpectedly. "We are no apprentice's woman, well at least three of us are not." He said while looking to the youngest man here.
"Let's start over." I said, "You are?" I asked, to the man that interrupted.
"Christophe, M'Lord, singer of ribald songs, teller of tall tales and lurid jokes. I can juggle too if it please you."
"Christophe… do you go by any other names?"
"Just Christophe the jester, or the fool, traveling comedian."
"I can't exactly call you Mr. Fool or Mr. Jester, well I could but I think there can be something better.
"Are you giving a surname to this one too?" Tom asked. I gave him a stare he had seen before. "Of course though M'Lord, that is your right."
"A surname M'Lord?" Christophe asked, "I never thought for such."
"Yes, for everyone. This is, only if you accept my offer that and decide to work for me. What was your father's name?"
"I knew him not." Christophe replied.
"Well we have Ms. Bethany Fairfingers, Mr. Rymund Rymer, Mr. Tomas Goode, you still want to use that right Tom?"
"Aye, M'Lord"
"Christophe, how about Mr. Christophe Motley?" I said Motley in English.
"Motley what means this?" he asked.
"It's a foreign word, but it fits for your profession."
"Well if it pleases you M'Lord. I will be Mr. Christophe Motley." Speaking with a flourish, the short fat little man positively beamed, before a confused expression overtook him again. "Um what means 'Mister', be it a title?"
"It is neither a noble title, nor a knightly title." Christophe seemed to frown a bit. "It is a designation that you are a recognized master in a skilled profession or trade. What about you, what is your story? I asked of the young man who hadn't said a word yet.
"Dareon, M'Lord. I was on my way to the Reach to apprentice as a singer, when I learned of your festival and went north to Riverrun instead. I thought I might earn some coin for the journey till I got summoned here."
"So you're the apprentice then. Apparently you did well enough on your own to attract the attention of my assistants. Do you have a family name or any preference toward a surname?" Dareon shrugged. "Well, you'll have to pick something."
"Singer? …Mr. Dareon Singer."
"Sure if that is what you want, but you're still a boy, seeking an apprenticeship. One of you other four will need to take him on. You can earn the Mister title once you're grown and not an apprentice anymore."
"I could take on the boy." Bethany replied, "Though you referred to me before as Miss, not Mister like the others here."
"It's the feminine form of Mister, it is equivalent. Also since you have better knowledge of your letters than these gentleman, as well as an understanding of written musical notation I'd like to rely on you more to help the others."
"You consider me a master in my field?" Bethany queried
"A woman, teaching us?" Christophe harrumphed. "She is not our better in song or wordplay."
As I scanned the not entirely happy faces of Christophe and Rymund, Tom was a mask. Dareon looked confused. I interrupted before more could be said, "Ms. Fairfingers has more knowledge of her letters and written music than you do currently. However, let me be very clear about something. You all are not in competition with each other. You were all good enough that you are standing here now, and over a dozen other buskers who plied the festival are not. You will work together and do so in a cooperative manner, because if you can't the door is right there, and I will send you out of it. Now I have a lot of other things I need to get done today, so let me sum things up."
I took a breath and continued, "I want you to work for me, I will effectively be your patron. You will stay in the village near Riverrun in temporary lodging until I can get something more permanent set up. While here, you will be required to learn to read and write, and learn the songs that I have, and will transcribe, and the musical notation scheme on the parchment I gave you." I looked toward Bethany, "Now I don't much care if you translate the notation form or modify it to fit better to what you know, all of you can work those details out for yourselves, so long as it is simple and standardized. Eventually I will make composition requests from some of you on various subjects. Hopefully, if you are still working for me some months from now I will send you to the major cities to sing and play those specific songs you have learned over a period of time. Now those are the basics. If anyone doesn't want to do that, now is the time to part ways." I waited to see if anyone moved to the door, none of them did. "Good then, now ask the questions you are bound to have."
It was well past noon before I was done talking to the minstrels. Edmure had woken up by then, mentally said 'Fuck, you are talking to the singers' and went back to sleep for a while. I don't think Tom was entirely happy about the reveal of the 50 dragon reward for finding someone who recognized 'his' song or the other songs I gave samples of. They like 'Stand by Me', Rymund, Tom and Christophe thought 'Hotel California' (or rather Inn of California) was the name of a brothel. I may need to work on that one. Though keeping some English proper names in any of these songs should be a dead giveaway if there are any other Earthers out there, unless they don't speak English. They were all confused a bit by Lennon's Imagine. Bethany even expressed concern that line like 'Imagine there was no religion' or 'heaven' or 'kingdoms' would be rather subversive, and not liked by the Church or the Crown. I think I have more work to do at trying to remember various very well-known songs that I can convert to use for this purpose. Honestly I could care less whether or not people in the here and know understand them, but being popular means it will get copied and spread. I just want them to be recognized, If I heard an earth song that I didn't let loose I sure as hell would track it down. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star might be good enough, I taught that one to them just as an example to explain the written musical notation. Wasn't there a long version with more verses in it? Having them learn Tommy B. Goode and then Tom's Riverlands song in between reading and writing lessons ought to keep them occupied for some days.
Well I am glad all that is over with, you are going to owe me more time tomorrow
Whatever, we have to go talk to your father now.
Wyndel had already left me his reports before he left for Fairmarket with the ink-maker. I obtained some more from my room and from Derrick and Utherydes, before making my way to Hoster's solar. Upon entering I noticed Hoster was actually behind his desk going through some papers, and not in his bed, so I sat down in front of it in a chair.
"You seem to be looking well, have you been feeling better lately?" Hoster only glanced at me for a moment before looking back to his papers in between taking sips of ale. A plate of food sat on his desk as well, half-eaten. I tried again, "Look. Father, I—"
"What in the hells are you doing with all those minstrels? I thought you hated music." Hoster asked abruptly.
I told you this would raise questions.
I began to formulate a response when I heard a knock at the door and paused.
"Enter" Hoster said. The door opened and Maester Vyman and Utherydes walked in, shutting the door behind them. They also had their own bundles of paper.
What's this an ambush?
"Well?" Hoster asked again.
"I don't actually hate music; it was just that one incident that soured it for me."
"Then why make peace with the man that mocked you?"
"His name is Tom, and—"
"I do not give a shit what this hedge-harps name is."
You are going about this all wrong, I am taking over now. Hey, what... "Hah, I did not make peace with the man, father, I extorted him." I felt Edmure's words force their way out with little resistance.
"What?" Hoster asked in genuine surprise.
"Well I did threaten to hang him originally, I am sure you already heard about that." Hoster nodded even so slightly. "Well, as I am sure you also know, he provided much of the entertainment and singing for the festival as well. Apart from a place to sleep and meals, that cost us nothing." I have to interject some here, "Well cost me nothing since you required that I'd be the one to pay for all of it; isn't that what this meeting is actually supposed to be about anyways?" I said, hoping to change the subject.
"What about the rest of them? The woman I can moderately understand."
He is too stubborn to let this drop so easily, and he thinks I want to fuck Bethany.
Yes, I gathered that.
Well it is more than just her fingers which are fair. Do not worry, I will not indulge. Edmure continued on, speaking for himself again. "The boy is merely an apprentice to one of the others; otherwise it is only another small project that I am working on."
"Explain" Hoster said tersely, unconvinced.
"They are working together on some songs and mummer shows, while learning their letters in the interim." We noticed that Vyman furrowed his brow a bit. "A Septon and Derrick are performing the instruction, and since Bethany, that is the woman minstrel, knows her letters as well, I put her to that task also. You need not do anything Maester, your duties are unaff-"
"But to what purpose, boy?" Hoster was relentless.
"When they are done they will travel, as minstrels are wont to do, and will go to other Lords or cities to ply their trade as is common and customary. Then they will return or send back letters, writ with events of note. So that I might stay more informed of what is going on in the world. In the meantime, if you desire a song or other entertainment, they are on hand." I interjected again, "And before you complain, they're not staying at Riverrun, I knew you wouldn't approve so I made arrangements with one of the villages. Also, I'm planning on putting up a building at my farm site for my workers to stay at."
Hoster slapped his hand down hard enough on his desk that his plate of food jumped slightly. "Hah!" he laughed.
Well I was not expecting that reaction, I thought. Nor I
"My son fancies himself a Master of Whispers!" Hoster's scowl returned, after he was done chuckling. "How can you even trust these low born hedge-harpists and singers? Or the other sorts you have been collecting. You think giving them some meaningless made up title, and surnames are going to ingratiate them?"
Wow that didn't take long for Hoster to learn about our conversations with them this morning.
It is not like your meetings were not known
Yeah and the room wasn't exactly sound proof, guess I just need to automatically assume Hoster is having someone watch and listen all the time. Nobody have better fucked around with my lock box full of papers. This is just-
No you will not be saying that to my father this time Edmure was the one to chuckle loudly, actually putting Hoster off guard as a confused look crept over his face. Edmure spoke again. "You have told me more than a few times, if I recall correctly, 'What a Lord gives, a Lord can take away.' Well those titles and names mean nothing to us, but it means something to them, and costs us nothing. Furthermore, I in fact do not trust them. That is something that has to be earned, as you have also said to me on more than one occasion. Nor am I so daft as to think myself some Master of Whispers. Please, there is nothing so overtly complicated and scheming going on. But for things like trust to be earned, people have to prove themselves first, and that often enough requires giving them a task."
Hoster actually sat there in silence for a moment. Did you actually manage to render him speechless?
Edmure continued, not losing the momentum, but resuming a calm demeanor, "Is this not what you are trying to suss out of me, father? You demanded I handle the task of this festival since it was my idea. That was the task you set to me was it not? You have had Maester Vyman and Utherydes looking over my shoulder the whole time that I have been planning and organizing this festival, double checking all that I have done. Yet you still did not trust me enough in the beginning to not order double the amount of food needed in fear that I would not be responsible enough to cover such things of my own accord. Now, presently there is too much to consume by our house alone of this surplus. If we do not give away or sell back the perishable sundries, they will rot. That is no fault of mine, so I exclude the costs of all of your procurements from what has been accounted for in the expense of this event. By my reckoning, the festival and the tourney was a good success. So I have done the task, did I prove myself to your satisfaction father? Have I earned your trust in such things yet?"
Hoster still stayed silent for a bit, and then he finally spoke. "Yet I am told your tourney festival did not actually make a profit as you claimed it would." I saw him glance at Vyman and Utherydes as he did so. Edmure and I looked straight ahead at Hoster.
"Yes father, of course you are right, it did not. I even promised I would sell my horse and armor to make up the difference if such was required of me. Fortunately that will not be needed." Edmure reached into our pocket and pulled out several coins that we had separated out this morning for just this occasion. Reaching our hand out over the desk we dropped them one by one. One gold dragon, two silver moons, nine silver stags, three copper stars, and one copper penny bounced, clanked, and spun on Hoster's desk. Hoster sat in silence staring at the coins until the last one stopped spinning. He looked up at Utherydes again.
"M'Lord, excluding the cost of your own food purchases, Lord Edmure's figures are indeed correct." Utherydes stated. Hoster then looked at Vyman.
"I must concur M'Lord, even though it took some time to understand Edmure's odd numerical system, his sums are indeed accurate, to the penny." Vyman said demurely. Hoster stared at the coins again, but made no move to sweep them up.
Now that left him speechless. Good show, man. Aye. I decide to add to the effect. "Nearly a third of the costs were for Carpentry services, to make tables, chairs and spectator stands. Those are what I call fixed assets. They're being disassembled and put in storage as we speak. That is an expense that won't have to be endured next year. So if the same numbers hold, or are improved upon, doing it again next year will be profitable, by a significantly greater margin." The room was silent again.
You know I get it. Well it is about time. It isn't just about you and I proving ourselves to your father. It's also about you proving yourself to me, so I can trust you more. Yes well, you know, that goes both ways, as long as we are stuck in this situation I have to be able to trust you too. Go on then, you've done well enough here so far.
"Is there anything else you need of me, father?" Edmure asked.
"No, you may leave me."
"Well, if I might ask..."
"What is it?"
"My farm did in fact produce four fold the normal yield. Utherydes and Maester Vyman can confirm that. Will you let me expand on those methods for the late summer plantings for fall harvest and again come spring?"
"You may use the plot you originally requested and your current one for the late summer plantings. If both do just as well after fall harvests, then I will consider more of such for spring. Now go, I have much other work to do while my health allows it."
Edmure nodded and stood up to leave, but Utherydes and Maester Vyman did not follow.
Right well, call me paranoid all you wish I need to make sure. I thought as swiftly went off toward our room. The door was still locked. If they have looked, there is little we can do about it now. The servants have already complained more than once about not being able to get to our bed or wardrobe to do their duties at times. I went inside and re-bolted the door. I thoroughly examined my desk and lock box, nothing looked out of place. All of my English written notes were present and did not appear disturbed. I carefully put them all back away. Still, I think all this needs to be more secure.
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Lord Hoster Tully I
2nd day, 7th Moon, Long Summer, Short Summer 294 AC
Vyman pulled up another seat, and Utherydes sat down in the one Edmure had just left vacant.
Hoster had just seen another side of his son that he had not been expecting; he could not tell if it was encouraging or worrying. He could not deny though, that despite his expectations, Edmure's little festival tourney had in fact been well organized and well received, still though, all these, shenanigans, could not be ignored.
"Just what is going on with my son?" Hoster asked the two men seated in front of him.
"It is hard to say, M'Lord, It may still yet be as we first thought, the flights of fancy and tinkering nature he had as a child, manifesting once again." Utherydes stated.
"One of those flights of fancy got him lost in Hag's Mire for days, during the Greyjoy rebellion. Even so I recalled you stating he was never one for his studies, Vyman, so what then explains these …burst of reading and inventiveness?" Hoster asked, flustered.
"Actually it was never that he could not do his studies, he did and was capable enough when he set his mind to it. The issue had always been that he would quickly grow bored and lose focus, flitting from one thing to the next without much patience or attention to see it through." Vyman responded.
"That is typical of most children." Hoster retorted.
"Yes, but Edmure exhibited it more than most, he had seemed to have been growing out of it, but by then his interests turned to girls." Vyman replied.
"Well save for some months earlier this year that at least seems to have stayed consistent. What did he do with that whore from two nights ago?" Hoster asked.
Utherydes spoke up, "He sent her away M'Lord, put her on a barge going downriver, he even sent Long Lew as an escort. He may have been afraid you might do something to her after his indiscretion."
"I may have, what was the boy thinking? Ha, well I know what the boy was thinking, but no matter as long as she stays gone." Hoster sighed, his son made so little sense to him of late. "So all these projects of his, you think he will grow bored of them and abandon them like his studies and flights of fancy from his youth?"
"At first I thought that would be the case." Vyman replied. "But he has been diligent in keeping track of the progress of each. I originally though that he had abandoned whatever he was doing many moons ago with the old barrels and the sand, but then I realized he had actually finished his construction, and was just waiting before putting it into use for some reason. We have been getting fresh clean water from it daily, for many moons now."
"What of those piles of rags, corn husks and bones? Cartful's of them increasingly arrive at our gates every few days."
"His assistant Derrick or Kirth weighs them and give handfuls of coppers to the small folk that bring them in. The bones get crushed on an old mill, and mixed into the manure that he had put on the fields he had planted." Utherydes stated, "The rags and corn husks I am less sure of, something to do with trying to make a replacement for parchment."
"Gods know he has been going through our parchment supplies," Hoster stated.
"You have seen some of what he has been making with this. Several layers were stacked together and folded up into the shape of small trays which held the food that was sold to many of the small folk in the stands watching the lists, yet I recall him referring to them as failures." Utherydes said.
"I have inspected this 'paper' as Edmure called it. If they are intended as a replacement for parchment they would be a failure." Vyman replied. "They might serve for crude uses when marked with chalk or charcoal sticks, but do not take well to ink, are blotchy and of uneven thickness. I would not use it for our records or any proper letters to your peers or vassals, or even raven messages. Perhaps it might do for teaching children to write and not waste good parchment on, but so would a slate board."
"But corn husks and rags, are much cheaper than parchment, mere trash in fact. Many people, merchants and tradesmen and the like, cannot afford parchment, but this could serve their needs." Utherydes commented.
"Many of those folk cannot read, so why would they need it?" Hoster asked.
"He is teaching the minstrels to read and write, said they would do letters maybe it is for them? They are not the type I would expect to be able to afford parchment." Utherydes responded.
"Perhaps," Vyman pondered, and then his eyebrows went up.
"What is it?" Hoster asked Vyman.
"I think Edmure aims for more than that, he mentioned to me that it was not perfected yet, while inquiring about wine and oil presses. If we assume that he succeeds, and it does become an adequate replacement for parchment, why the Citadel alone would order entire wagon loads if it were cheap enough and was in ready supply."
"By the Gods just where is he getting these ideas from anyway? Was it in all those books he was reading or asking for?"
"I have read all the books Edmure has requested, that we have here in the library. I do not recall these ideas being mentioned in any, though it has been a while since I have read some of them. Certainly there was nothing in the Valyrian book I translated recently, but Edmure has not even had any time to read that tome yet."
"So these are the products of his own mind then?" Hoster asked.
"Aye I believe so; even the numerical system he had showed me seemed a remarkable insight once I understood it. Certainly easier than the way I was taught to write my numbers and do my sums at the Citadel."
"Show me this system you are speaking of, you have it in your parchments?" Hoster inquired.
Vyman then spent a good hour or more explaining the numeric symbols, 0 through 9 and their equivalents in Westerosi numeral representation, as well as the symbols for addition, subtraction, multiplication and the like.
"That is enough." Hoster said, stood up and paced the room for a while. My son, what notions are in his head, some fits of genius I never saw before, that is not in his character that I know of. Two and twenty years old he is though, since two days before. Is this the form of his responsibility finally taking shape, or just another whimsy? "Your honest opinion Maester, for I find it hard to believe my son has come to fits of genius that we were not aware of until now. As you instructed him for so many years, was he good in mathematics?"
"Edmure was better in math than in reading or remembering his history for certain, better than all other subjects in fact, but, genius? No, not even especially prodigious. "But this here does not really represent genius in mathematics itself, at least not in the complexity of any equations or new insights. They are the same simplistic equations that are taught to older children once they have mastered counting. Something applicants are expected to already know before even being admitted as a novice to the Citadel. The uniqueness comes from the fact that it is much simplified and easier to express, and likely easier to learn and teach as well. One of my links is for the study of mathematics and this system does fascinate me."
"Do you think it then came from his mind then or was it learned from somewhere or someone else?" Hoster asked persistently.
"I asked him from where he learned it; he said 'Nowhere, I have been working on it for a while.' But he would not elaborate further. So I would assume, from his own mind, but I cannot entirely rule out other sources, perhaps learnt when he was out wenching or gallivanting with his friends, or on his recent trips about the Riverlands, but that seems just as unlikely. I also cannot fathom a reason why he would lie to me. So in light of that, I say it is indeed his own creation."
"I do not know what to think." Hoster said quietly, "I see Edmure in these strange moods one moment than as his old self again another. While on one hand he seems to in some ways to be more responsible, it is in a way not really becoming for his station. On the other he shows his gross irresponsibility getting drunk in excess, and bedding a whore while he is supposed to be entreating noble ladies in my house. But then he also goes and cleans up his mess and manages to not let this festival be the disaster I was afraid it might turn out to be. These random shifts in personality too, acting with the right decorum for a Lord one moment, even if it is not always with the right amount of noblesse oblige that he should have. The next he is conversing with the servants and small folk at too personal a level. Even today at this meeting, he went back and forth from his educated speech manners and the contracted terse and odd sayings more appropriate for a country small folk. If he had not stopped I thought I might have slapped him." Hoster then began to cough heavily and sat back down in his chair.
"Please M'Lord calm yourself, stress and anger will not help in your recovery." Vyman said.
"Is there anything wrong with my son physically?" Hoster asked Vyman
"Not that I have been able to tell, though he has not called for my services in health matters in some time, not since a moon ago to treat a bad cut on his hand, and once he asked for strong soap that could remove a large ink stain from his hands. My last thorough examination of him was at the first of the year, when he stayed in bed for some days after consuming a bad batch of wine. He does though seem to sleep much less than usual."
"My apologies M'Lord, for bringing this up" Utherydes spoke up, "but, Edmure's mood changes, are they not reminiscent of… Lysa? They do not manifest the same; Lysa was prone to fits of deep sadness and mania… since the incident. Edmure seems to go between aloofness and bouts of, concentrated inventiveness?"
"No," Hoster said, shaking his head. It cannot be, not my son, my only heir. I will not have anyone think his mind damaged, be it true or not, the respect of my vassals for our house is hard enough to maintain, and such a rumor would be an invitation for our removal. "I cannot entertain that thought… my son is not on that path, or of that mind. You will not speak aloud your thoughts on this to anyone, either of you. Is that understood?"
"Of course M'Lord" Vyman and Utherydes said simultaneously.
"It is even more important that he then takes a wife which births an heir soon, if I must barter my allowance of his indulgences in these projects of his in exchange for his compliance in this matter I will. Has there yet been any word from Prince Doran of Arianne's invitation?"
"No, M'Lord" Vyman replied.
"I will give that matter another two moons at most, if there is no response, I must make other plans for him. Now leave me, I have much to think about."
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!Myranda XII
Random Notes
General TODO lists:
Finish reading "A History of Heraldry of Westeros"
Finish reading "Conquest of the Andals"
Lose another 1 stone of weight
Finish reading 'Andal Law'
Read 'House Arryn' family book
Read 'Mountain and Vale'.
Get more books
Learn Abacus (not worth the bother)
Improve our High Valyrian
…
Gulltown Shopping List:
Sand-glass (hourglass) multiples?
Scales and Weights
Parchment, Ink & Candles
Oil Lantern/Lamp (if it will be better than candles?)
Bolts of Cloth (Cotton & Silk)
Raw Cotton fiber & Silk thread
More wire
…
Textiles:
Get Feedback from first Spinning Wheel design usage
Design Spinning Wheel improvements, foot treadle & tools
Rebuild first Wheel into second design
Build second Wheel
Simple Assembly line for fiber processing (Clean, Pick, Blend, Card, Comb, Draw, Spin)
Build third wheel
Design a foot treadle powered Drum Carder
Make Contacts w/ Local Dyers
Make Contacts w/ Local Weavers
Watch weavers performing work, and work on loom designs
Design mechanical loom
Build Drum Carder
Moth balls?
Cedar hangers and Wardrobes
Obtain regular suppliers of wool and flax
Obtain regular suppliers of Cotton and Silk
Experiment with thread & yarn blends (Linen, Wool, Cotton)
Control local flax and wool fiber market, Arryn/GoTM/Eyrie direct lands
Re-plan transport flow of fiber to spin processing to local and GT market
Control flax and wool input from other houses?: Iron Oaks, Redfort, Old Anchor, Longbow Hall
Make better straight pins and needles production (pins: lacquer or glass bead heads)
Get back to GT and check new Scissor designs
Complete Sewing Machine design (metal casting, can't make all the parts?)
Angora Rabbits are they a thing here?
Mohair/Angora goats are they a thing here? Cashmere? Merino sheep? Other animal fiber producers?
Design additional Garments
Build fourth Wheel
Employ enough regular workers/spinners for five plus wheels.
…
Medical:
Identify potential anti-microbial & anti-fungal agents & make soaps/creams from their oils
Honey, Rosemary, Marigold, Thyme, Baby's Breath/Woodruff
Seven others I'm not sure what the earth equivalents are
Verify actual effective action via microscopy of the above (needs microscope)
Finish copying "A Maester's Guide to Basic Medicine"
Find a source of plaster for casts
Make various experimental basic soaps
Practice making Milk of the Poppy
Identify plant that makes Sweet Sleep. Prime Surgery Anesthetic candidate
Morphine extraction from Milk of the Poppy? (requires Sulfuric Acid)
Better Insect Repellants – Camphor?
Diatomaceous earth (need microscope to identify?)
Bleach
Talcum Powder?
Medical Grade Alcohol /Ethanol
Clorhexidine? (or is this just wishful thinking?)
Make multiple toothbrushes
Make Dental Floss
Improve toothpaste, gel form
Expand on Medicinal Plant Catalogue work
…
Prepared/Desired Medicines and sources:
Basic Alcohol
Dreamwine (simple herb derived sedative + Alcohol, kind of like Nyquil)
Milk of the Poppy (Opiate source)
Diethyl Ether?
Nitrous Oxide?
Cannabis (local sources weak and slightly foul, no wonder it's not smoked here)
Willow Bark Infusion (Aspirin/Acetlysalicylic acid source)
Myrish firewine (foreign, have recipe, but not local plant, need seeds/cuttings, etc.)
Firemilk (foreign, wound cleanser, antiseptic?, need recipe & plant(s), buy more)
Baking/Washing Soda {Sodium (Bi)carbonate},
Epson Salt (Magnesium Sulfate) still need to find a source of this
Glycerol
Saline solution
Vinegar (limited uses)
Rose Hips (raw & infusions)
Moon Tea
Peppermint/Mint Infusions
…
Medical Flora - Earth Equivalents found from what I can remember/and match to local plants:
Aloe (not local, but grown), Tansy (identified from Moon Tea descriptions), Peppermint, Spearmint, Marigolds, Dandelion, Roses, Yarrow, Baby's Breath/Woodruff, Rosemary, Thyme, Cinnamon (imported), Garlic, Onion, Saffron (imported), Sage, Chamomile, Lavender (not local, but grown), Licorice, Basil, …
15th day, 8th Moon, Long Summer, Short Summer 294 AC
We've been so busy we've barely had time to write any journal entries. In the last two months we've produced a lot of spun fiber. This has been primarily in making linen thread, though the 'Short Autumn' sheep shearing season will be here soon. 'Short Spring' shearing though represents the bulk of wool harvest.
We've three spinning wheels now. Our carpenter is building a fourth. I can't believe I forgot to add foot treadles on the first design. This design, along with some assistive hand tools is quite sufficient for now. Next upgrade may need ball bearings or metal parts to reduce friction and increase speed, and that has limited value since not all fiber can handle a high spin speed. I recall that Spinning Jenny's' were the next major step up. They were mechanized or powered and used multiple wheels, but that's all I recall of them.
Mya, Joyce, Ashley, Sylla (only occasionally), and six recently hired small folk women have been running the three wheels 6 days a week, for 12-14 hours a day. It's hard to know for sure without clocks. I need to buy various sized 'sand-glasses' when I next visit Gulltown. They are not all doing this at once, no-one is working that long of a day in what I assume are 30 hour days here. I did have to remind Myranda that people need time off. One person works a 6-7 hour morning shift, and someone else takes over for a 6-7 hour afternoon shift. Nor are they working six consecutive days, only about three because all have other duties as well. Someone else runs the wheels for the other set of days. I'd have let it be seven days a week for those willing, not many were, because the Septons, Septas, and the small folk take the whole worship day pretty seriously. I haven't done any of the spinning myself these last two months because I have been too busy with being a healer, visiting the Eyrie, and making deals to take in flax and wool harvests while out on "rounds" in the local lands.
We've kept track of the total meters of thread or yarn we've produced per wheel per day.[1] Average daily amount has gone up as skill has improved, taking into account a few occasions where a wheel broke and needed repairs. Output rate varies greatly by the complexity, ply, and thickness of various desired thread types. We're probably nowhere near the optimal rates as everyone is still learning how to use the things effectively. We can do about 312 'man-hours' of spinning per wheel, per moon-month. We presently have three wheels, a fourth under construction, and put in two months of work.
But there aren't enough weavers. The few weavers from near the GotM and Lakeshore cannot keep up with the thread output. Nor can the couple of local Dyers. Although not preferred, we can get by with producing un-dyed cloth. Weaving is the bottle neck. I was familiar with spinning wheels, my Grandmother owned one. I've used it multiple times. Same with sewing machines although those are far more complex. She did not own a mechanical loom. My memories of those only come from pictures in books, TV shows and seeing one in a museum, and no personal use. She spun yarn, and you knit yarn, not weave yarn, or at least that's what we did. When we sewed with the machine it was just from bought cloth.
We will have to bring a lot of spun yarn and thread to sell in Gulltown along with, either to sell or hire weavers to turn it into cloth. But weaving takes a while, far longer than our father would likely allow us to stay. Since we don't want to leave our product in someone else's hands, I guess that means selling it. Hope there is not a spinner's guild also that will get upset, but that's doubtful.
We want to get back to Gulltown by around the start of the 9th Moon, which will be a bit over three months since we last left. That means planning to leave soon. We've already used up all the cloth we bought last trip as well as the linen local weavers produced for us from the summer flax harvest, and sewn it into more bras and other garments.
Goods produced in the Vale are primarily wool, flax, agriculture products, lacquer & timber from the snake wood, and stone (granite, marble, red sandstone and basalt quarries.) There is also an iron, copper and gypsum mine around somewhere. Raw resources not consumed locally get transported to Gulltown markets. I don't recall many industries in Gulltown, but I wasn't looking at that much either last visit. I'll pay more attention to that next trip.
Before I started buying up raw wool and flax fiber, local spinners and weavers handled local needs, but there was a lot more production than what was consumed. The rest went to Gulltown. We inadvertently pushed out a few wool and flax traders out of the area, others are willing to work for me now so I don't have to go and visit every flax farmer or sheep herder personally in the next season.
This all snowballed, when word got out that we were accepting flax and wool fiber as payment for provided medical services, as preferably as coin. It was necessary. There is a considerable lack of coinage among the small folk. There appears to be enough copper coins in circulation among them, and the occasional small denomination silver coins as well. But over half of my transactions for medical services to the small folk have been handled with barter. I'm no economist, but this does not strike me as ideal. The animals I've been testing drug preparations and needles on came from this barter, as well as various other odds and ends. Despite killing some number of my newly acquired livestock off intentionally and unintentionally, I actually own a small herd of sheep now, and a sheep dog to go with. I do not want to be a sheep herder, or a chicken farmer, and so on. At least I can delegate tending these animals to someone else. The flax and wool we at least could immediately use.
I am very grateful for Myranda's memories of business acumen. It is better than mine was, and already pre-disposed to this environment. She has helped run the GotM house for a quite few years now, as early as 10 (or over 11.6 in earth years.) Together we know not just the prices, but the fluctuating prices of everything, that was crucial in the bartering deals. Of course our position as daughter of the high steward helped even more. We'd bought at slightly less than local market prices direct from the farmers and herdsmen, because we'd save them a long trip to the local markets. By the end of the fall flax harvest and the spring wool harvest next year, there ought to be more coinage floating around locally once I exchange some of my gold dragons for more appropriate coins to use to pay the small folk.
Knowing how much a bottle neck better looms will become, we've furthered along our design and notes on them. It's all still on parchment. We watched some weavers work for a few hours, making note of all the body motions that need to be replicated in a more mechanical system. They were not comfortable with that, but weren't going to say no to the High Steward's daughter either.
We've also improved the creation of pins and needles. A grooved track holds and moves a stiff wire along a set increment where it gets sheared to the desired length into a bucket. Then the wire/pin lengths get one end dipped in a lacquer resin, dried and dipped again repeatedly enough for a pin head to form. Points are then ground on the other end. Needles are more difficult, you can't just fold one end over into a loop, that's just asking for the thread to slip out or get caught. The wire on the eye end has to get flattened and pierced without splitting the metal, which can require heating. The current technique for that doesn't seem so efficient. Maybe it could be stamped somehow like coins? If there is a way to get enough force to do that to iron wire. The pins and needles are iron presently; steel and bronze are less cost effective. There is risk of rust. I don't know how stainless steel is made. We have Kent working on thimble variations as well. Oh and we finished the designs for an adjustable dress mannequin on parchment, don't know if I'll ever have time to implement it though.
We're still not entirely sure how to deal with the guild of tailors in Gulltown when we return. Where do they get their supplies and cloth? We'll need some kind of leverage over them to force our way in or just sell stuff on the sly. Or is our position high enough that we can just ignore them? Somehow we don't think it will be that easy. Should look up allies, maybe treat with the Arryn's of Gulltown and investigate their merchant contacts?
Medical and Hygienic Progress:
In the last two months we've set three broken bones, sewn up several gashes, pulled three teeth, helped deliver two healthy babies, and treated some burns. The rest has been basic check-ups and treatment of minor ailments and illnesses with various herbs. We've not needed to do any surgeries, not even sure if I feel up to such an attempt yet. It's also been a bit annoyingly difficult to downplay and divert requests for various 'magic' or other hedge wizardry and snake oil. I don't want to propagate that bullshit. It remains an area of contention with Myranda, who doesn't want to discount it or the work of her gods. Even Yerund, the woods-witch I've learned and still learn local flora from, insisted we learn all the various rituals and runic charms that she knew. I obliged her just so I could move on with learning and writing down more of her herb-lore.
We needed to stay with her for a week over the last moon, so I could restock supplies, transfer some plants to my own burgeoning medical herb garden, and gain more knowledge. She is not doing particularly well compared to our last visit, but there is little that can be done, she is old and reaching the end of her life. We tried to convince her to move to the GotM but she refuses. Sylla is staying with her presently until we stop by again to retrieve her on the way to Gulltown.
We've added significantly to my list of local plants that are matched to earth analogue plants or to something very close. Usually it is those whose appearance or characteristics are strikingly obvious, like Marigolds or Dandelions complete with their poofy windblown seed heads. Hey can't those make latex? Others such as culinary herbs and plants were known from their tastes. Cinnamon was a dead giveaway even though it's an imported spice. There are numerous others with no, or an unidentified earth analogue. All that I have marked down separately, earth equivalent or not, claim medicinal properties of some kind or another. Very few of which however, has been verified to my satisfaction.
The other side of my learning how medicine works (or doesn't) in this world, is from Maester Nolan. No, actually he is of minimal help there; it is from Maester Coleman's books and occasional note we come across. We know Coleman took some of his books to King's Landing, they would probably have been useful to read. We've gotten over feeling bad for rummaging while Nolan is passed out drunk.
Milk of the poppy is effectively Laudanum, raw opium mixed into wine. No Morphine processing, we could try that if we find sulfuric acid. Oh Betsy, I never though having a criminal pharma undergrad as a roommate, would come in useful one day. Though it still wasn't worth the hassle when I found all your shit and got you arrested and expelled, only to endure my own version of 'why didn't I notice this sooner?' interrogation...
So we've also experimented with making a variety of soaps. We want to find a good anti-microbial scrub. Problem is I cannot very well verify it has any anti-microbial properties without microscopes. While making soap we're also producing glycerin. As a consequence I got really lucky and solved how to make gel toothpaste. We accidentally spilled a bit of the natron (baking soda) we obtained into a bowl of glycerin. I had been trying to find out uses for the stuff, people often just throw it away after they make their soaps, and we had been making a lot more soap due to the hygiene and health demands. I knew glycerin was in nearly everything, including cosmetics, and apparently toothpaste. It made a good gel mixed with the soda, plus the mint oils don't dissolve in it. Glycerin has a sweet taste that made up for the salty soda taste. Anyway after tweaking the ratios a bit I put some in the little tins and added it to my list of products. The main flaw it has is that it isn't very foamy, so we're probably still missing something.
We solved our dental floss attempt by using a single long silk thread. The silk was a bit expensive but since it's just one short spool of thread it's not too much of an issue. We still wanted to keep it cheap. We got really creative and found a common empty nut shell that the little spool fit inside of just perfectly. Drill a hole in one shell half, then put the spool in, thread it through, and glue the two halves back together. Another waste product turned into something useful. We also soaked the spool in mint oil first and let it dry. We were going to glue a little piece of sharpened metal to it for cutting the thread but decided not to bother to keep the cost down; people can just use a knife for that. We did at least have someone sand and paint the nut shells though.
Other Stuff:
After that first week, we gave up on trying to further learn the abacus. It was thoughtful on Myranda's part, but we decided it wasn't an effective use of our time. Nolan thinks we gave up because we couldn't do it. Now we are bribing him to improve our High Valyrian. One of his links, the Pewter one I think, is for 'Foreign Studies'. He learned High Valyrian while touring with some sell-sword company in Essos during Aerys II reign, also why he gained one of his Iron warcraft links.
We believe it is unavoidable that we will need to find some way of moving to Gulltown or at least staying there for an extended period of time. We've hinted enough to our father Nestor that a second trip is needed soon, but not broached the subject of our desire for an extended stay. Maybe we could stay with Uncle Yohn? Runestone is at least close enough. An extended stay is the only way I will really be able asses the amount of artisans and weavers available there and the general state of the textile trade. We'd at least easily be able to set up shop as a healer there as well with a far broader clientele base.
On the next trip over we should try to secure deals with House Waynwoods, Melcolm, and with uncle Yohn in Runestone, to broaden textile trade as well as make a trip to the Redforts at some point. Will also need to hire another carpenter, our current one won't be able to keep up if we can expand our suppliers of flax and wool beyond Lord Arryn's direct lands.
Spoiler: Author's Note
[1] I did not list an approximate length or weight of produced spun fiber, although I would have liked to. The reason is because I can't find a good rough estimate of how many hours it takes to spin X length of yarn and/or thread on a spinning wheel. I know that the general answer is 'it depends' (on material, desired thickness, desired ply and other factors), but it was still hard to find any good concrete examples of estimates. Are there any readers with experience spinning yarn or thread that can give an idea? What I really want to know is what is the projected efficient rate improvement that could be achieve via !Myranda's pseudo-assembly line setup that I've described vs. the standard output from cottage industry based spindle and distaff methods.
Last edited: Jun 27, 2017
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Jun 28, 2017
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#129
!Edmure XV
23rd day, 7th Moon, Long Summer, Short Summer 294 AC
Wyndel and the Inkers got back from Fairmarket yesterday. They brought back a lot of supplies I had been waiting for including more parchment, since paper-making hasn't been perfected yet to my satisfaction. The scraps I've had made thus far, are at least good enough for non-permanent sketches and doodles, but I am still putting drafts, final designs and write-ups on parchment. Oh, I had a drafting table built for myself. Getting a set of accurate drafting tools though is going to be more difficult.
I've also re-purposed a wine press and obtained felt layers to help in the paper-making. We were just using heavy-blocks before. While this most recent batch is much better, I'd still call it sub-par. It's all still a very manual process.
Water quality is apparently pretty damn important when comparing the use of raw river water, to my bio-sand filtered water to distilled river water and distilled filtered water. The Red Fork is called that because it has a reddish tinge. This comes mostly from red soil erosion into the river, but also from a bit of dissolved iron, neither of which is good for paper-making. The fuel cost for distilling water just for paper making is not cost effective. Filtered water from the Tumblestone is much clearer and more effective.
Some kind of mill or dedicated area has to get setup somewhere for the desired larger volumes of paper I will want to make. We'll also need a drying room and a rag sorting room and so on. Breaking down the rags is the most time and labor intensive part, this is what needs to be mechanized with water power. I'll need our smith to make a larger, more customized press with a strong supporting frame, though I guess the frame can be wooden.
I'm using my second fountain pen prototype with a gold-nib from the gold smith in Fairmarket as I write this. It is better than the last design, but I think the capillary action still needs some work. Wyndel had instructions to inquire about platinum. The goldsmith's response was that he was aware of the metal, but considered it unworkable. He mostly worked with Yellow Gold, Red Gold, White Gold, (what's in white gold?), Electrum, occasionally Silver, and very rarely, Black Bronze (what is black bronze?) I attempted to relay through Wyndel, my inquiries about Iridium too. I could only describe this as a hard silvery metal similar to platinum, but yet wasn't platinum. Wyndel said this was met with abject ignorance, confusion, and dismissal by the goldsmith. I guess I'm not surprised at that, it was a long shot anyway, so I asked Vyman. He didn't know either and noted that he had no "Pale Steel" link for smithing. (What is 'pale steel' made from?) Upon further questioning, I think it is safe to assume that a Maester discipline of "smithing" is better described as metallurgy. I think talking to a Maester with a few links in metallurgy would be pretty useful.
10th day, 8th Moon, Short summer, Long Summer, 294AC
Long Lew returned to Riverrun this morning. He says he put Jenna on a boat headed to King's Landing from Maidenpool about two weeks and a few days ago. My letters were received, and the responses to my inquiries he brought back from House Hawick and Mooten, were not quite as detailed as I had hoped but some information is better than none I suppose.
The first worker's house is completed. The Inkers have their own room. Marcus Brewer and Wesley Distiller, two unmarried men among the three brewers I hired shared another. Jonas Hops, the hops and third brewer I hired, is bringing his family to Riverrun. They will have their own room as well. Derrick Storm and Daemon Singer, both teenage boys of similar age are sharing a room also. I'd have put Kirth up in one, but technically he is now officially being fostered here, so bunks with my squire Tristan here in RR itself. The remaining rooms are now used by laborers, mostly masons and carpenters working on the blast furnace, water wheel, and supporting buildings.
I was going to give Bethany her own room, and discovered Hoster has recently granted her use of a minor apartment in Riverrun. What is going on here with that?
Lord Goodbrook and Aloria are officially betrothed now, fifteen still seems a bit too young, but at least they are not set to marry until after she turns sixteen. Lymon and the Deddings left for their respective houses a few days ago, after witnessing the late summer planting of the two fields Hoster relented to let me use. Lymon seems prepared to go all in with converting his farmlands to my described agriculture practices. At that rate he may have more acreage converted than I will if Hoster keeps being reluctant. Lord Deddings is willing to try it out only on a portion of his lands. Perhaps not so coincidently, their betrothal is not so final that it can't still be cancelled, and Aloria won't be sixteen until after the projected yields for next spring will be obvious.
My aunt, Lady Whent, and her entourage are still here in Riverrun. We finally convinced Hoster to let me leave with them, and additional escorts he insists on, for Harrenhal soon. I plan on traveling down river by boat from Riverrun to Lord Harroway's Town, so I can get a good look at the course and conditions of the Red Fork, and see how big of a job taming that part of the River would be. Then we will cut south overland to Harrenhal.
Gold only nibs on my pen are too soft and/or too thin; they've bent a few times. Although I've bent them back into shape, I have to declare this design unusable in the long-run.
I finished reading Vyman's translation of "Myths and Legends of Valyria" today.
12th day, 8th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294AC
We're leaving for Harrenhal today. Not everyone is going by river barge, Lady Whent and her group is going by wagon down the river road. Myself and mine by barge, despite numerous protests. We won't be going as swiftly as we could be because I plan on taking crude measurements and evaluations along the way, and we may be tying up to camp on shore. Mudgrave, The Inn of the Kneeling Man, Sallydance and Lord Harroway's Town will all be stop overs along the way.
After a lot of internal debate between me and Edmure, we decided to send Wyndel alone on horseback to High Heart with some child sized clothing and sundries to trade to the albino dwarf lady for any more information she might know. While I wanted to send more men for safety, and maybe even Tom, in case that song is some kind of requirement, we decided not to. We want to keep the number of people who know we are corresponding with a woods-witch to a minimum. Afterward, Wyndel will continue on over land to Harrenhal to meet up with us, stopping by Lord Lychester's keep along the way.
All our workers have clear project goals to work on while I'm gone and are staying behind, including Kirth and Derrick. My squire and several guards and sworn knights are accompanying me.
15th day, 8th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294AC
Today I saw something marvelous. We were on the barge, nearing the Inn of the Kneeling man to stop for tonight, and I saw a strange looking paddle boat, going across the river. Partially up river too! It moved, slowly but steadily, towing a small raft of cargo. It obviously was not steam powered so I had our boat man hail it down. I had to see this for myself.
It was a simple horse drawn whim (except it was actually powered by a donkey) walking in a tight circle around the crowded deck. Its large wooden gear turned a pair of small paddle wheels on each side via a simplistic wooden geared axle and drive shaft about the same as what I'd seen on Riverrun's water wheel.
It was providing basic service as a ferry and tow across the Red Fork between the Inn and the road that leads to Fairmarket. Odd that it wasn't there when I was in Fairmarket last, we used a ferry powered by human rowers to get across. I took note of the ferry man's name and where he lived. Could multiple horse powered paddle boats, built to a larger scale with improved design perform better than human powered rowed vessels for upriver travel? Or better than a barge towed by horses walking along the shoreline? Traveling upriver on the Red Fork (and the other Forks too I'm sure) is bad. The Red Fork is especially bad since going upriver means going west against the current and often against the wind as well. There is no room for tacking either if someone tried to sail.
22nd day, 8th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294AC
We've been in Lord Harroway's Town for two days already. We're staying with Lord Roote. I've gathered more supplies and talked to more artisans in the town, trying to recruit some to go back to Riverrun with me. I might be able to pick up an apprentice or two on our return trip. Most of the established tradesmen don't want to move.
Despite taking a slow pace on the river to survey and measure, we have gotten far ahead of my aunt. It's doubtful she will catch up for some days, so I am planning a trip to the Ruby Ford to complete my ad-hoc surveys and sketches.
Our river barge captain has moved on down river toward salt pans. Once there he is going to sell his barge after delivering his cargo, where it will get broken up for firewood. Makes sense I guess, apparently it's cheaper for him to go back up river by horse or even walking and build a new barge rather than trying to row or pole it upriver.
25th day, 8th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
Lady Whent has finally arrived with her wagons, so we will all be heading out tomorrow for Harrenhal overland, after one more feast from Lord Roote.
My exploration of the surrounding area of the Trident has revealed that it has changed course more than once in its recent history. This could be from natural avulsion events or most recently probably via a cut-off of a meandering loop that may have run next to the Inn at the Crossroads in the past. The remnant of an oxbow lake is near there, though I am surprised at how much of it seems to have dried up. Was it drained or was that all just evaporation? Some kind of flow control may be needed though to ensure course changes of the Trident doesn't happen again in the future.
Overall the Red Fork from Riverrun to the Ruby Ford is highly navigable, and could be to deeper draft vessels as well with a bit of dredging and removal of snags. As far as I can recall, though I'll have to double check my prior notes, the Red Fork from Riverrun to Mummer's Ford is also decently navigable, although probably to shallower vessels.
The Ruby Ford itself however, blocks all the forks from any potential direct sea access, (assuming the rest of the Trident between the Ruby Ford and the Bay of Crabs is deep enough.) A canal would have to bypass the Ruby Ford, or it would have to be removed outright. In either case, since this is a major crossing, a bridge, preferably a drawbridge would need to be built to span the removed ford or any canal.
The idea of Lord Harroway's Town gaining access to ocean traffic appeals greatly to Lord Roote. Marvyn is of a similar age to Myself/Edmure, and much less stubborn. While we have been here we've discussed much about potential trade, revenue sources, and infrastructure. I've shared all my agricultural plans with him, and gave him a set of instructions for it. He seems inclined to possibly try them out next spring.
After we set out tomorrow, Lady Whent estimates it will take us six to seven days to reach Harrenhal (because of her damn slow wagon), so we may get there sometime around the 3rd or 4th day of the 9th Moon. Wyndel has probably already reached Harrenhal and has been waiting for a while. We may be spending Autumn Equinox with her, and I still had wanted to visit Salt pans and Maidenpool as well. These travel times…just take too damn long.
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!Myranda XIII
22nd day, 8th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
We've reached Lakeshore now, after five days of travel compared to last time when on horseback I think it only took two. Accompanying me is our brother Ser Albar and Sylla my 'handmaiden/medicine-herblore assistant', whom we picked up at Yerund's cabin on the way. Mya could not come although we wanted her to. A mule stepped on Ossy's foot. It was nothing serious but left the stables short-handed. We asked Mya to check in on Yerund from time to time while we are gone. Also along with us is Septa Ana, she has grown on us a bit, but is still cheerily annoying at times. She continues to help teach Sylla the three R's, which frees up some of my and Myranda's time as well. She is accompanying us to continue her instruction and help us a bit in sales and managing the goods, and because she is like a little puppy that follows you everywhere. Ser Talo Ruthermont, Rudy (one of our father's but technically one of Lord Arryn's guards), our brother and two squires serve as our escort. Our father, Nestor, did not come with us.
On our trip this time, we have brought a wagon load of large sacks of spun fiber, plus numerous other products, as well as a few loaded pack mules. We seriously considered bringing the spinning wheels, to demonstrate and perhaps sell in the future, but decided to hold on to that monopoly for as long as we can. Spinning wheels are a simple enough design that they will probably be easily copied as soon as they leave my control, and there is no such thing as patent laws here. As before, our primary products will be bras, and other garments, plus soaps, pins and needles, various sewing supplies, medicines, toothbrushes and toothpastes, and very large amounts of yarn and thread. There is also a bunch of caged ravens that Nolan insisted we bring to various stops along the way. They're annoying and don't stay quiet very long. We guess these are the stupider ones that only know how to make one way trips and have to be carted back to their departure points to be able to send more messages every so often.
We also missed the ferry to go to Iron Oaks, which means waiting two days for it to return. We'll try to lighten our load somewhat by selling a few things here in Lakeshore while we wait. With luck we'll head to Iron Oaks on the 24th, but the trip across the lake will take most of the day. At least I brought some books. I hope the water will be calm enough to read.
25th day, 8th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
We're staying at Iron Oaks again. Lady Anya Waynwood was once again interesting in many of my garments and products but seemed reluctant to commit to significant purchases. We checked up on Cissy's pregnancy. She and the fetus seem to be doing well. Local gossip indicated House Waynwood may be in a bit of debt, perhaps enough to make Lady Waynwood hesitant on expenditures. It was leverage we might be able to use.
After some tough negotiations, we secured principle trade rights in flax and wool in Iron Oaks local markets, and a term of tax farming rights on some of Lady Waynwoods lands next spring which are closest to the GotM. Maester Ord, in service to House Waynwood actually expressed caution and advised against it, 'on account of my sex'. It was just another example of the misogyny in this place, but he quickly recanted when we demonstrated my skill in handling figures. There was also a practiced look that Anya gave the man, and his practiced deference, at receiving it, so we think they've clashed on that view before. That may have had something to do with it as well.
So in exchange for the trade rights and minor tax farming grants, we gave Lady Waynwood several new garments and other products. We also requested Maester Ord to give us a Valyrian lesson now and on our return trip, answer lots of our question to the best of his ability and give us our choice of a few books to borrow and bring to the GotM when we return. We also have a shopping list for items we are to try and buy in Gulltown for their house.
Maester Ord it seems is not near as bad as Nolan, and once he recognized our intelligence he greatly toned down the bristled attitude. Perhaps he was just happy to have someone to debate complex subjects with. Alas, or perhaps fortunately, healing was not among his primary fields of study. He was small necked and had a short seven link chain, containing no more than single link of any type.
One was a lead link for alchemy, and he had some books on the subject. While we tried avoiding the whole lead to gold debate, Myranda and I did get a basic understanding of the common names for numerous alchemical substances, of which he had several samples. We pulled away when he showed us quicksilver, which was obviously mercury. I asked him to please put it away and told him it and all substances derived from it were a very deadly poison. He seemed to quirk an eyebrow at that but also did not refute my statement.
Some of his samples included the aforementioned quicksilver (mercury), Natron (Sodium (bi)carbonate, which we already knew about, and Aqua Fortis, which I believe to be Nitric Acid. He also had Aqua Regia which is made from Aqua Fortis and other things (Hydrochloric Acid If I recall my chemistry right?) which can dissolve gold and platinum and other metals. There was Spirit of Turpentine, made from tree resin and Aqua Tofani, which was described as made from Arsenic. This was another one I pulled away from, but he never even opened the vial it was in. We (myself and Maester Ord) simultaneously claimed it was highly toxic so at least he knew that about that aspect of the substance. There was Brimstone (Sulfur), and Oil of Vitriol (that one is Sulfuric Acid), and numerous other concoctions. We didn't have time to get more than a basic overview, but I think I'll be borrowing his Alchemy books on my way back, but I have a feeling he might not like that. As he went over them we made a mental note of the various names of the alchemical items, and I wrote them down later. Some I may seek to purchase in the future.
Also, it seems that Maesters who study Alchemy very infrequently leave the Citadel, and he only has the one link in it. For some reason he felt the need to point out an extreme difference between alchemy and pyromancy. We're not sure why, other than the negative view of the pyromancers after Aerys was overthrown. I tried to bring up the idea of elemental theory, and was deflected with him trying to steer the conversation back towards transmutations.
Ord's other areas of study and links covered Philosophy, Astrology (which I didn't even want to waste time discussing), History, the damn ravens of course, and similar to Nolan, a Pewter link for foreign studies which included High Valyrian. Between the alchemy and Valyrian lessons, that was all we had time to get into since we were only planning to stay in Iron Oaks for a day. We head out again toward Old Anchor tomorrow.
8th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
The wagon and pack animals have been slowing us down, badly. We wanted to be in Gulltown seven days ago, but we still have to board a galley to Runestone and then travel further to Gulltown. If there were a lot more cargo, the galley might have required to sail around the peninsula to Gulltown directly rather than just across the bay. We'll be finished with the books we brought by the time we get to Gulltown. I hope I can buy some more while we are there.
We arrived in Old Anchor late this afternoon. We didn't want to stay long so I aimed to get as much done as possible. Lord and Lady Melcolm bought some items, but it didn't lighten our load greatly. We made only a few contacts with local flax and wool merchants and sellers. Old Anchor is too far away for us to try and have any major direct market control here. However on our return trip the autumn flax harvest ought to be in or done soon, and so we've put out bids to buy up what we can, and will do a bit more of that tomorrow morning. Our wagons and pack animals should be lighter on our return trip and thus have room for raw fiber bales. Rather than haul around all of the coin we got from house Malcolm for our wares, they are holding some of it for us, equal to an estimate on what the flax purchases will cost on our return.
9th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
We have arrived at Runestone now. We had good winds and the trip by galley was much speedier than our overland travel thus far, we left Old Anchor early this morning and got across the bay by early evening. Uncle Yohn (well not really our direct uncle) had returned to Runestone one and a half moons ago after escorting Ser Waymar to Castle Black.
Uncle Yohn welcomed us heartily, and had a grand dinner prepared for us and our brother Albar. For family only though he decided, so my attendees and Septa Ana took their meals elsewhere. Lord Yohn and his wife and elder children, Andar, Robar, and Ysilla joined us. He and our aunt quizzed us greatly about our purported trade activities, tales of me doing healing work, and made subtle inquiries about our mourning period and possible suitors. We're not sure to what goal he was inquiring; most of it seemed benign small talk, though we danced around a few questions. It was quite late though so we asked to retire. I hope not to stay too long, but also we never had much of a long visit with our extended family here. It would certainly be a lot closer to Gulltown, if we could stay for an extended period.
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!Edmure XVI
3rd day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer 294 AC
Well you asked me to write this entry in English for you. I do not know why I am obliging you, you stayed up much later today than normally agreed, because of the bats. You will remember it all tomorrow when you wake up anyway, so what is the point? We arrived at Harrenhal late tonight. Mike thought this place was ridiculously immense, I guess he has a point. Seems about the same as what I recall from childhood though. We saw the tower tops long before we arrived, twilight came soon after that. That was when all the bats took flight, some tens of thousands or more of them, Mike got all excited, he is, what would he say, 'weird'. You read that? You are weird. I know what you want to do too, and that is just weird, weird and gross. So some time later we finally see the curtain walls also, by the time we get to the gates it is quite dark and Mike, despite trying to stay up, has already gone to sleep or whatever this switch off thing is. Aunt Shella did not want to spend another night on the road this close to home so she had pushed on, and I do not blame her. My arse is tired from riding and I want to sleep in a bed. The night guard said Wyndel arrived some time ago but is already sleeping at the barracks; I guess Mike will remember than when we get up. You know Mike?, 'Fuck this', my arse hurts, I am done writing, going to sleep now.
4th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer 294 AC
Wow, this place, now that I can see it all in the light it doesn't compare to Edmure's distant childhood memories of it. Harrenhal is enormous, absurdly so. You could probably move all of Harrentown to inside its curtain walls, or at least expand it into there. Why hasn't that happened yet? If the combined sites held the population of a large city, there would not be a problem finding men to man the walls. Edmure thinks it's because of the curse, that no one would want to move here. That sounds like bullshit to me. We are the closest male relative to aunt Shella, so we should end up inheriting it when she passes if I am still stuck in Edmure's head by then. In practicality, we wouldn't be able to be Lords overs both Harrenhal and Riverrun, even if we were in name, much better to turn the greater site into a city or something.
And these towers! They are grand, but do not look safe at all. I need a full tour of this place. Wall stones fused, rippled misshapen and leaning, some look like they might collapse at any moment. A lot of this place should definitely get torn down. But this is what a dragon attack looks like? Words fail me, but it is comparable to when I toured ground zero sometime after the attacks with the Army Corps of Engineers. The melted steel, melted stone, burned concrete I saw there, are eerily analogous to the ruined towers and ground buildings here.
There are no melted steel beams here, though. But I am damn shocked they could build something this large without some kind of internal steel reinforcement. Maybe there was some architectural trick that has been lost to history.
Further worsening the condemnation of this place is the centuries of erosion, and near complete lack of maintenance of the unused areas. Vines trail up the various fissures, and I am sure every small winter the freeze and thaws make it all crumble all the more.
After breakfast and taking in the sights, I went on over to the barracks to look for Wyndel. I found him, indisposed, and waited a bit before some pretty teenage servant girl slipped out of the room he was in. She giggled and curtsied to me as she passed. A faint butter-milk odor trailed behind her. I'm glad Edmure isn't 'awake' yet.
"Wyndel? I guess you've made yourself at home. Glad you made... wait what happen to your arm?"
"M'Lord" Wyndel nodded, "Got attacked by three brigands on the way over. I ran one through, and wounded the second before they run off. They tried to steal my horse in the night. The wounded one is probably dead by now. But one got a good slice on me and my palfrey."
Brigands in the country side, while I know they're there in general, Edmure and I should pay attention to it more. "I'm sorry, I knew I should have not sent you alone, are you alright can you walk with me a while?"
"Aye, M'Lord" Wyndel nodded. "The Maester here changed my dressings when I arrived." He said as we walked out of the barracks. "The horse got me to High-heart, after the attack, but I fear I should have rested it more."
"No permanent damage is there?
"Nay, the Maester says nothing broken either, just a nasty cut that will leave me a new scar."
"Any further troubles? You have any luck finding the hill dwarf?"
"Depends on how you define troubles. I did find her, eventually, well she found me. It cost me half of the trade items you gave me to get her to dress my wound. No offense M'Lord but I value not losing my arm to rot more than her riddles."
"None taken, that was the right choice for sure."
"Aye, but she refused to treat the wound on my Palfrey. Was afraid the beast would trample her. She made a poultice for me to apply to it, but it fell off some time later as I walked her. By the time I got here, the Palfrey's wounds were oozing black blood and she had to be put down."
"Rather a horse than you. I'll buy another horse from Lady Whent or send someone to Harrentown to do so." We walked a bit further away from folks before I continued my questions "Did you get any worthwhile information from her?"
"I know not if I would call it worthwhile, but I wrote it down like you asked." He fished out a piece of my poor-quality paper and handed it to me. "She wanted the song too, and was not impressed by my rendition of it. I think she could have said more but didn't, and as I said, already took half the items just for patching me up. That one is a stubborn haggler."
I glanced down and read what was writ on the paper.
One black wolf dead and frozen in ice, and the same black wolf chilled but alive, a black dragon bone held in its jaws. I know not which may come to pass.
I dreamt two women obscured. One of white hair and one of dark, standing in separate pyres. One lit and burning, the other cold and drenched in rain. But the images of both are broken and sundered.
This fish and falcon still sleep, one in a black cooking pot, the other entwined by a purple serpent.
Just more cryptic metaphors. Not much better than the first time.
Sometime later I sought out Maester Tothmure to get a historical tour of Harrenhal. He started things off though with a long-winded verbal re-telling of Harren the Black and the various Lords that came after.
I have heard those stories before. It is a big old cursed castle too large for any reasonable lord. While I should inherit it, you are right at least that it makes no sense to hold both, and its walls could well defend a town within.
I suppose granting it to a vassal would be a powerful boon.
Yes, but being so close to the Crownlands, and its important location would mean the King, or rather the Hand, may want a say in the matter of who holds it.
They would also control almost as much land as your father does directly. Maybe we could just abolish the lordship, or divide it up. I've also noticed large towns and cities sometimes have multiple lords or at least multiple seats in the city.
A growing town here combined with Harrentown could rival King's Landing. That would be noticed and realized at court, inviting its own challenges and protests regarding power balance. It is too much speculation too soon anyway, I am in no hurry to see my aunt shuffle her mortal coil.
The North has White Harbor, the Vale has Gulltown, King's Landing for the Crownlands, Lannisport, Oldtown, all major cities. The Riverlands is lacking.
So is Dorne and the Stormlands, You want to turn Riverrun into a major city anyway.
Why not have two?
"M'Lord?" Tothmure asked, breaking our internal debate as we ascended the stairs of the Kingspyre tower. "As I saying, the Lord's Chamber in the Kingspyre is not actually the highest accessible floor. Lady Whent does not reside in it during the winters, preferring a smaller room that is easier to keep warm."
"What's above it then?"
Maester Tothmure led us to a stairwell which we ascended. The floor above was barren save for a large stack of firewood, some slings, sling stones and a couple of crossbows and blunted bolts. There were fissured gaps in the ceiling above, and in the walls. Sunlight was streaming though. I heard rustling feathers as a few birds scattered at our intrusion. A large object covered with a canvas tarp was in the corner.
"We keep this floor clean as best we can, to avoid a build of leavings and nests by birds and bats. It is easy to store firewood up here as it is shorter distance to bring to the hearths in the Lord's Chamber and the Solar." Tothmure wandered over to a shuttered window and opened it, letting in great amount of sunlight, then removed the canvas tarp, revealing a wheeled wooden crane, rope, pulley and basket. It was far too small to carry a man. "The window was enlarged at some point in the past, probably during House Qoherys hold. The pulley lets us bring supplies up, such as the firewood or other awkward items like smaller furniture."
"What are the slings and crossbows for?"
"To dissuade roosting birds and bats, from making this a permanent home, as you will see on the floor above."
We returned to the stairwell, and ascended more. "Do be careful, I cannot recommend venturing too far beyond the stairwell door." As we rose the wind howled through the cracks. And I could hear the stones creak. The very steps did not feel level as we encounters the lean in the slagged stone walls. We came near the heart of one of Balerion's fire blasts.
We are not going out there.
No we won't, not beyond a few feet from the door.
The ceiling above us was partially collapsed, the fissures in the tower walls widened and surely let in rain, wind, and flying critters. Looking up one could see that the stairwell kept going, as there were supposed to be floors above, but instead it simply ended at a precipice, where steps had collapsed and prevented further ascent.
Some of those collapsed stones were clearly visible. Many it seemed had been hauled away at some point in the past. The outlines of where they had fallen marked by silhouettes of were the floor was … less burned. Other stones remained permanently where they fell, literally fused to the floor they landed on. The walls had a pattern of permanent burn marks where stones walls or other large structures must have given a small measure of protection against the blast. The rest of the walls had a glassy surface.
A warped stone door frame stood empty of any door a few meters from the stairwell. It had probably been burned to ash very quickly. I carefully walked over to the frame to examine more.
Hey what are you doing?
Just a hunch. I examine the bits of blackened melted knots of metal where the hinges once were.
A dangerous hunch, you cannot get them, they are fused to the wall.
So I noticed. I gave up prying at the knots and carefully went back to the stairwell.
"M'Lord!" Tothmure pleaded. "Please, do not do that again, your father would have me beheaded if you fell."
"I won't. But I'd like a 'souvenir'."
"A what?"
"A memento of my visit, something touched by a dragon's flame."
"There are plenty of loose stones that could suffice for that."
"No, metal, like what was left of those hinges. Send up someone with a mallet and chisel to pry them loose. Though do let them tie themselves off with rope for safety."
"I am sure there are other bits of loose metal from the burnings I could find, rather than disturb this place."
Your hunch based on some obscure passage in that book of myths, does not give me much comfort. There is not enough there anyway to be of worth, I doubt you could even forge an apple knife.
"You should find all of those loose pieces also, but how can you know with certainty they were touched by Balerion's flame? Frequently loose metal is 'recycled', since smelting is so labor intensive.
"Recycled?" I know not what this word means."
Stop saying things in English
"I mean reused. Scrap metal is often re-melted or re-forged into other tools and such, so I would think that any loose pieces from that era would have long since been lost or turned into something else by now. But certainly if you know of any, or of any still fused to the walls but more easily accessible; I'd like to see them." We descended the stairs once more to the floor with the crane and firewood.
Everything above this floor is a death trap.
Which you walked out onto.
It should be torn down, even the walls, and replaced with a safer roof structure.
How in the seven hells would you accomplish that?
Very, very, carefully. Honestly I have no idea, but although it may not occur in your lifetime or your grandchildren's lifetime. This tower is eventually going to collapse if something isn't done. They probably all are. I'm surprised they even lasted this long. And you know, I know what I'm talking about.
Yet for all your engineering knowledge, you cannot fathom a way to safely remove several hundred 'metric tons' of stone from the towers. Not that my aunt would let you anyway.
"Let's go see the Widow's tower, there is a bridge to leads to it , yes?" I said to Tothmure as we descended the stairs.
"Certainly M'Lord"
We made our way to the arch bridge that connected the Kingspyre to the Widow's tower. Though when we looked out on it, Edmure and I both balked at the idea of crossing it. Both ropes and chains ran across the span obviously emplaced more recently, though the definition of recent is perhaps relative. The bridge was not level. It was warped like the walls, with fissures, and there were gaps in the side rail walls where whole stones had fallen or sagged down in their slagged state.
This must have been what that large boulder at the bottom of the tower came from. Edmure thought as we scanned a particularly large gaping hole in the railing wall.
There was more than one boulder down there. I am sure several tower walls shed some as well. And to think those are only still there because they were too large to be moved or demolished for reuse.
"I think we will take the long way around." Edmure said for me.
"A wise choice M'Lord" Tothmure said as we went back inside the Kingspyre.
The bridge is salvageable.
What you think it usable?
Well it seems some are still using it, but no, not quite useable. It should be continued to be maintained and made stable, to prevent it from collapsing onto the ground below, unless that is done on purpose. But it probably should be closed to all other traffic.
Mother never let us go across the bridge when we visited as children.
The floor in the Widow's tower where the bridge connects was partially exposed, and probably quite cold in the winter, both short and long. It too had fissures in its glassed and burnt walls and ceiling. The stairwell ended at this floor and the other stair well for going further was in complete ruins. A rickety ladder allowed one to ascend to the floor above through a hole that was surely not part of the original architectural plan. The ladder was held steady by a couple of servants, while another servant climbed ahead of me to help me ascend as well. We did not stray far. Crossbows and slings were stored here for the same reason as in Kingspyre. Everything above was a ruin. It was shorter than the Kingspyre though. The floor above the bridge floor was fully exposed to the elements. If I had dared I could have walked to the unsecured edge and peered out to the ground below.
The bridge floor is solid and stable enough to serve as the roof. But everything above that line should get torn down. Lay down some sealing tar, and set up some channels to divert rain water, and it could become and open decked roof.
The Wailing tower was mostly unused. We could only enter the ground floor which held storerooms and a granary. Vaults and cellars below the tower held wines and more storage. Tothmure claimed the upper stories have not been used in over eighty years. The reason was obvious. Several of the upper stories had completely collapsed cascading down on top of each other. It was not the dragon flame that had caused the collapses though it certainly was the originating factor. Unlike the Widow and the Kingspyre tower, no one did any regular control of the bat population in this tower, or hadn't done so in decades, or centuries. There was a constant murmur of squeaks coming from high above, as thousands of upon thousands of the winged rodents hung from the ruined roof.
So you have finally found all the bat shit you have been wondering about.
Yes isn't it glorious?
No, no it is not! It is shit!
The upper floors in this tower literally collapsed from the weight of the guano deposits piling up onto the weakened floors, and they are far too high by now to have any hope of rooting them out. This will eventually ruin the usage of the ground floor and the vaults below when those eventually collapse as well. Everything in storage here should be moved, and this whole tower should be torn down.
The Dread tower too was in very bad shape, progressively worse and likewise needed to be torn down. There were parts of floors collapsed and closed off as inaccessible. The stairwells were an un-usable ruin. A few old wooden ladders had been erected at some point to allow access to a few floors, sometime long ago, but they too were in horribly bad shape. More guano had been accumulated but there was signs of shoveling at various point in the past and even recently. The squeaks from above were louder than they were in the Wailing tower.
When we reached the tower of Ghosts, we could not even get inside. Every door we tried was blocked or barred shut.
"Has anyone ever been in here?"
"Nay M'Lord, no one would dare, it has been blocked off for I don't know how long." One of the servants replied.
"Centuries likely, at least there are no records I can recall indicating its use." Tothmure announced.
I made full circuit around the base of the tower, stopped and looking up each time I passed a second story window.
"This tower has the largest amount of bats fly out of it every night?" I asked, the servants nodded. I kicked at mound of very overgrown weeds that had accumulated on the ground below all of the second story windows. "Fetch me some ladders, torches, some axes and some strong men."
"What? What are you plans M'Lord? I should inform Lady Whent." Tothmure asked.
"I want to know what is behind one of these doors."
"Agh what?" Tothmure choked out before quickly huddling off as fast as his old man legs could carry him, which was not particularly fast.
Apparently you think you know what is already behind it.
Yes but I want to know how much.
Servants return with some ladders and axes. The Smith Lucen carried a large one.
"There be ghosts here tis not wise to disturb 'em" One of the servants said above a growing din as a few more folk gathered to see what was going on.
"We'll hold off on the axes" I said, as a crowd gathered. "But at least set up the ladders to take a peek into the windows on the upper floor.
Some of the servants did so and they held the ladder stable as he climbed up with a torch, held it up and peered inside.
"What can you see?" I asked.
"Nothing just dirt." He replied
"How much? Can you see across?"
"Nay, I mean the whole window slit, from bottom to top is a wall of dirt." He reached up and started poking at it.
"No don't do that!" I yelled, too late.
That was dumb was it not
Dirt began pouring out of the hole. It showered the men holding the ladder, myself, and the man on the ladder. One man holding it backed away from the dump of dirt, letting go of the ladder, unsteady and startled the man on the ladder who dropped the torch and fell. There was an unmistakable pop as he hit the ground, and howled in pain.
Bat shit, we are covered in bat shit, are we not?
Yeah, probably. The other servants helped the man up. His leg was twisted below the knee, I moved in closer to look, his tibia looked broken.
"Fetch the Maester" someone called out before I had a chance to do so myself.
"Alright take the ladder down, I've seen enough."
"Shouldna disturbed the place" I heard someone mutter as the crowd swelled.
"Tear off the leg of his breeches, carry him to Maester Tothmure." I said, though several of the men had already begun doing that, without me needing to have said anything. So I examined the fresh dirt or guano that had fallen. Sifting through, I looked for any signs of whitish crystals.
Yes and now let us just stick our hands all in it as well.
"All of you have work to do, get back to it!" I heard Lady Whent shout over the din. "Maester Tothmure, please attend to young Arty's injury. Edmure? What is going on here?" The various servants then ran off as quickly as they had appeared.
"I had wanted to take look in the tower"
"Do explain"
"Certainty, you see…"
"My word, later, you are filthy, take a bath young man. There will be no tower doors getting axed in today."
This curse disturbing ruckus for fertilizer?
Do you really believe in that?
Well, I am not sure. You literally got us sick to our stomach, and nearly shat out breeches when you fully contemplated the power and heat the dragon flame had to have produced in order to burn and in some cases glassify the floors and walls of these towers. This is real you thought, this happened. Shall we pick and choose what to consider carefully and what not? Dragons flames yes, curses no?
Fine I see your point, but it's not just fertilizer. Saltpeter, a potentially ready gatherable source of saltpeter, that doesn't have to be prepared in beds that I have to wait a year or more for to mature. Possibly several tons of it, however much can fit into three towers that have endured eighty to nearly three-hundred years' worth of tens of thousands, no probably hundreds of thousands, roosting bats. That means gunpowder, and you know just as much as I do that is a game-changer. That is worth taking the risk.
Then if you pursue this, you owe me, greatly. You saw how suspicious and fearful the servants got. I promise we will take precautions, but you know what I want. Is it worth it to you?
Yeah I know, and yeah it is worth it.
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!Myranda XIV
10th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
I had stayed up late into night, past midnight I am certain, writing up plans and consolidating notes I had made on the journey of contacts I had acquired. I was trying to make estimates on future expenses by candlelight. Myranda was 'asleep' and lucidly dreaming within our mind; playing at constructing an M.C. Escher like castle. You're getting better at it. I broadcast the thought to her dream-state, something we recently discovered we could occasionally do. My part of our mind was tiring, and so were our eyes. I felt Myranda beckon me to join her. There was a bare stump of a candle left, so blew it out and went to bed.
Soon after laying down, I materialized into Myranda's dream-space, which then melded into a shared one between us. I conjured up a mirror, pleased to look at my own face and body again, then made the mirror part of the wall.
You've been improving a lot lately.
Lucid dreaming is the most profound thing I have ever learned, thank you.
It is a skill which requires practice like any other.
We walked together touring her 'palace' a while, molding and shaping things as we went. You can do more than just shape the environment and summon people within it. I said as I leapt off a balcony and flew through the air. I hovered there a moment and extended my hand to Myranda. She took it with gleeful excitement, leapt and then promptly dropped. I felt the panic rise into her and storm clouds began to blow into the dream sky. Even though there was nothing below us I dove down to reach her.
I've been skydiving and parasailing before, draw on those memories. Myranda quickly adapted and leveled out, flying along beside me.
I am flying, this is exhilarating, and we do not even need a dragon under us.
We flew across a landscape of green fields and wild flowers that looked more at place in a frame at New York's museum of art. We agreed that the sky was too empty, so soon it was filled pink cotton candy clouds and dozens of birds, flocks of seagulls and ravens. We drifted down into an empty clearing among strange circular rainbow colored trees. I found myself dressed in white silks billowing out into threads around me. A mechanized loom materialized in front me reminding me of things that weighed on my mind.
A loom, I still need to solve this riddle. With a wave of my mind's hand I set the machine into motion.
Myranda landed on a white tree stump. Even in your dreams you cannot stop thinking about work or projects of some kind, but I am overly excited, an 'adrenaline rush' as you say in your phrases. George from his ER days galloped up in shining armor and a prancing horse, Brad drove up in a red Camaro, and Daniel landed in a parachute wearing the classic James Bond tux. I have something else in mind. The mummers from your home are soooo much fun! Which one shall I choose? Will you join me this time?
It's not like I won't be well aware of everything, but that seems a bit crowded to me.
Prefer me all to yourself like before?
That was….
…bound to happen sooner or later. Perhaps if we could take a lover in our waking hours, I would have less want of exploring your celebrities.
Somehow I don't think that would diminish anything. The Loom began spitting out swaths of sheets, and canopy cloth and an unnatural speed which assembled themselves around Myranda and into their obvious purpose.
Daniel, I think, the rest of you, shoo. Clooney and his horse, and Pitt and his car faded away, as did all the various seagulls and ravens roosting in the surrounding trees. All were gone, save for one persistent raven. Is that one yours? Myranda asked.
No.
Shoo bird!
"Caw…weaver..caw"
Wind Wind we said and one sprang forth, blowing the bird out of its tree. It faded from the dream, but its incessant cawing still lingered.
You're fading, Myranda.
Damn it, I am waking up…the worst timing ever.
Then Myranda was gone, and I was left standing next to bed with James Bond.
I blinked several times and lifted my head from the bed. It was still dark, and the cawing could still be heard. It was not just in the dream. There was a glow in the room from dying embers in the hearth, and moonlight from an open window. A small black shape perched on the window still. I thought Caroline shut that last night?
"Weaver…" Spoke the creepy bird, I reached to the nightstand and pulled the burnt down candle stub from its socket in its holder and threw it at the beast.
"Go away!" I yelled, we must have heard the bird for real while sleeping and that materialized in our dream.
"Cack!" My aim was true as I pegged it right in the head. It let out a half cry as it was struck then flew away. I begrudgingly got out of bed and closed the window shutters, as well as drew the drapes shut, before crawling back in bed. Caroline continued the dream as it played back in our head, it seems she was having fun… Hmm, not tired yet at all.
I slept some, not sure how long, there were no alarm clocks to look at like what Caroline was used to. I looked out the window I had shuddered. It was before sunrise still, but the barest hint of orange was seeping into the eastern horizon.
Caroline did not dream presently, she would probably arise within my mind sometime late in the morning. Few servants were up, but I asked my way to the rookery and Maester Helliweg's chambers. I was informed he would more likely be up on the tower observatory, and made my way up there.
The 'observatory' was really just an open roof. Maester Helliweg stood there, parchments in hand looking between the eastern horizon and at a very large and very complex and ornate sundial that seem to be built right into the roof structure taking up most of the space. Various marks, curves, numbers, and writings were chiseled into precise positions across the stonework. In the middle stood a bronze rod, it was perhaps twice as tall as me. In a different corner there was a Myrish far-eye mounted on a tri-pod.
"We have nothing quite so complex at the Gates of the Moon, or even the Eyrie" I said aloud.
Maester Helliweg jumped at my speaking. "Oh my! Lady Royce, You have startled an old man. Few would be up here so early, or at all. I am taking measurement of the sunrise; it will be in moments, if this matter is not pressing?"
"I can wait."
Helliweg nodded, and soon enough the sun peeked over the horizon. He examined where the shadow of the dial fell, then compared the markings on the giant sundial against some markings on his parchments, then nodded to himself satisfied. "Now how might I assist you this fine early morning?"
"One of your ravens got lost and went to the windowsill of my room instead of the rookery sometime last night."
"Oh how unusual, I do not recall seeing any missing this morning. Is it still there?"
"Ah, no I chased it off. It was a bit noisy."
"Well, I shall go and check on them. Perhaps one came with a message in the night, or got out of its cage."
"I do not recall seeing a message, but it was also quite dark." We descended the stairs to head back toward the rookery. "Why were you checking on the sundial? Do you do it every morning?"
"Most mornings yes, in the weeks prior to the equinoxes and solstices."
"To find the date of the true equinox and solstice?"
"Why yes, that is exactly right, that is quite observant of you, did you learn much astronomy under Maester Coleman?"
"Not particularly. Our observatory does not compare to the one here at Runestone."
"Oh? I though Maester Coleman had a quality Myrish far eye at the top of the Eyrie, or did he cart it off to King's Landing with Lord Arryn?"
"I do not know, I guess truly I have not been to the upper roofs of the Eyrie's towers yet. Just getting to the ground floor is ascent enough."
"Too true, how did you come to the conclusion that the celebrated equinoxes are not the in line with the true occurrence of them?
"I suppose it makes sense, in a way. The reckoning of our calendar must not be entirely accurate, or the true dates would not drift from the celebrated dates. The leap year every seven helps keep it close but I suppose that is not enough by itself. At some point in the past they must have been in sync and remained close enough in sync for the inaccuracy to not be noticed for some time, for generations perhaps." Or at least that is what Caroline thinks, and her memories of a similar historical calendar correction on earth imply.
"Leap year? I suppose you mean the double solstice every seven?" I nodded in confirmation "You make a resounding insight that few people are aware of. A number of Maesters that have studied astronomy such as myself have been aware of the drift for some time, but have not agreed on the best way to correct it or if indeed there is a need to."
"But will it not just get worse over the years?"
"Indeed, but so has the accounting for the days of the moons, which has gotten far more out of sync. Yet no one seems to have paid it much mind."
"What was once a lunar cycle to measure days is now more like a solar cycle, but no one has bothered to give a unique name to each of the numbered moons in a year to associate them with something else? If that were done we could just leave the moon out of it."
"That is essentially correct. The lunar cycle is in reality longer than 28 and a quarter days that is allocated to them by way of the extra day each small season has to celebrate the equinoxes and solstices. But not even if you add in the sliver of time the double solstice adds every seven years will it equal the true lunar period."
"The solstices and equinoxes by measuring the length of the day determines the short seasons. But precisely how are the long seasons determined?"
"Ah, that is a question that has vexed the greatest minds of our order, and still remains insufficiently answered. There are of course key observations that allow us to send forth the white ravens to all parts of the realm to announce when such a change has occurred. There is however still much debate as to exactly why the long seasons change. Ah here we are."
We had reached the rookery, Maester Helliweg went about checking all of the cages, both his and the ones that had been brought from the Gates of the Moon and the Eyrie. Some cages had been dropped off at Iron Oaks and Old Anchor, but just as many had also been picked up. More ravens will again be left here at Runestone, and more also taken onwards to Gulltown. More exchanges will again take place there until finally some acolyte raven-tender will travel with them on a ship headed to King's Landing. While we will not be going to King's Landing, we probably will not be able to avoid having to bring yet more cages of the annoying birds back with us
The rookery was noisy, some of the ravens talked. Some called out Helliweg by name. I think even one of them called him 'papa'. I heard a few other words here and there above the general cawing, 'Shiny', 'M'Lord', 'Bread', 'Water', 'Cricket', but none of them called me 'weaver', or even paid me much heed except one young bird fascinated by some strands of the odd blonde hairs that had been slowly streaking into my brown. That bird though was much smaller than the one that I had pegged with the candle stub. Helliweg set about checking up on all the ravens. He seemed to know each one individually. I just saw a mass of noisy feathers shitting all over the room and their cages. I kept moving away from the young one trying to eat my hair, but un-caged, it just followed me around.
"All of them are accounted for, including those you brought on your wagons. Do you see it? Some of them know how to open their cages, despite all efforts otherwise."
"Apart from size I have no way of identifying it. It was black, it was a raven, and it was dark. I doubt that description is very helpful. We did not really want to bring the extra birds, but Maester Nolan insisted" And it cost him.
"Well I thank you for putting up with them, and Nolan, I know his reputation. Well it could have been one of these or a wild raven; though if it were one of these they probably would not have shut their cage door after coming back, and none were open, save that young one following you. Wild ravens sometimes hang around the rookeries when they are looking for a mate. I suspect some even succeed at convincing the occasional raven to return to the wild. At least that sounds better than saying they were killed by a falcon or some other wild animal or died in a storm when they go missing." Helliweg came over and rescued me from the small raven that was still trying to eat my hair, and put him into his empty cage. "This one was released from Gulltown a few days ago. She is still learning the routes to Runestone. I think she will accompany our party there again, but be released from a boat offshore."
"I admit I do not looked forward to traveling with them again, or back either, but I would like to learn more from you and peruse your library."
"Oh of course, but I would have gladly done so, without any requirement to do anything, so long as it does not interfere with my duties to Lord Royce."
"Thank you, that is refreshing to hear. I have often met …resistance… or distain at the concept of a woman learning the various fields."
"Yes, it is a shame my more stubborn fellows exclude women from our order. My mother and elder sister were very learned women, I learned much from them before my studies at the Citadel. My sister had wanted to study there; of course it was not and still is not allowed. I would give you recommendation if it would do any good. My eyes may not see as well as they used to, but I can see you have a sharp mind M'Lady. What studies interest you?"
"Thank you again, really. I would gladly stay if invited for as long as my father would let me. And since I have so much business in Gulltown it would make tending to it much easier. As for what I want to learn, well everything really. Perhaps start with astronomy, since it is a subject of your expertise. What are the signs you mention that warn of the changing long season?"
"Oh my, that will be quite an explanation. Would you join me in breaking our fast?"
I nodded my assent, and we made our way down to the kitchens and small hall to eat in. Caroline still slept within, though I think she will be pleased when she awakes. Over a meal of buttered bread, fruit, and eggs, Helliweg went into more detail regarding the seasons.
"…there are signs in the behavior of some animals and some specific plants changes in the long seasons. For example, the brown orchids in the Citadel's gardens flower most frequently during the approach of long autumn, so as the bloom rates increase; it is one way, but an imperfect way, of knowing when the long autumn may be at hand. All together these are just a collection of many small signs that help establish and verify the long seasonal changes. I and many of my fellows still purport that astronomy and the observation of the heavens is a better indicator."
"How so?"
"While the length of the day, determined by the precise location of where the angle of the sun rests on the horizon as well as where the shadows fall on the dial face can tell us the changing of the short seasons, it can also tell us of the long. While it is human error that has given us a calendar not in sync with the timing of short seasons, even if that were resolved, the equinoxes and solstices still precede from year to year. That means that the positions of the stars on the night prior to the equinox, are not precisely in the same place they were during the equinox of the prior year. After so many years, the relationship between the position of the stars and the timing of the equinox drifts further until it reverses again. The likelihood of a long season change is coming increases based on where the stars are on the horizon during these times of the year. The problem though is that it is not an exact prediction, we know there are other unknown factors at work as well, but cannot account for them."[1]
Well I did not know any of that, nor was there anything analogous in Caroline's memories. "We have had a many years of a long summer so far, how many more do you think there will be?"
"It is not precise, but by my observations, I doubt there will be more than another decade of long summer, but also, long autumn could come next year."
We talked further on astronomy and other subjects, moving to the library. Caroline awoke late that morning as usual. As the mornings events filled her part of our mind, she uncovered a forgotten, fragmented memory about earth in which the North Star could change and the magnetic poles could flip at some distant point in the future, but was not sure if it was relevant or related. Soon after, she quickly added her own questions for Helliweg. We spoke on through the whole afternoon, asking servants to bring us lunch.
Helliweg had two links for Astronomy, and one for Astrology. Surprisingly he held a similar opinion on Astrology as Caroline did, well perhaps not as strongly, but he found little practical use in the discipline. He said that during his youth while studying as an acolyte at the Citadel before yet gaining even a single link, that the discipline of Astronomy and Astrology were one and the same. During his years of study there was a fierce, ongoing, and years old debate over splitting the two areas into separate studies over a schism of beliefs. The two fields had finally branched off by the time he had been there for some years. By virtue of having been required to learn about both, he gained a link in Astrology, but his principle instructors were in the Astronomy camp, and he continued in his studies there earning his second bronze link. It is interesting to note that (given Maester Helliweg's age) the 'separate' discipline of Astronomy is only a few decades old.
He also held two copper links for history. The library had a complete copy of 'True History' as well. Caroline desired to read the rest of it, since we already finished 'The Conquest of the Andals' which was only an excerpt from that tome. Of more interest to myself was the Royce family history book, and learning of the old first man runes on the nearby standing stones that the 'Rune' in 'Runestone' was named for, Maester Helliweg had numerous notes on the various rune symbols he had discovered and transcribed throughout the vale. I wanted to see uncle Yohn's bronze armor as well. Helliweg knows quite a number of phrases and words of the Old Tongue, and taught them to us. We can recognize a number of the runes now. They are similar and in some cases match the runic charms and rituals Yerund required us to learn, though Helliweg never spoke of magic. He is willing to teach us more of the runes and Old Tongue, as well as help us master High Valyrian for as long as we plan to stay.
Despite Caroline's reluctance, I still think we should learn more of those things from Yerund while we can, and visit some of the rune stones Helliweg mentioned in the vale on our return trip. She thinks the travel time though is already long enough without adding extra side trips.
Helliweg had a silver link for healing also. Talking about that subject was a lot more interesting. He claimed to know less of the discipline that Maester Coleman, and disagreed with Caroline's opinions on body humors and the usefulness of leeching. Yet he retained an open mind. He was intrigued by the idea that 'infection' might be caused by tiny animals too small to be seen, and that the action of dousing instruments with alcohol or other caustics and cleansing one's hands would kill the small animals, and lower the chance that an 'infection' would occur. Although he said he had never heard such a theory before, it at least seems consistent in explaining the observed effects. Caroline stammered a bit when he asked where we had heard it. I fell back on the 'It came to me in a dream' lie. We are unsure if he believed us or not, and it may have also discredited our theory in his eyes. Caroline was quick to counter that we could prove it if there was a Myrish far eye meant to see something very small, and not just something very far away. Magnifying glasses do exist here, though and he brought one out, countering that nothing as what she described could be found when using it. She of course retorted that the one he held provided far too low of a magnification to be up to the task, just like how a small far-eye tube would be greatly underpowered when compared to a much larger one. To this he had to concede the point, but with no such instrument available, no such proof could be made.
We supped with Lord Yohn and his family again, this time with the whole household. Maester Helliweg praised our intellect and made noted comments on our conversations during the day. He requested to Yohn that he would much like to provide instruction to me for a time alongside Ysilla in a manner such that we did not need to ask Lord Yohn ourselves to stay. Uncle Yohn said that with the equinox festivities coming soon, he would be happy to have us stay for the celebrations, that is, if our father consented. Maester Helliweg would send a raven to the Eyrie with the request the next morning.
After the dinner I was quite tired. I know that Caroline will stay up much longer, speaking with Maester Helliweg some more, then reading as much as she can late into the night. Septon Lucos also asked to speak with us tomorrow. I will leave her to it. Maybe I will find Daniel again in my dreams tonight. Hopefully no birds will bother us again.
Spoiler: Author's Note
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!Myranda XV
11th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
We would have much preferred to have left for Gulltown today, but Septon Lucos insisted we have a long chat. Lord Yohn also offered to send along additional guards with us to Gulltown but not until tomorrow. Lucos had his chat more with the Myranda side of us this morning, and I was happy to let her handle all that into the afternoon as well.
Apparently he had spoken at length with Septa Ana the day before. He quizzed us on 'our' faith, Myranda was quite pious. He asked about our 'dreams' (the fake ones), Myranda maintained the ruse. He observed some of our healing and treatments of some small folk near Runestone. It was nothing complicated. He gave us a prayer book, and he and Myranda prayed a few times. He was curious about our interest in the smith. I guess we finally got to the ultimate point when he said he thought we would make a fine Septa and encouraged us to consider entering the faith. We deflected, indicating our father still wanted us to re-marry at some point. This backfired a bit because he offered to talk with him on our behalf.
Of course throughout all this pseudo-interrogation, he never directly asked us what we wanted. That was rather annoying. Was he assuming we would just go along with his suggestions or that our father would? We sternly, but politely informed him that we have not yet decided what (Myranda) wanted in terms of marriage or other paths in life. He again countered, with a slightly confused look, that surely my father would determine this.
Septon Lucos for all we could tell appeared to be a kind, sweet, and knowledgeable old man, but he didn't get it, few of them do. We want to decide what to do with our life ourselves. I just hope that in this awful society that will still be possible. We had to just put Lucos aside or at least nudge him down a path that was more useful to us. We reminded him that, although the date nears, it has not yet been a full year since our late husband died, and that (Myranda) is due at least that much. The faith even allows a full additional year of mourning, if no acceptable suitors have been found. We admitted that there were none when he asked, and not likely to be any before the year's end. We also planted the suggestion that an additional year would help us consider all of our options, if our father could be persuaded toward allowing such. He praised my sensibilities and patience, and hopefully he took the bait, even though we have no intention of joining the faith. Not even if our father picked someone reprehensible, I'd rather run off to the free cities with lots of gold than run away to a convent. Myranda is less sure of that, but definitely still doesn't want to become a Septa.
We had more lessons and conversations with Helliweg that afternoon, practicing more High Valyrian and Old Tongue runes and words. Visits in the library again let me take note of various tomes I wanted to read at some point in the future.
Of noticeable interest was the House Royce family book kept at Runestone. We thoroughly explored our father's side of the family tree, traced back through generations to vale first men kings of old. We floated the idea later that I thought our father would love to have a copy, really though we wanted one for ourselves. An entry was there for Nestor and Myrie, and one for Myranda and Albar. There was little there though for our maternal grandmother. Just that she was a daughter of 'Ser Lewys Templeton (d. 260, Stepstones)' and 'banner man's daughter.' Her name, date of birth and death was not present. I commented on it to Helliweg. Myranda had memories of her when she was a child. Her name was Beyka, and she died when Myranda was four years old in 283 of natural causes, though she doesn't know when she was born. Her passing was over shadowed by the deaths of Karl and Rodger Royce, our uncle and paternal grandfather at the hands of the mad king that same year, and Robert's rebellion. Helliweg updated the entry without hesitation. It made us curious though about Myranda's mother's side of the family. We will have to ask our father about them when we return.
Dinner that evening brought new questions from our aunt and uncle. It was obvious they had spoken further with Helliweg and Lucos regarding our prior conversations. We were, and still are, having trouble determining just where they were going with this. I thought perhaps they were trying to assess me in regard to a marriage to Robar (his elder son and heir Andar is already married) or some vassal. If that had been the case though I would have thought there would have been efforts to seat us together or dinner invitations to potential suitors. Yet that did not occur, at least not yet. I hope that is not the case, given Waymar and Myranda's history that would be very awkward at best.
We had finished 'Andal Law' on the way over, and we had stared on 'Mountain and Vale', before arriving. We stopped though to read some of 'True History' while we were at Runestone, and I will continue reading that tonight. We can't exactly bring it with us and I probably should not have taken those others from the Eyrie library, not that Nolan would likely notice. We leave early tomorrow morning for Gulltown. Given our wagons loads it will probably take two days to get there.
13th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
We are finally here in Gulltown again, we arrived late this afternoon. I went straight to the better inn we had stayed at last time. The owner, Nikos, a Bravossi, remembered me. It seems that after we had left, some of the tailor's guild masters visited him to express their 'concern and displeasure' of our operating at selling our wares from his establishment. He indicated though that he did not consider them a threat, and, since he liked making money, and was willing host us from our lobby again. Though, also because he liked money, he wanted to charge us a higher rate. After some tough negotiating, I got him to convert it from a percentage on sales into a flat fee per night for the rental of a large ground floor room that I could use as a temporary store front and storage. Normally it was used as additional overflow space for the tavern/hearth area. I considered it the same as if I had wanted to rent a conference room at a hotel back home, but was looking at possibly up to two weeks here this time.
We also rented one two-bed upper floor room for Myranda/me, Sylla, and Ana to stay in. Our brother Albar, Talo, and Rudy were unpleased to discover we were not going to splurge on a separate room for them. I told them we had another one already, they can sleep on the cushioned couches in the 'conference' room to better guard our wares during the night. After that, they apparently decided to make their squires sleep in the stables on the wagon, or that may have been their intention all along. The guards Lord Royce had sent as additional escorts had to find their own accommodations. He had given them money for their expenses and their opinion was that this inn was too expensive for them.
We also got a basic map of the city and the names of numerous specialty shopkeepers from Nikos that we would need to visit. We also got the names of local bards, plus those I had written down and had used last time for advertising. We managed to send Rudy out before it got too dark to talk to a few of them to meet us tomorrow. All that and getting stuff partially set up for tomorrow was all we had time to do before it got dark. Sylla was going to sleep on the floor, but I insisted she use my bed since I would be up reading for a while anyway.
14th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
The next day, our first customer was Nikos' wife, Celesta. We were not really even set up yet, but she insisted, having observed us on our last visit. She used to be a courtesan in Bravos, and still has several contacts there. That could be a potentially lucrative market. We spent the morning finishing getting set up, and talking to bards. I may need some models; there are some candidates among some female singers and mummers. I don't want to use prostitutes for that. Sylla is too young, it would be 'improper' for Myranda/me to do so, plus our figure isn't the most common. We probably should not even bother asking Ana.
Late morning and early afternoon was spent instructing and speaking with the bards and mummers that had heeded my job calls, and we finally settled on our choices, though they would not start in earnest until tomorrow. Rudy was sent out as a guard for Sylla and Ana, who were procuring several medical and simple chemistry items and tools for me. I'd do some more thorough shopping later as soon as I got a chance.
They were also sent out with letters to some of the local noble houses: House Grafton, House Arryn of Gulltown, House Shett of Gulltown, and House Shett of Gull Tower. (Though the last one was Lord Royce's vassal, and so I sent that letter with one of his guards who had other business there.) The Arryn's responded quite quickly. By the early evening a courier from them had arrived with an invitation for us and our brother to dinner tomorrow. Myranda wants us to be cautious, and reminded us of the shunning they had from Lord Jon due to marrying into merchants. Well since we are about to get all up into merchant activity, I don't see how that could be worse. We sent the courier back with our acceptance.
15th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
Sales are starting up today; the bards are out singing our praises and adverts. We even made some painted signs found some street urchins to march around carrying them for some coppers and a meal or two. We've not heard from the tailor's guild yet, since we are not in the main market area though I wonder if it will still be an issue. Maybe I was unnecessarily concerned?
Less than a day into sales and we already realize we will need to hire a money clerk or such. We've seen a lot of clipped coins, and off-weighted ones. Some even look pitted and oddly corroded, but all still had the King's mark on them. At least we bought scales yesterday, if any silver or gold coins are debased by lead we don't want to have to bite them to find out. We find ourselves having to sort bad coins out from better coins and give the bad ones away as change. Some very obviously bad coins we refused to accept, but there are legal tender laws so we cannot refuse them all. Wasn't there some economic law about that? We'd rather not have to spend our time on sorting out all that, too many other things to do, but we may be forced to anyway.
At the moment we're refusing foreign currencies, we might accept them later if we have a clerk, and help in dealing with the exchanges, as well as a reason, such as international trade order, to deal with a large enough volume of them. There are plenty of foreign merchants in the city, and a customer is a customer.
We still need to visit the smith who we had make our scissors, as well as the fish markets for sponges and other items. We sent our brother out during the day to tell the smith we would visit early in the morning tomorrow, if he would meet us then. We can't quite leave the inn so easily while we're 'open' and selling our wares because we want to handle all those transactions directly.
Dinner with House Arryn of Gulltown
A carriage from House Arryn of Gulltown arrived in the late afternoon, Lady Ellen Arryn had come along, and we gave her a show of our wares in between other customers. We could not head out just yet as I was still finishing off a few sales. She made polite conversation with Celesta, while we closed up and changed into a fancy dinner dress. Septa Ana and Sylla would stay at the inn, as would the other guards save for our brother. We at least convinced Albar to put on a nicer cloak and vest and he insisted on riding his own horse there alongside the carriage. We went aboard with Lady Ellen, and were soon off to their city manor.
The carriage, although ornate and well made, had no real suspension and despite the cobblestone surface of the city streets, it was still a teeth jarring ride that made conversation difficult at times. It was though, far better than the wagon we under took through far rougher roads in the vale.
On the ride over we learned the Arryn's were a couple of generations removed from the mercantile marriage that had soured them to the rest of the Arryn family. I don't know why they would be thought to be uncouth though, Lady Ellen at least has been quite pleasant.
"Once again I am quite delighted, that you and your brother accepted our invitation. We host dinners often for prominent residents of the city, but it is rare we are honored with the presence of one such as you and your brother. You will be quite the honored guests in our circle of associates. It was fortuitous that your letter announcing your visitation to the city came near to when we were planning our dinner."
"I was happy to attend and thank you for the invitation; I do desire to make more friends and acquaintances in the city, so I would be pleased to be introduced to your guests. Who might be in attendance?"
"Oh, we will be joined by the mayor, the town magistrate, several guild leaders, and some Essosi traders who are business associates of my husband." Ellen then further elaborated with a number of their names, none of whom we recognized.
And none of which are titled nobility. This is what they consider uncouth, their dining and fraternization with merchant small folk, even if some do have city positions.
And yet, such merchants and men of business are who we will have to deal with to expand on our trade and sales. Sales to noble ladies will only go so far because there are only so many of them.
Yet, let us hope members of this tailor's guild is not among them.
We should be prepared if they are. "Do you know if any members of the guild of tailors or weavers are among your guests?"
Lady Ellen paused, perplexed a moment by the question. "I do not believe so, my husband is a vintner and involved in the spice trades with the free cities. Most of our guild associated guests belong to the various Victualler's guilds, of which my husband is also of prominent influence."
We had pulled out a small notebook of parchment and a chalk pen from our purse to take occasional notes, when Lady Ellen's curiosity took greater note of it.
"A curious instrument you have, and a beautiful bag, I had wondered I thought it rather large for a mere coin purse."
We held up the chalk pen and our bag so Lady Ellen could get a closer look. The 'pen' was really just hollow reed in which a carved stick of chalk had been forced into, another larger reed served as a cap, which we had lined with wax to give it a tighter fit. "Sometimes I have ideas, or hear something of note and wish I had ink and quill ready to jot it down. Obviously, having an inkwell in my bag would most likely result in a mess, so I made do with chalk and scraps of parchments. As far my bag, of course my coin purse is in here as well, but I needed something larger for additional items. My combs, sewing kit, various papers, a tin with tooth cleansing gel and brush for when I am traveling, even a small bar of hand soap and vial of scented soap shavings and oil for application to the hair." We went into full sales mode as we showed off and described our various items, answering Ellen's question diligently.
"I suppose that make a larger number of layers to get through to deter cut-purses."
"Indeed though some good guards are a better deterrent, even without such one would have to get through the decorative cloth, the strong leather of the bag it covers, find their way through the assortment of things to the coin purse and take or cut it as well. A strong strap worn on the shoulder like so keeps it in place and handy." We really should be making purses to sell too, I hadn't even though of that yet.
"Where did you find such a bag, a local seller in the city?"
"Oh no, I designed this myself. I should clarify, I designed and sewed the fabric covering, and placed it upon and existing sturdy leather bag, and had a strap put on. Really this is only a basic functional purse. I would have brought one of finer quality and material from my home to show if I had known I was going to be invited to your dinner."
Yet we do not actually have a finer one. This one we made as an after-thought months ago.
But we should, so they will just be another luxury item to try and sell.
We spoke a bit more, as I pointed out the various finer details, of what a more luxurious one would entail, finer leather, silver buckles, silk coverings, padding about the shoulder strap to make it more comfortable, and so on.
For the remainder of the ride, Lady Ellen brought me up to speed on local gossip and recent city events, and gave a bit more detail on Lord Arryn's business activates, which was primarily trade in spiced wines. They had vineyards outside the city, and a secondary business in spice trades, most of which went into the wines.
The carriage came to stop outside their manor in the city and we stepped out. The large house was two stories, three probably with what passes for attic space, given a few high windows at the top of some roof eaves. It was surrounded by a ten foot gated wall. Inside was a small courtyard with ornate landscaping and fruit trees. A servant took my brothers horse away to their stables. Other servants greeted us as we approached and opened two large double oaken front doors for us.
"Forgive my inquiry, but as we are infrequently visited by other nobles, how shall our manservant announce you to our guests." Lady Ellen discreetly asked of me as we entered the house into the entry way.
I whispered my response to Ellen who then whispered it in turn to one of her servants. We waited in the entry way for a moment and I admired several frescoes on the walls and a few small statues. Our brother handed his riding cloak to yet another servant and took an offered towel and wash basin to wipe off any road dust from his face and hands.
Lady Ellen entered the main hall ahead of us, we heard a servant announced her presence before the man turn around soon after to open the door for us as well. After ushering us inside, he let out a deep bellow.
"Presenting, Ser Albar Royce, and Lady Myranda Hersy nee Royce, Dowager Lady of Newkeep, the son and daughter of Lord Nestor Royce, high steward of the Vale to our Lord Paramount Jon Arryn"
The hall was crowded and all eyes turned to us. Several curtsies, bows and nods were proffered in our direction. Most all had goblets of wine or other drinks in their hands. A tall thin man in a fancy waistcoat walked toward us, taking Lady Ellen' arm as he came near.
"Welcome, welcome to my humble abode." The man said with an elevated voice and exaggerated flair. "It pleases my heart that members of my good cousins house, our Lord Paramount and hand of the King has accepted my invitation, a sure sign of warm things to come."
Oh shit…
What?
"May I introduce my husband, Lord Artos Arryn," Lady Ellen said.
"A pleasure" We found ourselves saying as he moved quickly as we took his proffered hand. He then raised ours to his mouth and kissed it.
"Myranda did you know of this?" Albar whispered into my ear as Lord Artos released our hand.
"Wine for our honored guests!" Artos exclaimed, before I had a chance to respond. Servants thrust fine goblets of sweet smelling wine into mine and our brother's hands. Artos and Albar clasped hands but we could see a strain appearing on Albar's face when Artos further called out. "A toast to our guests and to warm relations"
The toast was... rather lame, but none-the less, "Warm relations", "Ser Albar", "Lady Myranda" was spoken aloud by the various guests, and everyone raised their glasses and took a drink.
It's strong; let's keep this nursed for a while.
We are going to need a deeper drink than that.
"And let it not be said we did not also partake the ancient laws of hospitality" Artos continued on as a plate of salted bread was brought before us. "I do so hope you will bring good word back to your father and well wishes to my cousin and his family."
We took a bite of the salted bread. It was not the course fare that was often used in Westerosi hospitality ritual. While it was still bread and salt, the Arryn's saw fit to make it a sweet herb and honey loaf slathered with butter. A quick glance around the room showed a few empty trays of unfinished loaves had not been taken by the servants yet, signs it had been given to all guests. A long chew and swallow of the sweet bread let us gather our thoughts.
Clearly he has set this up to imply it as a sign of thawing relations between the Arryn branches to whomever among his guests he is seeking to impress.
So I gathered, but we can't really back out of it now.
We must promise nothing, and not over step ourselves
Noted but we still need to gain useful contacts, information, and hopeful convince the ladies in the room to buy up all of our products none the less.
Artos clearly expected a response, and we swallowed the bread and replied. "I will be sure to let my father know of your gracious hospitality, when we return home."
A flurry of introductions occurred and we attached faces to a number of the names Lady Ellen had mentioned on the ride over. Magistrate Thomas Orlin and his wife Helena, mayor Cecil Roper and his wife Natalia, Horus Sweet a spice trader from Pentos, Lorio Morten, a banker from Braavos, Nathan who runs an apothecary, and there was also a butcher, baker and even a fishmonger in attendance. Each was accompanied by their wives or husbands, and some with their elder sons or daughters.
There were eighteen guests in total, including ourselves and Albar. Lord Artos and Lady Ellen also introduced their teenage son and daughter, Davyd and Julia to us.
At some point during the pre-dinner mingling, Albar whispered, "these are not the class of guests I was expecting."
"Smile and be polite anyway" Myranda managed to say before Lady Ellen got us by the arm and brought us over toward the circle of women. A glance back toward Albar showed he was appearing to at least be cordial as he too got swept up among a group of the men. I felt Myranda push my part of our mind to the backseat and I let her.
He is not wrong, even though I know you think it should not matter. Their marriage to merchants and continued friendships and engagements with lesser classes, is why paramount Lord Arryn's family shunned them, and many other Lords and Ladies of the Vale do likewise. We want to increase our standing with them. This… may be counter-productive to that.
Though as I said, there are more rich merchants and artisans in Gulltown than all the noble ladies in the vale, these are going make up a lot of our customers. And even if that man is a butcher by profession, or started out that way, you don't dress up in clothes that fine, and lavish your wife with a silk dress, gold, jewels and strong perfume unless you are making some serious coin. The same goes for the rest, I am unsure if I should feel under-dressed or not.
The dress we made and are wearing is fine, our combined artistic talent for that surpasses theirs or the talent of whoever made it for them. We have gotten a few compliments already. They are outshining us on jewels and jewelry though by far…
Damn it… this feels very cliché... and shallow. Aren't we just being a petty example of rich women trying to one up themselves in their appearance and trying to outdo each other?
Is that not what we want to rely on to get them to buy our wares? Besides once we sell off more items, I want to splurge on at least a few things for myself, you promised. I will even finally let you pierce my ears if we can find a jeweler to make the right kind of earrings for that.
"Lady Myranda," the butcher's wife came up next to me, though we could smell her perfume wafting our way well in advance. "I did so hear you run the house at the Gates of the Moon and even the Eyrie while our Lord Paramount is away, that must be a great relief on the duties of your father, he must be a busy man."
"I suppose that is true enough, though I do not do so alone." Myranda engaged in the conversation while I took to focusing on conversations of others around us.
"Is that not so often the case? We women help our husbands, or father in your case, where we can to ease their burdens. Why just the other day my husband was complaining about the laws restricting the grazing rights and cattle count ownership for men such as he within a few leagues of the city…"
The woman prattled on for a while… "…Sounds like a local matter, would not Magistrate Orlin be a better one to bring this concern to?" Myranda deflected.
"Oh I am sure he has, but we must do what we can; I am sure the word of the high steward or daresay the Lord Paramount can go far."
Myranda took a slow chug from the wine glass to avoid responding. She is only the first, the other await their chances to break into the conversation, through me to reach our father, through our father to reach Lord Arryn.
Yes I know. I'm sure that is also part of their association with Lord Artos too. The hope of pushing influence though a chain of family ties, even if he is ignored by Jon, Artos and Ellen seem to milk the attention. Still she wants something; we can use that to our advantage.
I see what you have in mind…
We resumed the conversation, "Well our Lord Paramount is so immensely busy being the hand. My father likewise so, as the steward, but I do have his ear from time to time. But please know, my hope tonight is to make acquaintances or even friends, and enjoy a fine meal from our gracious hosts. But I do invite you to come by the Golden Pearl Inn, tomorrow or another day this week. I have rented a room on the first floor to hold shop. I have a number of items you may find to your liking, as several notable noble ladies of the Vale already have. We can perhaps discuss your concerns in more detail then, oh and please do invite your well-to-do friends as well."
Variations of that conversation were repeated a few more times among the other women. Not all were after an indirect ear to the powers that be. One of them, the baker's wife, introduced her son to me, emphasizing he was unmarried. She at least curtailed that line of inquiry at our first mention of still being in mourning (and thus polite dismissal of her indirect match-making attempt.)
Our conversation with Nathan the apothecary owner and his wife Melanie proved to be more fruitful. We spoke on our common knowledge of herb lore and even bits of alchemy. I promised to visit his shop some time later in the week. Soon after some servant rang a bell and announce dinner was being served.
Lord and Lady Arryn sat at the center of a long trestle 'high table' as was traditional for the hosts. Being the apparent guests of honor, Albar was seated to Lord Artos right and Myranda/me to Lady Ellen's left. Davyd Arryn sat to our left and Julia to Albar's right.
Davyd was an awkward, shy, chubby acne ridden teenager. Polite small talk revealed he was only 13 while Julia was less than a year younger at 12. That's just over 15, and less than 14 in earth years, respectively. I get the feeling they were seated next to each of us strategically. At least there was more subtlety here on Lady Ellen's part than that baker's wife. Though since their children were the only other 'persons of title' besides the Arryn's, our brother and ourselves; they probably sat at the high table during banquets such as this on the regular anyway.
Two other long tables were arranged down the length of the hall. Together the three tables formed a U shape, although there was a gap between the low tables and the high table for servants to get between them with platters and wine, as they walked down the inside of the U serving everyone. The magistrate and his wife were at the 'head' of the low table closest to our side, and were at least in conversation distance, while the mayor and his wife were at the head of the other one. Everyone else was too far away to speak with.
They were not, however too far away to listen in on. Tonight we really put into practice our previously discovered enhanced ability to multi-task. Myranda engaged in conversation with Lord and Lady Ellen, and the occasional mumblings from Davyd, although the boy did get more talkative as he got further into his wine. I concentrated on listening to others conversations as best as I could, which over the course of the dinner revealed… nothing particularly noteworthy. However a couple of times I wish I had been close enough to kick Albar in the shins, when he made a couple veiled insults at the class of the guests after getting more into his cups. We felt confident though, that no well to do, small folk-merchants, were going to challenge a knight, if they had overheard.
Caroline kept her focus on outlying conversations, and making mental notes of what she picked up on. It would not do to pull out the chalk and parchment to make notes during dinner. Caroline had gotten a bit put in her place those many months ago when she first arrived. We rectified her assumptions about medieval table manners as being patently false, and now I see my own assumptions about the manners of the lower classes equally trounced. Lord Arryn's guests were well mannered and clean in their feasting, more so in some case than some nobility I recall from past events. They even use forks. Caroline was shocked but also relieved that she did not have to introduce the practice of using forks from her culture to our own. It made me wonder if perhaps our lesser folk also disdained such. That was true among the small folk of the fields and villages, for there was little more than spoons and small knives in use in their homes. We such saw on our 'healers rounds' and when doing wool and flax trades. Here the merchant guest folk of Lord Arryn used and had obvious practiced use of all manner of utensils, even if the utensils themselves belong to the Arryn house.
With Caroline's occasional pestering reminders, we had nursed the spiced wines offered at the feast as best we could. I aimed to keep Lord Artos engaged even if it was talking across Lady Ellen, though she commented as she could with insight on a few finer points. Talking of his spiced wine and trade business was a point of pride for him, but we needed broader knowledge than that alone. "So you are a member of the guild of Vintners as well as being lord of your vineyards on lands outside the city? How do the guilds organize themselves, what rules and regulations do you have among yourselves?" I asked, aiming for a better understanding of the organizations.
"I would say I am nominal head of the vintner's guild," Artos replied, "certainly the largest wine maker in the city. The guild I should say, primarily provide me rights in sales and import and exports of my goods for customs, as I send them off trade ships. I do have a few competitors among other guild members but there are only a handful of us and with mutual understanding we keep prices reasonable and equitable, but that is mainly for local sales. After all, a city of a given size can only support so many winemakers to provide a supply to the residents. We also must of course ensure our wines are of a certain quality product…."
The more Lord Arryn talked and the more Caroline listened in to the others as the dinner wore on, the purpose and practices of the guilds became more clear. They were first formed ages ago for mutual protection. Mainly this was to protect their wares, horses, wagons and so on; at least that was so for the more merchant oriented guilds. Wine merchants were a more obvious one among them. There was also mutual aid, in trade practices and when poorer times prevailed. Over all though it came down to keeping a monopoly, to enrich themselves and keep out outsiders. No price cutting, no advertising, prices were controlled. No sales of foreign non-members goods. Admittedly this got murky here among the merchants dealing in foreign trade. They did not make Arbor Gold it Gulltown but it was sold occasionally by the wine merchants, Lord Artos included. Trade secrets were guarded, sometimes lethally. Members were not supposed to corner the market by purchasing a large supply and fix the price. The total number of members was limited, there were only so many guild masters and so many apprentices. New apprentices had to pay a fee to join, sometimes multiple times over the years. Different guilds had different rules about membership and internal 'laws'. Not all were against the acceptance of women, and in many cases widows carried on their late guild member husbands place and work.
All this ran counter to Caroline's understanding of 'capitalism' and 'free enterprise'. How many of those things had we broken already and were going to break even further? No wonder the tailor's or weaver's guild or whatever was upset. At the same time though, the guilds were not without beneficial purposes. They often engaged in civic leadership (though that still might be for selfish reasons.) They provided for the widows or orphans of members, and dowries for daughters. They often helped build Septs. They made sure members did not fall too far in their vices, and even prior to apprenticeship they helped provide a basic education to member's children.
Many of the guests of the Arryn's were part of various victuallers guilds. These included bakers, butchers, fishmonger, vintners, and brewers. Hostellers were sometimes considered as such but none were present, there was perhaps a group meeting before or to be held after dinner.
Other guilds were those in the metal trades. These included gold, silver, and copper smiths, black smiths, armorers, blade smiths, ferbers, bell-makers and braziers. Builder guilds included carpenters, masons, cart-wrights, plasterers, shipwrights, sawyers, and thatchers. The leather trades had shoemakers, saddle-makers, leatherworkers, and various bag, pouch, bottle and parchment makers. A number of professions did not have formal guilds, at least not in Gulltown. These included spicers, which was mostly involved in foreign trade, and apothecaries. We suppose both were loosely related to the victualler's. Barbers, jewelers, scribes, ropers, moneychangers, and chandlers did not have formal guilds that any were aware of.
Finally there were the textile trades which had several guilds, the tailors, dyers, listers, weavers and drapers. At least there was no spinners guild. We guess that is scattered or at the cottage industry level, or maybe it is just a subset of the weavers.
So how is all this going to play out? Guild are private organizations and many, but not all of their 'rules' are not legally binding. Yet there is a fair bit of overlap among city laws, at least according to what I could glimpse from conversing with the magistrate. We are a 'foreign' seller for sure, setting our own prices; we don't even know what the tailor guilds prices are anyway. Would that matter? Our main products are not something they are selling anyway. Cornering the market? Well we have to unload a significant amount of spun fiber and yarn, we do not know what effect that has or will have…
After dinner Myranda was tiring and I took a more active role in the conversations. We found ourselves speaking with Horus Sweet a spice trader from Pentos, who brought in a number of the spices that Lord Artos used in his wines. Spices were the bulk, but not the only thing he traded in.
"..You were saying you know a few cloth traders from Pentos and Myr? I would perchance like to meet them."
"Yes M'Lady, my wife did mention you spoke of a number of ladies garments, I suppose that would have need of ample cloth. I could see what I could do, though they are busy men."
"As am I, time is money after all, what interested me most was your comment on of the volume of raw wool and fiber that finds its way to across the narrow sea and returns as cloth, that they share cargo space with your spices, as I am both interested in procuring fine cloth and unloading spun wool and flax."
"Hmm, time is money indeed, a clever phrase. I think I can devote some of my time in arranging a meeting, if there is mutual benefit between us."
"Assuredly, if it results in a successful transaction. I am sure you can come to a similar arrangement with your associates."
Once we knew we were speaking the same language of commerce, we hashed out some minor details, a minor finder's fee, one time only, only a fraction of a percent, would find its way into Horus Sweet's pocket, if our introductions resulted in me being able to unload all or a substantial amount of the yarn and thread I could not find enough local weavers to turn into cloth.
Though here, we steered the talk toward typical trade. What flowed into and out of Gulltown? Sweet and Lord Arryn, who was still circling about, offered up their opinions. Though I think I should verify them with other sources.
Overall it would seem that Gulltown served as a collection point for many raw resources from the vale. Raw, often un-dyed wool and linen fiber, as well as wool and cotton from the Crownlands, plus foodstuffs (mostly grains and vegetables that kept long enough to make the trip), timber, and sometimes even quarried stone, were exported and flowed into the free cities. It was turned into finished goods, dyed cloth and sometimes finished clothing, furniture, carpets, glass products, spices and other luxuries came back. Mostly, this went to the noble elite and wealthier merchant classes who could afford such, and out flowed the silver and gold specie to pay for it. This was mercantilism to its core, and Westeros was probably getting shafted, because it was not an equitable trade balance.
Out last conversation for the night was with Ophelia, who unexpectedly was the fishmonger, though, apparently a wealthy one that has had others doing the actual selling for her for a long time. Her late father owned multiple fishing vessels, and she continued overseeing his business.
After chance hearing her talk about the rumors of some noble woman who ate urchin roe some time ago, I decided to admit it was me. Mainly because it was good and I wanted to do it again. Maybe it could even become a trend. Also I needed to resupply my stocks of urchin needles and sponges, and get a large enough selection of various kinds to see what works best for variety of purposes. Thin slices of sponge might work as a substitute for foam padding, and well, menstrual sponges are an actual thing, if properly sanitized, though I am still hesitant on that idea. I also wanted seaweed, because I recalled that iodine was extracted from it. It was too late in the evening though to do much more than invite her to the inn tomorrow to speak of more details.
It was dark when we left. Lord Artos and Lady Ellen stayed home, but sent Albar and I out with escorts and in their carriage. Myranda was 'asleep' before we got in the carriage. Despite trying to minimize our drinking we had a strong buzz. Albar was worse off, definitely drunk, and rode in the carriage this time, while one of the escorts rode his horse back.
"Father and Lord Jon… they will not be pleased." Albar slurred,
My head throbbed, still I though the dinner had been useful at least for making contacts. "I didn't make any promises, and there shouldn't be harm in listening to their concerns."
"He will chide me, and you none-the-less…"
"Oh I think you'll be in the clear, just say you we're my necessary escort."
"I was!"
"Glad we're in agreement then"
"I would not have… you spend too much time with the small folk…you start talking like them, and strange. You are different this year…what has…"
Albar did not finish his thought because he passed out and leaned forward. I caught him enough to shift his weight to let his head rest against the side of the padded door frame. Though how he managed to stay passed out as we bumped jarringly over the cobblestone street to the inn I can't imagine. Rudy and Albar's squire were summoned, and they helped him out of the carriage, and brought his horse to the stables. The guard that rode his horse got into the carriage jump-seat and they all rode off back to the Arryn manor.
I stumbled up to my room, Ana and Sylla were asleep, and started at a candle and blank parchment I had left on the desk.
Meet smith tomorrow morning
Stay at inn for sales, during late morning and afternoon. Need get one of my advertising mummer girls to model; several visits from dinner guests expected.
Lorio to send by a money counter apprentice tomorrow or later in the week.
Sweet to introduce Pentoshi and Myrish cloth traders (are not local tailors) later this week
See Ophelia dinner tomorrow evening at inn. Aquaculture?
That was all I could managed before crawling in the bed.
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!Myranda XVI
16th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
It was early morning, Caroline still slept within my mind, dreaming about some nature documentary she saw once about sponge farming and other odd things. I had come to the smithy rather early, enough that the smith, Boden, was awoken by our knocking. Now he was laying out the scissors blades on a table for my examination. Rudy, Ser Talo and his squire, a young boy named Jordan escorted me, as guards. My brother was still sleeping off his wine from last night at the inn when we left, his squire and some of uncle Yohn's escort remained to guard our wares.
Boden had laid out seven pairs of scissor blades on a table. They showed a clear progression of his work and the difficulties he had encountered with the design. It was admirable that he had managed to make that many since we had last visited him nearly four moons ago. He either worked at a far greater pace than Brynn did, or only worked on my request at the exclusion of other projects. The first two were like Brynn's poor prototype design, which I had showed him on my last visit. The blades were affixed to an inset groove on the side of the wooden handles with glue because it was the only way to make the two blades come flush together. The fulcrum pivot point was in the handles though, as the blades themselves did not have a supporting hole in them. They are going to suffer the same problem Brynn's did, after extended use the glue will not hold. The middle set were more like knives, in that the blades were inserted into the middle of the handles much more securely, rather than glued to the side. In order to keep the cutting edge flush though, there was an obvious angled bend in the metal after coming out of the handle 'hilt' so that the cutting edges would align despite the separation space the handles caused.
"Is the pivot point still through the wood of the handles in these rather than through the metal like these last few?" I asked regarding the middle set, pointing out the most significant difference between them and the one of the end.
"Yes, making the pivot hole in the blade itself was very difficult." Boden said through the soft cloth that he wore over his mouth, while his gloved hands traced the hole in the seventh pair, the only one of the group that had that feature.
I pulled out some sample cloth and tested out each scissor in turn, gauging the feel and sharpness of each pair. I watched Boden and he handed me the blades, curious about his long sleeved tunic, gloves and face covering despite the heat of the forge and the warm long summer weather. A grey splotch that peeked out on his skin between the end of his sleeve and his glove, stirred up some fear in the back of my mind.
Be calm, I told myself, and put the scissors down. Caroline would tell us to verify, discreetly.
"Do these meet your satisfaction?" Boden asked, after I had paused for far too long.
"Just a moment…" I said, preparing myself. "Ser Talo, Rudy could you step outside."
"We serve as your guards M'Lady that would not be prudent…"
"Know your place and do as I requested Ser!" I responded with steel in my voice. "I will call for your return shortly." Ser Talo and Rudy stepped outside to join Jordon who was watching the horses. After they had stepped out, I turned back to Boden, a confused look was in his eyes. "Remove your gloves and your face covering." I told him, the look of confusion turned to one of fear and he hesitated. "You will still be paid for your work" I quickly added.
Boden reluctantly removed his gloves and pulled down the cloth that covered his mouth and neck. The grey calcified discoloration was evident on the left wrist, on the backs of both hands, his left lower cheek, under his left jawline, and at the top of his neck on the left side. It was Greyscale, Caroline wake up!
I kept my face neutral and calm while Caroline woke up within my mind, Boden shifted nervously.
"When was it contracted?" I asked quietly.
"When I was child, will you still do business with me? I take precautions." He replied, a hint of desperation was in his voice. This was the probably reason why his threadbare shop was on the outskirts and few customers seemed to visit, and perhaps even why he produced seven in the timespan that Brynn may have only made three.
I felt the odd sensation of this morning memories filling into Caroline's part of our mind.
If he speaks the truth then it is likely dormant, all we have read is that when contagious it is only contagious by touch.
We touched the scissor blades…
My modern knowledge of disease vectors may be startling you too much. The scissors can be sterilized in any case. The Maester's notes indicate dormancy when contracted as a child, in many cases to never afflict those who suffered from it again at all.
"How was its spread stayed when you were young? Has it ever spread further since then?"
But Yerund's opinion is that it cannot be trusted not to one day become active again.
"I was too young to know what was done. My father took me to a healer's house in Braavos. We were there for many moons, when we returned we moved into the smaller shop on the edge of the city. I bathe with vinegar often that I make myself so as not to raise suspicions in the purchases…"
"It is perhaps not so secret, if your customer base is so small, but I will respect your privacy. You may don your gloves and veil." Caroline said
I trust the Maester's collection of recorded observations, despite some of them being wrong, more often than Yerund's anecdotal folk knowledge, she is wrong about many things outside of her herb-lore. Caroline said as Boden put his gloves and face covering back on.
"And has it spread since then?" I asked my question again.
"No, M'Lady, though I suppose it has cracked and separated as I grew to a man."
I know not if this is worth the risk.
As a healer, I also want to know and understand the disease. Is it viral, bacterial, something else? There could be a cure. We would have a better ability than anyone else of finding it.
Or there might not be a cure and we could end up like Septa Maegelle Targaryen, and die from it after treating the sufferers.
I'm not advocating doing such right now, but the other notes indicate Greyscale gives immunity to the Grey plague something far, far worse. It could be like the relationship between cowpox and smallpox. Besides he is the only one to put the pivot into the scissor blade itself so far.
The only one out of just two people we have asked to try so far, and Brynn was never really interested in doing the work to begin with.
"M'Lady?" Boden asked, interrupted our internal debate.
"Ser Talo, Rudy, you may return." I spoke loudly so they could hear. Boden had well since covered his marks back up.
We will take precautions, we have an advantage here if his business is sparse, and he is on the right track. "You were able to put a hole for the pivot axle into the blades on this pair. If you can put a hole into the metal for that, then you can put a hole into the metal to make handles as well, just make them bigger, large enough for four fingers on one blade and the thumb on the other blade, as was in the design sketch I gave you months ago. You still have it don't you?" Caroline asked for us.
"Yes," Boden replied "but that would be much more…"
Ser Talo and Rudy had reentered, Caroline continued to speak for us. "Difficult? I presume so, but if you can solve this design for me we can do future business. I'll pay for the set, but only take the latter three. 'Recycle' or do what you will with the others."
"'Recycle', M'Lady?"
"Re-use or re-purpose them. Focus on this last design, However I can think of an improvement already, I should have included it my original design but did not consider it. Right now these have what looks like a small metal axle riveted into place to keep the blades together, am I correct?"
"Yes"
"That will make it difficult to separate them to sharpen the blades, won't it?
"True, though the sharpened portion need not go all the way back to the join, while awkward it leaves room to sharpen it still."
"But having the sharpened edge go all the way back to the join would be preferable none-the-less, or else there would be a dull spot impeding a smooth cut." We took out our chalk and parchment scrap from our bag and we drew a quick sketch. "You only have to make a rectangular hole with rounded corners on one blade if you make the axle with a matching top, like so, as part of the other blade. Align them so that when the scissors are opened to their widest, they can be separated from each other, but otherwise they held together when in all other positions. How did you make the hole in the metal to begin with?"
"Pierced it with the point of the anvil horn and worked it from there, but that may not work well for this shape though. Perhaps I could strike a shaped die tool into it."
Hey would that not work for needle holes as well?
Yes… I bet it would.
"So do you wish me to continued refining this design?"
We began counting out the sum of coins to pay the smith for his work. "Yes, I will be in Gulltown for several more days, but I do not believe that would be enough time for you to perfect it, I am not sure when I will be in the city again."
We have to be back in Iron Oaks during short winter to help Cissy deliver her child, with spring will come wool harvests, and we promised to do some tax farming in spring for Lady Waynwood as well. By then there is little reason not to remain to procure summer flax harvests as well. "It could be up to a year before I return again." Caroline considered and said for us.
He looks a bit forlorn "What would the cost of a design to the specification be?"
"I am unsure yet; there is a lot more work involved. At least double perhaps triple the cost of one of these prior designs."
"I will give you triple only for the first pair, to represent the additional cost of figuring out how make them as efficiently as you can, but only if you succeed. I will not pay that much for subsequent ones not even double."
"Half up front to cover the costs of trying, since I know not if you will like what I come up with."
"A quarter, I am already paying you for seven pairs of scissors but only taking three, that should be sufficient already."
Boden nodded and we came to an agreement
"Good, now then since that is out of the way, here are some other designs for scissors for different purposes, but consider these only after the fulcrum pivot is with built in handles is achieved. These are called 'pinking' shears and these are plaster cast shears, and here are some complaints I have received note of from shepherds regarding the shears they use to collect wool…"
The rest of the morning went well. Several of the ladies from last night's dinner came to visit and a few had brought their friends. Elsa, one of the mummers, I had hired to advertise, modeled for my guests in my room a few at a time, while I also took measurements to find the right fit among my wares for the customers. Rudy, Ser Talo or my brother alternately stood guard at our door or down stairs. No men were allowed into the room. By lunch we had sold several bras and other garments, as well as a number of soaps, toothbrushes, pastes and other minor products. In all it was close to a third of our wares. This did not include the spun fiber which we needed to find buyers for still.
When we took a break for lunch in the inn, Nikos informed me that he had seen one of the tailor's guild members, a man named Stefon, enter and look around down stairs late in the morning while we were in the room with customers, but he soon turned around and left.
Lunch was also when some of the street urchins were due to come back and get a meal in exchange for their role in advertising. That was when I discovered that one of them had been beaten up by thugs. At my request, Rudy, Ser Talo and one of the Royce guards were led to where the boy rested. They insisted I stay though, and I handled a few more customers while waiting for them to return. Some of the bards came in to inform me that while they were not beaten up they were threatened they would be if they advertised for me again. So this seems to be the guild's retaliation, since they cannot strike at me directly, they struck at those working for me outside of my protection.
Arnie was the name of the orphan, one of several who were hawking our wares. We suspended my advertising for the moment. We did not want more to get injured on our account. Arnie had several bruises, a black eye, a busted lip, and some laceration, perhaps made by rings on the assailant's fingers or from whatever was used to beat the child with. The worse was a broken arm. We took time off from our sales to have him washed up and attended to, so we could set his arm. Nikos was not happy when Caroline suggested we let him stay in the inn for a while to heal.
"They will steal from you the first chance they get." Nikos had declared.
My brother concurred, and I was not enthused with the idea either. Our room already crowded with Septa Ana, Sylla and ourselves already in it. A compromise would see Arnie sleeping in the stables for a few days with the squires.
'Word of mouth' as Caroline calls it or the effects of this morning's advertising kept customers coming well into the afternoon. There had not been more incidents so far, but this was a vile cowardly action taken against us. Such barbaric men had accosted someone in the service of one so far above their station. It reflects on us, so it should be answered. Caroline was more horrified that they had no qualms to do this to a child, rather than consider the insult to ourselves it represented. I admit that it is unsettling, but that such a tactic was used by such low men did not surprise me.
Ophelia, was the name of the fishmonger that was at the party. She was well off but perhaps not highly wealthy. Myranda insisted on being up and adhering to a specific presentation of decorum in our interactions with her, so that she would have no doubt in her mind of interaction with a lady above her station. The formality felt irritating, but I would oblige her. We had invited her to dinner tonight in the inn, and were informed of her arrival.
"M'Lady, am I early? There are not others here." Ophelia asked us after she was led to the table by one of Nikos servants
"This is a lite dinner meant to discuss potential business." Myranda said, our own first course of the meal had already been served to us shortly before hand, and Myranda wanted it to be seen that we had already partaken first and not to be seen as if waiting or dependent on her arrival. "I imagine you already must partake of a lot of fish in your meals, so I had the inn staff prepare a beef course for our meal for something different."
Ophelia took a moment take in her surroundings, ten asked. "What business did you want to discuss?"
"First tell me more about yourself and your business. I recall from last night you had several boats, and numerous fishers and divers in your employ." Myranda asked as Nikos servant brought out Ophelia's plate.
Ophelia began speaking as we ate. Her father, long since passed, owned multiple fishing vessels which she inherited. She is in her early 50's and had married another fisherman long ago, and has several son and daughters with their own spouses, and many grandchildren. Her extended family crews her boats. In addition to the standard fare of catches, several of them dive for pearls, sponges, and other things on the sea floor. I took notes as she spoke.
The sponges are what hold my principle interest as each time I use one for a significant medical reason, like in surgery, I will dispose of it, preferably in a fire. Planned cosmetic, medical, and other hygienic pursuits will require a consistent steady supply.
"First before I leave Gulltown, I need up to a half stone weight of sponges, they need to be of different varieties, with varying densities, porousness, and shape. They also need to be heavily rinsed with fresh water to remove as much sand and salt from them as possible. I will be evaluating them for different purposes, and recording the name, appearance, and other properties of them which best suit my needs so I know what to ask for in the future when I will need more again."
"While that is a lot, it does not seem overly much that you could not have asked for and obtained at the docks from the mongers there. What will you do with so many?"
"Some will go into my work, others will get cut and sold as part of other products."
"You made many inquiries about the guilds last night, I know you sell garments and other oddities, I did not think sponges or fish would be among them, as a member of the fishmongers I am not sure…"
"I will not be selling sponges or fish or any other thing you might pull out of the sea directly, if that was some concern you had. I aim to produce and sell finished products. You sell a fish to the chef; he makes it into a meal and sells it to a tavern guest, and there is no issue there, though I am not selling food either. I may try out slices of sponge as padding inserts for some of my garments, or pair cut squares of them with soaps for sale locally or far inland."
"Then what else is it you are seeking from me?"
"A few urchins, the grey long spined ones, with spines intact. The black short spined ones, but those are for the orange roe inside. That's something you may want to consider selling in general if there are others daring enough to eat it."
Ophelia chuckled at that. "You must really like it a lot; I will have to try some to see what the fuss is about."
"I will want some seaweeds, dried out; different varieties there as well. I will be noting their differences like I will for the sponges. I am not intended them for eating though even though some are quite edible. Most importantly though, I want to know if you have ever heard of a concept called 'aquaculture' it is in effect where you treat the fish or other things you harvest from the sea, like sponges or mussels, like you would livestock on a farm. Manage them, cull them, breed them, or grow them, in such a way that you can somewhat predict they yield you will have, and make sure there will still be some available the next year."
"The Tyroshi dyers breed sea snails for their dyes, but nothing like that is done here. Why would anyone need to?"
"Because if perchance I ask for twice as many sponges next year, and thrice the year after that and more again in the future, how long until the area has been exhausted of them? I want you to experiment with growing a crop of them, using ropes and mesh bags, but I know little of the waters here other than that there are some tide pools and some shallows, where the urchins and sponges had been obtained on my last visit to this city."
We spoke more of the idea while I fleshed out the detail and Ophelia commented on the pro and cons of such a scheme. We settled on prices for my immediate needs, they would have a number of days to go out and dive to find what we needed and we would meet them at the docks in a few days.
"…I knew Tyrosh was famous for its dyes but not that they actually bred them."
"Yes, my grandfather spend a fair amount of coin and effort and personal risk diving for them in Tyrosh, bringing them here in buckets on his boat and wanted to get them to survive in these water, but they all died. He could have made a fortune if it had worked. Dyers here only buy the occasional cuttlefish or octopus from us for their ink sacs."
"That's remarkable actually. Tyrosh though is further south, with warmer waters, the waters here are colder. That might not be the environment they prefer. Do you know how far he got in his attempt? Did they die in transit or after arrival?"
Ophelia shrugged. "It was before my time, and he was illiterate so I doubt he wrote down any notes."
"I suppose if one were to ever to do it again, you would need a waterproof box made of ceramic or glass filled with seawater to keep them in, which might also need to be kept warm with a fire. Also make sure you brought whatever they feed on, to attempt to keep them alive to be bred.
Ophelia threw up her hands… "It is an intriguing idea, but too costly for me to pursue. It also might get someone trying to collect the snails put in chains or a Tyroshi merchant sending an assassin to keep their secrets."
"Well, your concern is warranted there, but they should have no objection over cuttlefish or octopi. Why are they only occasional sold if they are useful for dyes?"
"They are hard to catch and most are too small; dyers need several anyway at once for their craft."
"My garments are mostly un-dyed or dyed with simple woad or madder. Expanding the range or colors I can offer is something I will wish to do in the future. I guess it will simply be something to keep in mind in the future."
We spent the rest of the evening tending to Arnie. His arm had been splinted up early, but we made sure it stayed in place. We gave him some food and prepared some willow bark tea and dream wine for him. It wasn't going to do much for the pain, but I don't want to put opioids in the kid. Nikos disapproved again, said 'my' kind heart will bleed 'me' of money. We will need to go medicine shopping and also find some gypsum plaster to make Arnie a better cast tomorrow.
Nikos gave us Stefon's name, and a description, and recalled that the name of one of the men who had been with Stefon some months ago after we left was referred to as 'Moe', and described him as a typical thug. Arnie, some of the other children, and the bards that had been threatened had given us descriptions as well. We wrote it all down, though we don't yet know what we can do about it. Take it to a magistrate? Rudy said he and some of the Royce guards could settle the matter if they were found. I don't know if I should let things go that far, but Myranda considered it. She 'went to sleep' within without us having resolved the matter or any other course of action.
It is something that has to be solved though. If we manage to convince Nestor to let us move to Gulltown, a necessity to expand our business, the confrontations might continue and worsen. Unable to think of possible resolutions, I read more of 'Mountain and Vale' by the light of my new lantern. It was stories of the clans that solve most of their problems with violence; I'd prefer a different solution.
My lantern was fueled by whale oil and did not smell pleasant, that oil was a purchase mistake. Maybe Ophelia knows from whom I can buy some that doesn't stink. I will ask her when she brings my sponges and other items. Well I can't stand the smell anymore so I will sleep.
Last edited: Jul 6, 2017
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#158
Sylla I
17th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
I was quick to keep pace but mine feet hurt, even thou' Lady Royce got me shoes and new clothes some moons ago after taking me in. I followed quick-like down the city street with her and her armed men, visiting shops, Lady Royce t'was always in a rush. First to a merchant to sell her a canvas sack of the white dust called plaster, then to the 'apothecary'. Why nay just call it an herb-seller? T'would be simpler. There were lots of plants I knew in the shop, and a few I nay knew from the free cities. T'was nay like the market stalls we seen for herbs last time we came to the city. We could have gone to this place instead, but t'were nay in the city long.
Lady Royce was a strange sort, like nay any noble I heard tell of before, nay that I never met none before her. Oh others came later, as we traveled. I saw Lady Waynwood, the other Lady Royce, whose Lord husband was Lady Myranda Royce's uncle or such like that. I did nay really meet them though. T'was just a servant to them, no noble blood in me, nay worth giving a thought to, t'was just the way it t'was.
Lady Royce thou', did give thought to me. I still did nay know why she took a shine to me. I knows she made some kind of deal with Ya-Ya , to learn herb-lore and spells, and took me in for her part. Lady Royce t'was haggling with the merchant now, talking over potions and e-lix-ors of things I did nay know of. T'were nayplants or herbs, t'was nay even toad blood, wool oil, or other odd things Ya-ya often had.
"Brimstone, you get it from where?" Lady Royce did say.
"Dragonstone M'Lady, and sometimes Volantis"
"The Oil of Vitriol too, the whole bottle."
"M'Lady, the whole bottle?"
"Yes, but not right now, I will pick up most of these items later on before I depart the city. I will want the bottle well corked, in a wooden box packed tightly with straw."
I did nay know what vit-ri-ol was for, but Lady Royce showed me many new things, even if at first I thought her knowings of local herbs simple next to mine own when I first met her. I looked 'round the shop more as Lady Royce and the owner talked, trying to read a few painted wooden labels stuck to the strange colored glass bottles with thin twine. 'A-Q-U-A F-O-R-T-I-S". I was nay sure how to pronounce it, so sounded out the words just like Septa Ana had been learning me.
Strong water…what exactly made it strong? I thought. I wanted to open it and see, but Ya-Ya taught me nay to touch any of her prepared plants or potions, without knowing if t'was safe first. The same rule should apply here.
"…fire milk; I will need some of that also. Do you have the recipe by chance?"
"I do, though I do not normally make a habit of revealing my recipes."
"I know how you make most of the medicines and elixirs in this shop, but that does not mean I always have time to make them myself. I am making a large enough order that I think you could oblige me."
"For a Lady of your standing to know such things…"
Lady Royce and the owner quarrel a bit more. I wandered some and came across a plant I knew. Oleas, a common mountain flower in the vale. T'was very pretty and had a strong smell. Squeeze the sap out of the stem and dab a drop into each nose hole and t'would clear out the snot and help improve hard breathing, if you could stand an itchy nose for the day. Ya-ya used it many times, taking care to handle it real gentle like. The sap was the least itchy part of the plant; the rest, its oily leaves the most, would leave you with an itchy spreading rash, t'would last for days wherever you touched.
"Sylla!" Lady Myranda had shouted, "It is time to go, come on, I will show you how to prepare a plaster cast for Arnie."
"Your splint is partially undone, what have you been doing?" Lady Myranda said to Arnie as she inspected the bandaged splint.
"Have ta feed the horses and take off da saddles and reins, ma-lady." Arnie replied, nervously.
"What? Not with one broken arm you should not…"
"But da squires, say I have ta to sleep 'ere."
Lady Myranda shot a steely glance at Jordan and the other squire who ducked away after being spotted. She then held that far-away look she gets when she goes into trance, at least that was what Ya-ya called it. After what seemed too long a time, I spoke up. "M'Lady, I'm done making the bandages."
"I will talk to my brother about the squires. Yes Sylla," Lady Myranda said as she looked over the boiled and folded bandages Sylla had brought with the bucket of wet plaster. ""You are finished preparing the bandages." She said to me in her noble words, before turning back to Arnie. "The arm needs to be cleaned first before bandaging, and the rest of you. You're filthy Arnie…"
Lady Myranda shouted for one of the inn's servants, to do up… to prepare a bath as the Innkeeper's wife came up and spoke to her. "You are giving a bath to the street urchin?" our hostess asked with a disapproving look.
"Yes, just add it to my tab, only something quick and efficient, doesn't need to be hot, wash his clothes too."
"His rags…" I heard her say under her breath, "You have customers M'Lady..."
"Shit..." Lady Myranda cursed in some foreign tongue, before turning to me again. "Go help wash him, make sure his arm stays set. Take the plaster bucket, when that's done, soak the bandages and start the wrappings like I showed you, but send someone to fetch me."
"Of course, M'Lady" I said as Lady Myranda hurried out, I followed the other servants toward the public bathing room, only for us to walk right past it and out the servant's side entrance, into a closed off section of the courtyard. T'were stacks of firewood up against the wall, clothes and sheets hung up on cords, and the air smelled of lye and ashes.
"We are nay using the main baths?" I asked.
"Ha, she spoil you already, missy?" The head maid said with a snort to me, "Nay, Madame Celesta won't want him in there while other guests are about. Lady Royce wants quick and efficient, then that be the servants wash. Count yourself lucky you got to use them the other night." She said scowling, I could tell she did nay like me much.
"Hey, someone will steal me clothes!" Arnie shouted as the maids stripped him and told him to stand in a wash tub.
"No one wants to take yer filthy rags, now sit down." The head maid said as she tapped him on the back of the knees with a broom handle, and dumped a bucket of cold water on him.
Of all the things Lady Royce had stressed to me in her teach- in-struct-tions, taking care of your charge so that greater harm did nay befall them was par-a-mount. "Hey! You'll be gentle wit' his arm, if it comes unset Lady Royce will hear it, so Madame Celesta will to." I found myself yelling to her, as I slipped into my old dialect before Septa Ana had starting teaching me letters, and the 'proper' way to speak. I walked up to hold Arnie at the shoulder of his injured arm.
"Alright, you wash 'im then, tis what Lady Royce ordered ya to do, ain't it? I've got more important chores ta do than tend a riff-raff and a 'pretendee' lady." The sour maid nodded to the others and they all stopped and went inside, dropping the course lumpy bar of soap into the water.
"You're a Lady?" Arnie asked.
"No." Arnie looked about my age or maybe younger; he was shorter than me by a hand-span at least. The water had already gone grayish from the soap and dirt.
"You dress like one." Arnie said. I looked down at the clothes Lady Royce had bought me; they were the finest things I had ever owned. But, they paled next to so many others I had seen before and since then, and t'were getting splashed on by dirty bath water. They did nay seem like a lady's clothes to me, but t'was finer than what these maid servants wore.
"How old are you? And you've got one perfectly good arm; use it to wash the rest of yourself." I said as I put the washing rag in his good hand.
Arnie began to stand, so I turned my back to him. "Barnum thinks I've seen nine maybe ten name days, but I dunno when my name day is." He was one or maybe two years younger than me. I looked down at my clothes again. Lady Myranda got them for my name day a few moons back. Somewhat like Arnie I didn't know the exact date of my name day, even if I recalled the moon.
"Who's Barnum?"
"He's our protector. He tells which of us to beg where, how to distract the street merchants so we can grab food. And he can reach the pigeon nests too."
"If he's your protector why couldn't he stop you from getting beat by those men?"
"Not that kinda protector, not like some castle guard or Ser, like you have. He chases away other beggars from our corners 'n collects all our coins, to get us food."
"So there are lots of you, how come you did nay mention this to Lady or Ser Royce?"
"Bah what can grown-ups do? 'Sides your Lady knows there's more of us, a few of us was shoutin' about her fancy clothes. Skae even visited me last night."
He did nay trust adults much, that was obvious. Truth be told I did nay either much, but he would tell more to another kid like me. "They got you healed, fed, and some copper in your pocket. Lady Royce helped me."
"I heard 'em talking tho', you and her and the Sers will go back 'n live in your castle, I gotta go back 'n fend for me and my own."
Did I live in a castle, the Gates of the Moon now? I had been there often enough these last many moons, though still went home to Ya-ya often to help, and tend the herbs. Ya-ta's house is still home to me. "I do nay live in a castle; I live in a mud and straw house."
"No way, I wish had a straw house…"
"Go inside, warm and dry off by the cooking hearth, I have to wrap up your arm still."
Arnie wrung out and put on his frayed, damp, breeches, and we went to the kitchen hearth, while trying to stay out from underfoot of the servants. I asked one to inform Lady Royce as I wrapped the plaster soaked bandages on his arm while Arnie talked more of his friends and living on the street, still nay trusting of the idea that any grown-ups could help much.
"Nay all the grow-ups are bad, I know a lot are, but my Ya-ya is nice if stern. Lady Royce took me in, I learn a lot from her, and Septa Ana teaches me letters."
"Can't protect us when you all leave tho."
An idea formed in my head, "Can you or your friends find the people those men that threatened you worked for, where they live, where they have their shops?"
"Dunno, maybe what's it matter."
I leaned in closer. "Lady Royce is a witch, she will know..." A loud crash occurred as one of the serving wenches dropped some dishes. "She will know what to do." I said after the clattering stopped and the servants continued on about their tasks.
Arnie sat wide-eyed and quiet for a while as I continued wrapping up his arm.
"There you are." Lady Myranda said as she walked over to us and inspected the wrappings. "Very good, I can finish up here; it is time for your studies with Septa Ana, Sylla."
"So what have you and Sylla been talking about?" I heard her ask Arnie as I left to find the Septa.
Lessons were long but fruitful, Septa Ana was always patient with me, I actually remembered all the letters now, but it was the long words that were harder. They were nay the same kind of letters that were on some of Lady Myranda's parchments. They had all looked the same before I knew the difference. Both were also different from the carvings on the standing stones that Ya-ya had often showed me. She had me reading simple passages of the Seven Pointed Star again out loud. I do nay like speaking out loud like this; it makes me nervous, especially to the Gods. But sermons had been part of the lessons, and we went to them when we were in town on each of the four holy days during a moon.
They were on day seven, fourteen, twenty-one and twenty-eight. Ana had tried teaching me to count this way by the days of the moon, but I already knew how to count, and knew my 'e-qual-i-ties' and in-e-qual-i-ties' as Lady Myranda called them. Ya-ya taught me those too, one part rosemary, three parts marigold, five parts willow bark shavings, all manner of recipes required knowing your parts. Lady Myranda called them 'frac-tions'. She also showed me how to use symbols for numbers I had nay seen before. It made some things easier to do, but she has been so busy that there has nay been time for more lessons in them.
So Septa Ana teaches me reading, writing, needlework, sums and prayers. There are always lots of prayers, sometimes too many. I had prayed to the Seven before and to the standing stones with Ya-ya, but nothing ever came of it until Lady Myranda came along. She prays to the seven in the mornings, but sometimes seems only half there in the evening, and curses with words I have never heard of. Maybe it is Valyrian, but Ana and even Maester Nolan does nay know them, nay that that sour wine smelling man cared. I follow Lady Myranda's ex-am-ple, and pray to the seven as she does, but she often also said actions are more im-por-tant that prayers.
Lessons are nearly over, but we are in-ter-rup-ted by Rudy, one of Myranda's armed men. He brings me to Lady Royce.
"I need a few more things from the Apothecary" she says and hands me a scrap of parchment. "You remember the words?"
"Yes, foxglove, more aloe…" I read them off and only struggled with a few, she corrected me on. I had set to mem-or-i-zing the writ form of the names of the herb plants first.
She handed some silver to Rudy. "For the purchases, Rudy will escort you. I have to stay tending the wares and meet with the banker later."
The walk to the apothecary took longer than the shopping. I had gathered up all the supplies, "…foxglove, aloe, oh and Oleas leaves." Nathan raised an eyebrow at me, Oleas leaves were nay on Lady Myranda's list, but he said nothing and put on some gloves. I should get a mortar and pestle of my own for this, it would nay do to use Lady Myranda's, and Ya-ya's isn't here. I can swipe an old bowl from the kitchen and find a round rock sometime on the morrow.
When we got back, Lady Myranda was arguing something fierce with her brother. I heard Arnie and the squires names but t'was all I could gleam. I swiped a small bowl from the kitchen and put the cloth wrapped bundle of leaves in it and hid it among my things. I said my prayers to the seven, but planned to speak with Arnie again on the morrow and see if there was a way I could help him and Lady Myranda. Actions are more important that prayers she would say.
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Threadmarks Lord Petyr Baelish II
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Lord Petyr Baelish II
18th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
Petyr sat at his great mahogany desk; it was recently imported from the Summer Isles, a sign of his ever rising wealth. Parchments were already strewn about it, tracking the sums and figures of his various enterprises. A further, larger, leather bound ledger was open in front of him as he poured over the accounts of the last few moons.
The brothel in King's Landing where he currently kept his office was doing well; as were those he had left behind under local management in Gulltown. His position as the King's Counter this past year has proven more lucrative than being in control of customs in the city. A tidy sum of wealth had been made since his arrival just under three years ago. Yet there was always another rung in the ladder to climb.
The ever present ascension though, required great diligence and an eye for detail. Petyr glanced up from his ledger as one of his more recent minor investments from just over a moon ago, entered his office. She was tall, with long golden brown hair and deep blue eyes. Her shapely body was barely draped with a thin cotton dress decorated with rich embroidery. Her breasts were beginning to swell, which would be more profitable for a time, so was her stomach, which would have quite the opposite effect on his investment later on.
"Yah want'd ta see me, M'Lord?" The golden brown haired prostitute queried.
The woman's voice was irritating; Petyr considered it her primary flaw when he hired her, but of course now she had two flaws. "You still sound like a yokel. Is that voice tutor doing his job? Or is he taking too many payments from between your legs? Now try again." He said.
She took a deep breath before speaking carefully. "You wished to see me, my Lord?"
"That is better. This is a high class establishment, I took a risk in letting you work here, you had the right look, and cleaned up well enough with some better attire, but the clientele require more than just a pretty face. You have to look, act and sound the part."
"Thank you, My Lord, for providing me this…opportunity." She said slowly before performing an almost perfect curtsy.
She had paused before the last word clearly trying to remember what bit of vocabulary the tutor had managed to stuff into her head. Perhaps the tutor had not been entirely useless, Petyr thought before speaking. "Then why do you risk my graciousness by thinking you could hide your condition from me? How long has it been now since your last bleeding? Did you know when you got off that ship and sought employment here?" All the color drained from her face.
"Ah didna know till…"
"Speak properly."
She paused to catch her breath again. "I did not know when I arrived and sought employment here. It has been close to three moons."
"We have moon tea, it is provided to all the girls who work here. You could have taken some when you found out, had help even, when the brew did its job. Yet you waited. If you take the needed amount now, there is more risk, more pain, more damage, and might kill you even, and nobody wants to fuck a dead whore. Where would my investment in you be then?" At least most people do not want to fuck a dead whore. Petyr thought, his clientele included all kinds of people.
"T'was on account o' who be the f—"
"I could not care less about some random farmer or blacksmith from wherever you were from." Petyr stood up and paced his room for a moment. "However it was that you did things selling yourself from some barn or tent in the Riverlands, we do things differently here. You do not try to conceal such things from me, is that understood?" She nodded in affirmation.
"Good." Petyr continued, he opened the door to address someone outside. "Fetch Vivian for me," he said then closed the door again, and returned his gaze toward her. "My graciousness is not entirely exhausted, and due to fortuitous timing, you have another option. You can choose to take the tea now and hope to get through ordeal, or come to term so you can assist as a nurse maid. This will of course reduce your income, as you will be less available for clients while infants are sucking on your teats, and you had best make up for it afterwards."
"What woman would I be nursing for?"
"Already made up your mind have you?"
A beautiful, slim framed woman with dark brown hair, grey eyes, and smooth pale skin entered Petyr's office. She wore a blue silk flower in her hair, and a revealing blue and grey tunic with fur trim, beneath it hinted the early signs of pregnancy.
"Vivian, Jenna, have you yet met?" Petyr asked.
"Yes, we have run across each other before, M'Lord." Vivian responded.
"Ahm ta be-" Jenna started before Petyr cleared his throat. "I am to be a nurse maid for her? Another girl here?" Jenna asked; a slight bewildered and incredulous look on her face.
"I suppose you are wondering what makes her and her child important enough to prompt this situation." Petyr intoned. Jenna did not respond, but she didn't need to. "Vivian, do inform her."
"I carry the King's bastard." She replied
"Yes, and it is known to be his bastard. I keep meticulous records of whom has been with whom and when. Vivian is the King's favorite; this outcome was expected and even planned. You never know when such an asset might be useful in the future. Furthermore when the King wants his favorite the King gets his favorite. Though that demand can of course make caring for the child more difficult, hence you will assist in those duties whenever needed. Now then, both of you leave me."
The two women stood up and walked toward the door, as Petyr returned to studying his ledger.
You know who the father of yours is?" Vivian asked as they departed.
Jenna sighed. "No one important."
Petyr made a show of looking over the various fabrics of the small tailor shop he was perusing. Really he just bided his time waiting for the person he was to meet. The shop was a useful way to meet, it was not unknown of him to visit to give input on what his girls would be wearing. High class whores needed high class fashions. Noble ladies of the realm also had their excuses to visit, to update their wardrobes from time to time. Also there was the fact that the shop owner was firmly in his pocket, and could be assured to not mention anything overheard or seen.
Petyr put on a practiced smile as he spotted his old childhood friend Lady Lysa Arryn enter the shop. The young Robin tightly held in her arms. At least she had the decency to not have him sucking at her teat this time. The young boy made a few sounds of annoyance at getting carried around, then grunted and pointed at the floor. The boy was past his second Name Day yet barely spoke more than a handful of words. With visible reluctance Lysa handed him off to one of her maid servants, after several moments of nattering on about something related to the child. The she looked about the shop until she spotted him.
"Lord Baelish, what a surprise."
"Lady Arryn, a pleasure." Petyr replied, his smile as well maintained as ever. It was of course not a surprise at all, though that did not stop Lysa from overacting the part.
Lysa leaned in close, "Oh I have missed you, I long to see you again." she conspired in a whisper.
"I hope the day finds you well." Petyr went on at a normal volume, before lowering his voice. "Not here, my dear, despite measures, it is still a public place with ears." They spent a few more moments of idle small talk before continuing in their whispered tones.
"I cannot wait so long for your presence again; Jon will return to the city soon, will you see me tonight before he does?" Lysa whispered.
"Alas, I am afraid you must endure more patience. While the temptation is great, so too is the risk. The spider has too many webs, and to be caught would spoil all." Petyr said as he removed a set of keys from his vest. "It is more important that you return these to his office, precisely from where you took them, lest he notice they were missing on his return."
"Then how will you gain access to the Red Keep to see me?"
"Do not concern yourself with that, there is a whole city available to us, if we take great pains to be silent and cautious. But my ability to get close to you is very limited, until such a time as I gain a higher position, and there are fewer eyes upon us. I do thank you greatly for the words you put in to help bring me here those years ago, but until then then I am limited in what I can do."
"They should have made you Master of Coin instead of the Counter, not Lord Cressey."
"My Lady, I had not yet made a sufficient name for myself at the time, but Lord Cressey is an old man of poor health, so again, I counsel you to keep patience, but your recommendations will be most helpful again, should such become available."
Their conversation was interrupted by a crashing sound as young Robin knocked over a heavy dress mannequin, then came waddling over saying "Milk". Lysa had already started unlacing her bodice as she stopped down to pick up the child.
"I must depart now, My Lady." Petyr replied. Lysa leaned in as if she wanted a kiss or to be consoled, while still struggling with the child, but Petyr only subtly shook his 'no' whispering "not here."
"Good day, Lord Baelish, it was so nice to bump into you."
Petyr couldn't help but cringe slightly as he exited the shop.
Petyr sat at mahogany desk back in his office at his brothel. He studiously assessed the man that had just sat down sitting across from him, an aging sell-sword with white hair, a wind burnt face and a hooked nose. "Greetings Oswell, I presume the locksmith was eliminated without difficulty?" Petyr asked.
"Aye, me son Osfryd did the deed, himself"
It was a shame the man had to die. Petyr thought, he had done a good job, but was a loose end. Petyr unlocked a drawer and retrieved one set of newly made keys, before he slid them across his desk to Oswell.
"Lord Cressey is taking longer to expire than I would prefer, so I want you to hasten it along. These are the keys to his chambers, and these are to the office of the King's Scales. Make sure there are no obvious injuries on Cressey, a pillow while he is sleeping should suffice." Petyr pulled out a small bottle of green liquid, and handed it to the man as well. "After the deed is done, put a few drops into the bottle of Gold Arbor he keeps near his bedside. Do not take anything from his residence. Then take this bottle," Petyr gestured to the small green vial, "and put it in the desk of Lord Langward in the Scale's office."
"Aye, a shame to waste a bottle of Arbor like that though, but if you be against Lord Langward, why not just off him right away as well?"
"If Pycelle proves competent enough to find evidence of Cressy's poisonings, the court will need to find someone convenient to blame. He would not survive a night in the black cells anyway. If not, then we will deal with him later."
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Threadmarks !Myranda XVII
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!Myranda XVII
20th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
The last three days have been a blur. The spice trader Horus Sweet introduced us to two cloth traders, from Pentos and Myr. After a few days of hard negotiations, we unloaded all of our spun fiber, and obtained over a dozen bolts of cloth and several spools of threads. This inadvertently resulted in another confrontation with some of the tailor's guild members, verbal only this time. They weren't happy we outbid them on several bolts they had hoped to obtain. We may have paid a slight bit more as a result, but denying them some of their wares was satisfying.
Uncle Yohn arrived two days ago and is being hosted by his vassal Lord Jaspyr Shett of Gull Tower, while he, his family, and retainers do their own shopping and errands. Albar and ourselves accompanied them to dinner with Lord Shett last night, (a surprise to the Shett's apparently). Our quick acceptance of Lord Arryn of Gulltown's invitation, may have made others hesitant? There hadn't been this issue on our prior visit. We did catch Uncle Yohn's half chided comment to Lord Shett, that Lord Artos Arryn had shown more hospitality via his invitation to us, than he did. He had tried to backpedal a bit, claiming to have simply not sent such out yet, and since we were here now, didn't have to. Uncle Yohn made no further comment on it, but I doubt he believed him, we certainly didn't.
Word gets round I guess, so we were not surprised at being informed that Lord Royce 'and family', are also invited to dinner receptions by Lord (Yondare) Shett of Gulltown, Lord Grafton, and of course Lord Artos Arryn (again) as well. The Gratfon's is tomorrow night, and we seem to have been drafted (ourselves and Albar) to 'attend in their stead' to Lord Yondare Shett. It seems because Yondare is a vassal to Grafton, it wouldn't be prudent for uncle Yohn to attend for some such political reason. Also he entirely declined Lord Artos invitation, though there was no suggestion to us to attend in their stead in that case, not that we feel a need to visit them again so soon.
Lord and Lady Royce otherwise asked us to observe Jaspyr's eligible sons to 'review their character', during our prior invite, and to do the same for Yondare's and Lord Grafton's. I feel we're a piece in some game, Myranda readily agrees. We've sussed out that they're essentially husband shopping for Ysilla.
We at least made many sales to Lady Shett (Jaspyr's wife) and her daughters. It offset the costs of the bolts. We hope to repeat that success with the other Lady Shett and Lady Grafton when the time comes. Overall we've (proportionally) made more profits than our last trip. Transport costs are still too high, as was the cost of finished cloth. We need to do something about the former, and I hope vertical integration will significantly reduce the latter in time.
In fact we made enough it necessitated opening up a 'deposit' account yesterday with the Iron Bank's local Gulltown branch with Lorio Morten, whom we had met at Lord Artos Arryn's dinner party. Medieval banking is a…different kind of beast. We seemed to have impressed him though with our financial acumen, and he recommended a money clerk to assist in coin sorting and sales transactions. We are a bit loathe to rely on such, but the necessity is inevitable. The main reason a deposit account is needed is because we can't fathom bringing that much coin all the way back to the GotM. The local economy in the vale can't support it, so it wouldn't even do us any good. We even had to do swaps for lower denomination coins based on estimates of what we'll be paying for fiber purchases and paid labor over the fall and next spring, before we, hopefully, return to Gulltown again. Of course, we didn't put it all into an account; don't put all your eggs all in one basket and all that.
What lessons have we learned from our textile progress? Essos free city traders obtain bulk unspun, and often un-dyed fiber bales of wool, flax and cotton. Cotton mostly comes from the Crownlands, flax mostly from the Vale, and wool from everywhere. These are shipped back, spun, woven and dyed, and returned as bolted cloth and finished garments, in exchange for gold and silver. A big question is why? Well, simple answer is mercantilism. But why is Westeros, or at least Gulltown, less developed in producing finished products? Essos doesn't have a fundamental tech advantage. Is it speed, and lower costs for the intermediate steps? Better economic institutions and knowledge? Or is it just slave labor as Myranda suggested? According to the traders, Essos apparently does produce cotton, so it's not just from the Crownlands that they get it, but apparently it's grown in the disputed lands, and thus it's production is frequently disrupted.
Good news is that the traders liked the pre-cleaned blends of Linen and Wool spun fiber. Washing, blending and spinning helps save steps, and differentiate our product. But if we are in fact competing with slave labor, will it be enough? We need to differentiate even more. At least we don't incur the sea voyage transport costs like they do. (yet?). What the liked most though was that it was in bulk, which meant they could fill their holds faster, and be in port for less time. Less time in port means less charges in docking fees, which is apparently not an insignificant expense.
But all that takes so much time. Our scarcest resource is time. Between textiles, doctoring and various other projects, we're trying to do too many things, and we are going to have to scale back. Not all of our endeavors are showing success, and some simply are not cost effective for the time they consume.
We'll keep moving forward with making spinning wheels, but won't spend time spinning ourselves anymore. Other noted problems: spinning 'in the grease' vs. not. We learned all about fulling from some locals. Not going to describe that here, but nasty. However it's apparently cheaper than using lots of soap. We'd rather just keep experimenting with making more effective de-greasing soaps. Note to self: go through all my chemistry and bio-chem stuff I wrote down moons ago, to see if there is anything useful. Also this means soap projects are still a go.
Maybe we can convince the herders to stop the fleeces from getting so nasty in the first place? Sheep are filthy. Their fleeces get covered in hay, grass, dirt, and literal shit. The grease is natural lanolin, or wools-wax in the local parlance. It does give us a source of lanolin for other uses. Hmm maybe give the better breeds a little sack-cloth coat to wear to lessen the worst of it? We can at least try that out with our little flock. We sometimes forget we have them.
We're losing money on pins and other minor sewing related supplies. This might be because of the guild issues, but it can't explain it all. We used iron for pins and needles because steel and bronze aren't cost effective. Well, actually, iron wire isn't either compared to the copper and brass (which admittedly we didn't have at the time.) used by local pin makers. Why didn't Joyce, Ashley, or even Mya say something? Myranda didn't even consider that. I swear when we get back, we'll have to be like 'If you see me doing something or trying to make something in some way that seems unneeded, tell me!' Pins (made by someone else) are cheap, we can't justify spending time making them ourselves anymore.
Needles are a different story, only because I know we'll need strong heavy duty ones of various sizes for the eventual sewing machines. Steel might even be justified by then if possible, but not till we actually have a sewing machine and not just an incomplete picture diagram of one. Any more experimenting with making better needles will be for our own use and not for sale.
Meter bars, cloth tape measures, and other tools are fine for our needs (or the needs of those we employ) but we no longer see the point in trying to make enough of them as a sale item on their own. We have enough of them right now anyway. Also if the tailor's guild members are being such ass-hats, why give them access to tools that might improve their productivity? The same goes for the scissors we hope to eventually get made.
We don't know the exact population size of Gulltown, but it is in the multiple tens of thousands at the minimum. With a bit of bribery, we obtained a viewing of the guild register rolls. It wasn't as detailed as we had hoped. It didn't list member names, just whether or not a guild was registered, a count of members (about four years out of date) and areas in the city where the given trades were located.
The textiles trades (as of last census year 289) –simplified category names:
Weavers: 41
Drapers (whole cloth sellers): 68
Tailors (clothing makers/alterers): 107
Dyers: 22
Listers: 15 (also apparently a dyer, don't know what the difference is)
That's a sizeable number of people, and I don't know if it represents heads of households, masters, masters plus apprentices, or what. There has to be some not in guilds right? Or some not satisfied with their current situation? Unfortunately I won't have time to find out in depth, because we will be leaving with uncle Yohn on the 26th, and my schedule is already pretty full.
What we are in need of though are names and other details so we might know who we might be up against. We could not go and visit competing shops because our face is known. Sylla though was eager to have a go at it. So over the last two days and today, Sylla, Septa Ana, Rudy, and one of the squires went off to visit the shops while we stayed to finish off sales and other business. Sylla posed as a wealthy merchant's daughter, or did so after we gave a stipend to actually buy an outfit to fit the role better. She asked for some gloves too, after getting a nasty rash on her hands from something that she wanted to cover up. Perhaps after a few more days we'll have a good list of most members' names, shop addresses and other info. 'Addresses' are more like landmark descriptions, we are lucky if the streets even have a name with a sign in some cases, numbered buildings is just a fantasy. We don't know what we would actually do with it yet, but it is bound to be useful in some manner.
At least my interaction with what passes as civil servants gave me a better understanding of how guilds are chartered and intermixed (or not) into local laws. Those registered actually define far more than the simple descriptions noted, which include things they had the right to manufacture, what they could sell, when and how they could do it, and so on. Of course what is written is not likely to exactly match what is practiced. I bet we could write a book, no too many other projects going on. I bet we could have someone else do the research and write a book, or if someone has already, that would be useful to find a copy of.
TODO:
Dealing w/ Tailors guild, can't keep ignoring it
Corner market / supply? (in direct contravention to some of their 'rules') hurt them in the wallet.
Form own/competing guild? (products sufficiently unique) is this even possible?
Find more thorough treatises on their rules & regulations
Maintain undergarment & other products.
Textile tools: reassess, switch to internal use only.
Expand products into handbags & other accessories
Finish reading 'Mountain and Vale'
Buy more books
Should we bulk sell our medicines/soaps, etc. to Nathan to use his shop as a distributor?
Above can also be future cosmetics distribution method.
22nd day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
Yesterday most places were closed because it was the 21st, or "Sunday" as Caroline sometimes calls it and we, well I, attended "church." Caroline slept through it all in our head. This morning though was quite productive and saw us clear out over 75% to nearly 80% of our sale stocks. I began to hear a commotion, There were men shouting, Ser Ruthermont among them, and I heard the unmistakable shink of metal sliding out of a scabbard. Then there was a pounding at my room door.
"Lady Royce" I heard Ser Ruthermont shout. "A matter requires your presence."
"I am with a customer" I replied, It was awful timing as said customer was being fitted and partially undressed. Nevertheless I bade her finish up as quickly as possible, and took down the notes of her sizes.
"I am afraid it cannot wait." Ser Ruthermont responded again. This kind of predicament makes me realize a dressing curtain of sorts could be useful. As I moved closer to the door I heard the other male voice
"We require entry; any illegal wares this unlicensed seller has within are to be seized by order of the magistrates."
Oh seven hells, Caroline wake up! "Leana" I said softly to my customer who was still lacing up her complex bodice. "I think I shall agree to your prior offer. Ana, Sylla if you would assist her and complete the transaction from my personal purse, and pack the rest." I slipped out the door as Caroline awoke within my mind.
Upon seeing me, what looked like a man in the garb of a city watchman spoke up. Another couple of men dressed similarly stood behind him. Ser Ruthermont was flanked by a couple of Nikos inn guards, though they stood off a bit "You are the foreign seller?" The city watchman asked. "We will have entry, by order of the magistrate your goods and profits are to be seized and you are hereby summoned to appear before the magistrate to answer charges and-"
Damn I thought we could finish our all of our business before this came to a head and have left the city.
"I am Lady Myranda Hersy nee Royce of the Gates of the Moon, the summer seat of our Lord Paramount Jon Arryn! That is my private room, where I host my guests. To intrude on it would be a breach unto my honor and hospitality" The stressed words had the desired effect as the watchmen in the back already slunk further away and gave questioning looks to each other. Of Course, Ser Ruthermont's half drawn blade was probably a greater intimidation factor.
While effective, let's try a little diplomacy and delaying tactics, a fight in the hallway would be very bad.
"But—"
The guard at the front tried to stammer something out, but we interrupted. "Let us not allow this misunderstanding to come to blows" We said as we placed a hand on Ser Ruthermont's sword arm. He got the hint and re-slid his blade so it was fully sheathed but did not remove his grip from the hilt. Which was good because the guards relaxed their own grips on their own, much cruder weapons. "I would see this writ summons of yours, and read it for myself."
"The sergeant has it."
"And where is he?"
"Downstairs."
"Then we should all go down to speak with him"
"But I was to secure any illegal wares from the seller's room."
"And what supposed wares would those be?"
"Garments, cloths, and the profits thereof…" By then my door opened again and Septa Ana and Leana cautiously peeked their heads out.
We turned toward one of the inn guards "Do escort Leana to where she needs to go." We didn't know the guards name, be he and Leana was eager for the excuse to vacate the confrontation. Leana looked pale as she left but said nothing, and still held the recognizable bundle of sack cloth that held within what I had sold her as she slinked away.
"What disturbs our prayers?" Septa Ana asked, her face a perfect look of innocent confusion.
Wow, Ana purposefully lied for us? Or not, she probably was praying for a safe resolution to all this
Sylla had also peeked round the door. "Is my wardrobe packed?" We asked her
"It is M'Lady"
"My pardons Septa for the interruption, but the Father's work must be done."
"There is naught within but my personal clothing and possessions, and for a man to enter a Lady's chambers uninvited wherever she might make them is dishonorable, let alone for one to root among her things. I will grant you alone entry with door open for a cursory look only, if that will suffice then we will descend and I will speak with the sergeant of yours."
That seemed to have mollified the guard. Ana, ourselves and Sylla stood within, Ser Ruthermont stood in the open doorway, while the watchman looked around and poked about. We opened a few chests on request, they held our clothing. They also held some of the bras and other undergarments that were being used for fittings and sold but there were not many here. Most were down stairs.
The guard seems only half looking, half keeping a wary eye on Ser Ruthermont. I wonder if they were fully informed of what to find. Those other two had seemed surprised at mention of a Lady? I wonder if they had been advised of the presence of guards.
"What is within the bag?"
It was our traveling bag, which did contain a fair amount of coinages at the bottom; as well as our notes and tins and bottles of lotions and such. We opened it carefully, while he looked on. "My combs, soaps, herbs and poultices for treating a woman's moon-time." At the description the man pulled away. "Now if that is satisfactory we will descend."
We had been hearing snippets of the heated words downstairs as we dealt with the guards on our floor. When we reached the lower floor, our brother, two of the Royce guards that had stopped by earlier this morning and three more city watchmen which included this 'sergeant', and a few unknown men standing around them as well, were in a tense standoff. There were of course other residents of the inn and tavern milling about, though many were taking a clue and leaving in case a fight should break out. Nikos and Celeste were there as well trying their best to keep the peace and calm their other patrons.
…"I can nay make sense of these symbols…" We heard what we assume was the sergeant or leader of the groups of city watch that had intruded on us exclaim. He was looking over what appeared to be some of our receipts, while Kylos the clerk we had hired cowered in the corner.
We walked up to the sergeant "You have the magistrate's writ and summons? I would see it."
"You are the foreign seller?" The sergeant asked looking up from the mess of receipts.
"Aye she is—" Spoke the guard from upstairs.
"As I told your man, I am no foreigner, but a noble Lady of the Vale. Lady Myranda Hersy nee Royce of the Gates of the Moon, I would have that writ to read it with mine own eyes." We spoke as we stood beside our brother.
"They sought entry to the adjoining room where we hold our goods, but we barred them. But we could not guard both it and the stairs. I will let none accost you sister." Our brother proclaimed, a quick glanced showed the city watchmen returning to their fellows while Ser Ruthermont took up position to the other side of me.
"Well, you must submit yourself and your goods to the magistrates authority..."
"You are not taking my sister anywhere!"
"Cease this Albar, no one has accosted me thus far. Ser… Are you a Ser? What is your name?" We asked the sergeant.
"Jason Tollet, sergeant of the city watch, I must insist…"
"So you are no Ser. You will address me properly, Jason Tollet, now the writ, if you would." We held our hand out, waiting for him to comply. Eventually he did so and handed over the writ.
I read it over while Caroline focused our hearing on all the murmurs about us among the city watch, our own, and the patrons of the inn. Nikos was grumbling, quite annoyed at bleeding customers, who were leaving to avoid any confrontation, while at the same time keeping his own guards alert and ready for trouble. Albar whispered to the Royce guards. Apparently Rudy and the squires guarded our wagon from seizure by another set of city watchmen in the stables.
The unauthorized foreign seller of goods, a woman of young age, small height, brown of hair and eyes, named as Myranda, and any craftsmen or women in her employ, are hereby summoned to be brought before the magistrates by the 24th of the 9th Moon to answer charges of impropriety, economic mischief, and assorted activates, illegal and unbecoming. Illegal wares pertaining to cloths, garments, related accessories, and the profits obtained from their illegal sales shall be collected and seized as evidence to wrong doing and recompense against those her illegal enterprise hath disrupted.
We took our time to read it, as short as it was, mentally groaning. Now what else can we do here? I would not trust the security of anything seized, but we don't want this situation getting any worse either.
They are little more than up-jumped thugs, no Sers among them, I will not have them take us or our goods.
We don't want a fight breaking out here either; you really think they will stand down?
This is not the police and rule of law your homeland strives for. Watchmen can often be bought as easily as the cloth we procured. It is always the better who have advantage over those below them, and in this case we are their betters.
Ser Talo, Albar, and two of Yohn's guardsmen, and they have six city watch here. While we have Rudy and the squires as well they are in the stables. Don't know how many other watchmen they have with that or perhaps outside. And who are the fuckers still standing all behind them? Most of the patrons have wisely already left.
"These accusations are exceptionally vague. Kylos, finish up, you are done for today, return to Lorio and request for him to find a lawyer for immediate services, a good one, on my behalf."
"No craftsmen are to—"
"Again, address your betters properly. He is a money clerk, not a craftsman, you saw as much with your own eyes. I have no craftsmen or women here, and this writ does not call for holding any such individual who is not. Now allow him to leave." The watchmen glanced around at each other for a moment before the sergeant nodded, and Kylos gathered up his things and headed toward the door.
"Of course M'Lady, I will deliver him your request." Kylos said with a quick bow before hurriedly leaving.
Two more watchmen came in from the stable side entrance, Rudy followed closely behind till veering off to stand with us. A watchman came up to the sergeant and whispered to him. "The wagon is guarded and they will not give it up. It bears many bolts of cloth, and several other sundries but no garments or coinage."
"And the room?" Tollet asked the one I spoke with upstairs.
"Mere personal effects"
"M'Lady…" Tollet began. "Your resistance obstruct the execution of the King's justice, I must insist that—"
"Tollet," We spoke up, is was still five vs. eight or twelve, if the four men still lingering with too keen an interest were on the side of the guards. "that wagon contains many goods I have procured on behalf of several houses of the Vale, Waynwood, Melcolm, Royce, and Lord Paramount Arryn, to seize it would incur the displeasure of all of them." Tollet began to lose a slight bit of his composure as we pressed on. "the wagon itself belongs to my uncle Lord Yohn Royce, he is in the city presently. Have you relation to Lord Uther Tollet or Grey Glen?"
"He is a distant cousin M'Lady"
"I believe he is a vassal to Lord Royce is he not, Mathis?" I asked one of the Royce guards.
"Indeed he is M'Lady," Mathis responded.
A new commotion brought our attention to the main entrance as Ser Robar and three more Royce guards and the two squires entered the Inn. Eleven to twelve now.
"You will not be taking my cousin anywhere." Ser Robar said immediately upon entering. "M'Lady, my father requests your presence immediately."
"Of course I would be happy to accommodate my uncle's wishes, should this matter get resolved quickly. Tollet, this writ obviously omitted a great deal of relevant information. Would you not agree?"
"Aye M'Lady it seems so. But-"
"I do not fault you for that, but by my word I will appear before this magistrate for said hearing in two days times, if Lord Royce has no objection to such, Ser Robar?"
"I would not know, we are to bring you and all your belongings to Lord Shett's estates to be under the full protection of my father while he is in the city."
"That's him!" Arnie's voice sounded above the din of whispers among what patrons and staff of the inn still remained.
"Who are these four men that you have brought with you Tollet? By their garb they are no city guard." Arnie squirmed his way formed to hide behind our legs
"Witnesses for the aggrieved parties; to know justice is carried out."
"They are members of this guild that bring these false accusations then? I will know your faces." And we did scan each swiftly in turn, though Arnie was pointing at one in particular.
"That's the man that broke my arm."
"Assault against a child under my protection; if you seek to arrest anyone today it will be him, and if you do not, my men will." At that prompting my brother and other guards focused their attention on him.
"I have done naught; the word of a dirty, lying street urchin is nothing"
"That is the one called Moe" We heard Nikos say from behind us.
"Arnie, were the other three men party to your assault?"
"What's assault mean?"
"Were they present when you were beaten by that one?" We clarified, but Arnie shook his head no. "Then I would advise the three of you to leave, now."
After that, the tensions diminished greatly. Moe was held under guard then taken away by some of the city watchmen. Ser Ruthermont and Rudy followed to make sure he was actually put in a cell.
Eventually, the sergeant, was argued down to only finding cause to desire seizing the cloth bolts (although he shouldn't as I was not re-selling those), my remaining unsold stock of garments that were in the room adjoining the tavern area that we were making our sales from and an unspecified sum of money from the profits we had made from said prior sales. Since most of our receipts were written in the Arabic numerals of earth for our own use, the sergeant, despite being literate, could not make sense of them. Only a few days of receipts since hiring Kylos had been legible to him. Despite writing down an inventory he had entirely missed the few that were hid among my room and some few obscured in the wagon. We were not going to point them out either. The sales of spun fiber apparently had not even been under consideration.
Not that the sergeant got to seize anything, because he didn't. Everything was packed up and brought to Lord Shett's, under uncle Yohn's and our guards. At least I hope it was, we were required to leave to see Lord Royce before seeing all that done. Whatever comes from our discussion with our uncle, our selling from the Golden Pearl, and likely anywhere else is done. Nikos apparently was not afraid of private thugs the guild(s) might bring to bear, but the involvement of the city watch was another matter entirely.
We can't blame him, the confrontation surely drove off customers, although I would think the selling, while it lasted, had brought in more. He does not mind if we should rent a room to stay in on future visits, but he won't be renting any such for use as a store front, or allow us to use our room for such either.
Now, we sat in Lord Shett's solar, alone with our uncle Lord Royce, and he did not have an entirely approving look on his face.
"Your father had expressed some concerns in a letter, prior to your arrival at Runestone. I will admit that, that while I knew you were engaging in some trade, I greatly underestimated the scope that you were trying to achieve in such. This is not the domain of the Lord and Ladies of the realm, and I would reason that your father has higher hopes for you than such base labors."
So father has been getting more suspicious "What concerns were those?"
Yes it is a bit difficult to cover up a lot of what we've done lately, especially with regard to medical practice.
"He did not go into great detail, but my own observations told me more."
Yes uncle Yohn, your mini-interrogations have not been as subtle as you thought. "These are from your questions from the dinners, at Runestone and here; and the inquiries from Maester Helliweg and Septon Lucos?"
"Indeed you are shrewd and intelligent, but also quite willful, just as your mother was. The extent of these activities will make it hard for you and your father to find a proper husband in your future, and as much as you might have lead Septon Lucos to think otherwise, I have high doubts that you will pursue a celibate, cloistered life among the faith." And he sees through that too. Maybe if you spent less time in the morning ogling the knights and guardsmen during their practice session from the balconies…"
"Are you or my father going to bar me from pursuing such a business or trade? My father is a Lord by courtesy, without lands pass on, to elevate his or my own status. Despite your or his views I seek increase my wealth via trade to actually help elevate that status."
"Yet such routes are incongruent to the decorum of nobility. It is why our Lord Paramount shuns even his own distant branch of the family for involving and marrying themselves into such activity. These guild laws you are already wrapped up in, they are for the lower classes to organize among themselves, not for the likes of us to be subject to."
"You did not answer my question; will you or my father bar me from my business?"
"No I will not. Though that will ultimately be your father's decision, not mine. You know, long ago I once offer your father a position as a landed Knight sworn to me, but he chose service under Lord Arryn instead? You could have the choice of any of the unmarried first born sons of my landed banner men if you and your father were willing, if the status of land is your issue."
And why can't it be our decision, hmm? "I have no interest in marrying some merchant, if you or my father fears that. Let alone anyone in the near future."
"You all but directly asked Lucos to grant you another sanctioned year of mourning. Your father might not be entirely pleased with the letter the Septon sent to him. What is it you really want?"
At least Lucos took the path we led him down. "To control my own future." We spoke in perfect unison; an eerie chord softly resonated into our voice. What was that? Myranda mentally shrugged in ignorance.
Lord Royce sat quiet a moment, merely quirking an eyebrow. "Admirable, but unrealistic." he finally said.
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
"You are of marriageable and child bearing age now and for only a few more years yet. Delay too long and it might never come to be."
"What of the issue with this summons? I gave my word I would attend the hearing and—"
"You are family, I will not allow anything untoward to befall you, but yes, you will attend, under escort, and let us hope this is quashed without doubt, for I will not be delayed in our departure four days hence and you will be accompanying me back to Runestone."
"I still have business in the city, unrelated to this, and items to acquire. And need to meet with a lawyer to prepare myself for this…hearing. Will I have leave to tend to it?"
Lord Royce nodded. "You may, but will have additional guard. Your belongings should be arriving as we speak. I do expect you and your brother to still attend the dinner with us at Lord Grafton's this evening. Do refrain from getting into any more local altercations. Return here before the Septs' evening bells. You may go."
That went better than I thought I might.
Indeed, hopefully we can still sell what little is left of our stocks to Lady Grafton and the other Shetts before we depart the city.
In direct additional contravention to what we've been told is illegal?
Yes, you heard uncle Yohn, "not for the likes of us to be subject to."
Let's focus on just the bras and such garments, for them. We should stop by Nathan's apothecary again; we definitely need to off load all the other cosmetic and such products to him. We really need to outsource that part off to let us focus more on textiles. This mess is cutting into our schedule.
The rest of the day did see us unload all our soaps, shampoos and various sundries to Nathan, at less than what we could have perhaps gotten by selling them individually, but it was another thing we could not justify the time engaging in.
Meeting with the lawyer Lorio recommended was shorter than I had liked. I was assured he was skilled, or at least he charged like he was, we'll see. It is going to eat into our profits for sure. He did have a rather sizeable tome on guild law in pertaining to Gulltown. I expressed an interest in obtaining a copy. We need the Gulltown markets fully open to us, so we need to know what we are getting into in depth from every angle possible, and not just what was gleamed from Artos's dinner conversations and other hearsay. Our meeting with him made us skip lunch by the time he was off to get a concise listing of accusations or charges from the magistrate. We would be meeting with him again most of the day tomorrow to prepare. We also had him inquire about what would likely happen to that Moe fellow that attacked Arnie. By then though, we had to head back to the Shett's of Gulltower to get ready for the dinner with Lord Royce and Lord Grafton. 'Return by the Sept's evening bells' is not entirely precise, and it was further away than the Golden Pearl, so more time was spent getting there. At least Lord Yohn (or perhaps it was Lord Shett's) lent us their carriage.
Dinner that evening with the Grafton's was tense There was no hiding or denying the tale of what happened in this inn that morning. Reaction though seemed mixed. Some called us brave, or complimented us for putting such 'lessers' in their places, other surely spoke behind our back. I have no doubts that Lord Grafton and uncle Yohn spoke of us before dinner.
Even bad publicity is still publicity, it did make several ladies curious as to what risqué goods we had that put those 'merchants who tried to rise above their stations' into such an uproar. We just had to spin it as such. We came prepared, and fortunately Lady Grafton appeared to be on our side. She did buy from us on our last visit and insisted on more again, possibly just to show defiance against those she considered her lesser. What we did not know was how this would affect the hearing later, whatever the results, an appeal for either side would first lead to a ruling by Lord Grafton, so best to get them on my side now. By the evening's end, our purse was heavier and our stocks lighter and nearly gone, even if we had to eat some humble pie to achieve it.
Remaining stuff to do in Gulltown before we leave:
Spend most of the day w/ the Lawyer preparing for the 24th.
Hearing on the 24th
Check up on Ophelia, and the sponges and other wares.
Check in w/ Jeweler on obsidian and commissioning scalpel blades, Myranda also wants some new regular jewelry.
Dinner w/ the Lord Yondare Shett of Gulltown on the 25th.
Get rid of last 10% of stock.
Leaving the morning of the 26th.
By the time I got into bed, Myranda had shut off right after the dinner had concluded. I could not escape this nagging feeling I had forgotten something important…
Sylla and Septa Ana had been doing more lessons in the apartment Lord Shett let us use while I was out, Albar, Rudy, Talo and other guards had been providing escort..
Oh shit, where is Arnie?
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!Myranda XVIII
23rd day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
We discovered last night that Sylla had hid Arnie in the wagon holding our wares which she rode on when it had been brought over to the Shett's manor for our temporary stay. She had even snuck him some food that evening while we were required to be out hob-knobbing with the Grafton's and our extended family during dinner, and I suspect, breakfast this morning.
Do not even finish that thought. We cannot. We press out luck too much already to expect him to be able to stay with us here, let alone travel back home with us.
What else are we going to do with him? I don't want him at risk of retaliation.
Boden had no apprentices when we visited him.
He might not have been able to afford any, or receive any if his condition is more well known that he had hoped.
He can afford one with our commission
We probably should get him new clothes
Using some of the new linen we just bought? Nikos was right; the charity is bleeding us of money. You are not going to change your mind, are you though? Fine, but just the cheap stuff, have Sylla and Septa Ana make them, we have too much to do today already.
It's a primitive backwater farce of a legal system without even the most basic of legal rights or procedures! What the fucking hell!
We are lucky that we have title, which afford us unique options, or we would as you might say 'be screwed'
"The accused speaks" types of trials… No practice, precedent or even an idea of the right not to self-incriminate. Defense doesn't really have counsel, the court or magistrates are 'supposed' to be their counsel. Nearly all lawyers, including the one we contracted, normally work on the prosecution side. Even worse the right to face your own accusers is only haphazardly allowed. At least there are juries, but is basically just 'one person accuses another' send a lawyer (if they have money) and the accused is summoned before a judge and (though usually after already being tossed in jail, and goods seized) and the finger pointing begins.
And most magistrates are selected by the favor of lords, or appointed from city councils from among prominent merchants and artisans. Thus both council members and magistrates, by and by, are nearly universally composed of the leaders of various guilds.
We had been sitting in the lawyer's office for most of the morning, wrapping our head around the expected procedures, what was found and other minutia, and considering our options. We represent an unusual case given our noble title, because the 'rules' were different among Lords/Ladies and smallfolk.
"You have the complete list of official charges?"
"Yes", the Lawyer, one Silas Finch, responded with a fair bit of nervousness, probably not helped at all by the several guards that had been escorted me around the city. At least most of them were waiting outside. "The formal accusations brought forth by the guild of 'Linen tailors, drapers and weavers of new cloth' are as follows: 'Being a foreign seller operating without license or guild membership' "…
Well that one is obvious…
"Selling goods of inferior quality.."
Oh that is just shit of the bull...as you say.
"...not abiding by the guild rules on price and quantity…"
How can that even be declared in the same breath as non being a member? If we're not a member why should we follow their rules?
"…selling products, which are improper, un-becoming temptations to the flesh, fit only for those of immoral character..."
"Hold on," we interrupted, "what does that even mean?"
"I believe it is in reference to the oft revealing nature, and…accentuating properties of some of the underclothes you did show me on the dress mannequin."
"They understand they are meant to be covered up by outer clothing right?"
"If they did, I would expect they would not care."
Ah so just blatant misogyny or prudishness. "Go on"
"...of stealing customers away from member shops…"
"And can you elaborate on this one as well?"
"I believe it is in reference to members rules forbid the solicitations of customers to your own shop whom might be closer to another's shop; and since you have no formal shop…"
"So again, they try to charge me of breaking rules of a guild that I am not actually subject to, because be their own prior charge I am not a member of? What kind of logic is that? Do their rules have actual legal binding against non-members?"
"Well, they have legal authority to conduct the trade that their guild has been chartered in and to enforce such on their members."
"That does not answer my question."
"Perhaps, not?"
"Honest answer not something you think I want to hear, that goes for everything being discussed here, in case that was not clear enough."
Silas sighed, and composed himself for a moment before proceeding. "I believe the answer depends on the extent of authority they are given within their charter itself, but such guild charters oft do not go into such detail. It is though generally assumed, that their laws apply only to their members, something such persons agree to when they join. It would not make sense to charge a fish seller for stealing a customer because they decided they want to buy some fish instead of cloth that day such would be ridiculed, they are not the same product at all…"
Well I think that finally decides whether or not we would ever join a guild. Not interested in being legally subject to any such rules, unless we are the ones making them.
I would say we do not sell the same products either, no one else sells what we have made
"But…I sense your answer is not complete…"
"Yes, well, it is still intended to regulate against foreign sellers, the purpose of such things like rules regarding the inspection and quality of goods is to make sure, people are not harmed by their sale." Yes we know that much. "Guilds are intended to self-regulate, and pursuit against non-member workshops and market stalls is not uncommon, though again you have no formal workshop or stall, nor were all of your wares entirely under what might be considers the purview of the accusing guild. But the charge of selling without license may be unavoidable."
"Yet, it's the guild who decides who can sell or manufacture based on if they are a member. Go on through the rest of it."
Silas started wincing again, and cleared his throat. "Of employing harlots and thieves to steal said customers…" we rolled our eyes, "...of conducting perverse and immoral business in the rooms of the Golden Pearl." Oh come on. "…and of cursing many member shops with witchcraft…"
"Wait, what? What in the hells are they speaking of there?"
"I am not certain, it does not elaborate."
"God damn, just more fucking bullshit."
"Pardon M'Lady? I did not understand that."
English! "Never mind, is that all of it?"
"No." Shit. "They recently added the charges of: 'being an unlicensed reseller of whole cloth, and resisting the seizure of your illegal wares.' That is the current extend of the formal changes."
"We have not sold any whole cloth, nor had any intent to."
"But was is not among your wares?"
"Only for our own future use, not for resale." Silas nodded and took down a few notes. "Only the guild organization as a whole is listed as the 'accuser'? You could not get the individual names of the craven members that decided to bring this to bear?"
"No, M'Lady, the court did not require that of their representative, nor is that commonplace."
"Alright what strategies do we have for addressing all of this?"
"But he has a lame arm." Boden said to as after we introduced Arnie to him, and suggested he take on an apprentice.
"He has a broken arm which has been mended and will be healed enough for light work in six to seven weeks, then more work a few weeks after that."
"I am not sure…"
"You have no apprentices at all, I am sure we both know why, you already have work from me, is there really nothing that he could aid you with while his arm heals? Besides the faster you can complete things the swifter I could request more."
"But to feed and clothe him will be another expense."
"I have clothes for him; someone will drop them off later today if you take him in. As for food..." We had anticipated the argument, and placed a bag of silver on the counter, but we kept our hand on it."
"Well, if you insist..."
We couldn't help but nod slightly as we lifted our hand. We are forcing him. He needs our commission, and cannot afford to displease us.
I mentally sighed. I know, and yet we can't do anything for any of the others.
We cannot save everyone. You have said that often enough to me, and that sentiment fills your memories for all those you could not save as a healer on your Earth.
"Do not waste this opportunity." We said to Arnie as we left the shop to pursue the rest of our long list of errands for the day.
It's been an exhausting day. Myranda shut off before well before we got home after the final conferences with Silas was over with. We had to do that in segments so we could get other things done, but it was dark by the time our borrow carriage left his abode for the last time today.
We picked up jewelry for ourselves, originally we were going to do the ear piercing thing while, but in hindsight it just not important given everything else going on. Actually, the risk of infection isn't worth it for me to even care anymore about that.
Jeddo, the jeweler/gem-cutter did have obsidian this time, we bought a half stone weight rock of it. He split the stone up further, and we're bringing a small chunk back with us while he is keeping the rest to make a large number of scalpel blades. In conjunction with a coppersmith, we are having several medical instruments, scalpels, tweezers, forceps, and the like made to an explicit set of diagrams we have had drawn up for months, but no chance to use until now.
We had also spoken with Ophelia again today. We took delivery of a large variety of sponges and dried seaweeds, and she introduced us to some whalers that had might have the whale oil I was hoping to find. That was when we found ourselves staring at what looked like a Neanderthal right out of a natural history museum exhibit, except he was very, very real. Myranda had heard stories of these 'Ibbenese hairy men' but had never seen one before. The visual association between earth's primitive sapient and what stood before was unmistakable, as far as everything I could remember. It sounded like they had their own language, something Ophelia confirmed, but this on doing the trading spoke halting Westerosi. There were others on the milling about whaling ship that was at dock, all males, but that's common for such a profession. After a bit of drawing I learned that yes, sperm whales, and a great many other types, do exist on this planet. Myranda had not known the words for the individual types of species. I got a couple casks of relatively clear looking sperm whale oil. It still smelled fishy but, was far, far, less offensive than the other stuff I had obtained. I am using it now in my lantern and it is much improved. It will be interesting to see what kinds of soaps can be made from it too.
Ophelia gave more thought to the aquaculture idea, and said she might try the anchored rope and mesh bags to see what happens. She also showed me a cuttlefish, a dead one, and its ink sac, a rich sepia color. There wasn't enough to do anything with, but enough for us to consider pursuing it as another dye source in the future.
24th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
Hearing Day 1
We had gone over our plans with Silas repeatedly the prior day and this morning, there were a lot of aspects to it he was not entirely happy with, but that we, well that I, insisted on. We were on a balanced line in regards to how this would this trial would be perceived. They called in a hearing but fuck no, it was a trial through and through, one rushed forward in contravention to the norm, for reasons that became clear later.
On the one hand, Myranda did not want to talk to or speak in her own defense because it was not how it should be done for Ladies of the realm against the lesser small folk. Doing so would harm our reputation in the eyes of the other nobles, merely appearing at the trial was bad enough she thought. I did not want to speak in our defense because I felt it a farce, and wanted to eliminate the risk of self-incrimination, I remembered enough stories from a lawyer ex-boyfriend, to not want to go down that path even if the jury or magistrate might see that silence in a negative light. That was the other hand, the jury was of Small folk, (well capital 'S' small folk, of well to do merchants and artisans.), and in addition to silence being possibly seen as a guilt, it could be seen, rightly so, as a noble not wanting to demean themselves with speaking to them.
Perhaps the most dangerous thing, as a second talk with uncle Yohn last night emphasized, was that despite the excessive privilege a noble title gives us, supposedly, none, not even the king, are above the law. I have my doubts as to how well that is actually enforced. The implication though was that there are way more small folk than nobles. Piss them off enough and there are consequences, usually in the form of riots and revolts. One good way to piss them off is the appearance of excessive unfairness in the enforcement or treatment of what legal rights they were given.
Regardless, we felt, that the first issue to resolve was creating the precedent of allowing Silas to speak on our behalf. It was weaseled in that as a noble I could appoint a 'champion of words', though the arguments and reason for providing a counsel for defense were still put forward. (Maybe that will even buy me some good will points in my favor.) I did insist on having him refer to me as 'my client' rather than M'Lady during the trial, which apart from being more familiar to me, might help reduce the perceived disconnect the jury might have between ours and their class stations.
Our first procedural protest was that this was not a Jury of peers, as it did not contain nobles. Our second procedural protest was that the presiding magistrate was biased and held a conflict of interest for being related prominent members of (and invested in) the very guild that was bringing suit. The second took a lot of convincing for Silas to pursue. We were asking him in effect to (as politely as possible) publicly 'denounce' a magistrate, someone he often had to see in his line of work, precedent for recusing a magistrate though at least existed, so was not unheard of even if rare. It would make him an enemy. Our solution was, as it had often been lately, money, though we also negotiated several further tasks from him to pursue after we had left as part of the compensation. While my trip was here was still quite profitable, we would not be able to sustain these kinds of extraneous expenses every time.
We ended up with a compromise; the presiding magistrate would be recused and replaced, the Jury would be retained. We just hoped the jury did not also have conflicts of interest. Silas did at least know enough to ask all of their professions, there were no textile trades among them.
The hearing had been 'rushed' (or at least not subject to the usual bureaucratic delays) because the magistrate had biased interest in it, and because apparently on our last visit, we had left town before it had come to a head. Another reason we opted to keep the jury and not the magistrate was because replacing the magistrate could be done within the day or the next, and we wanted this over and done with. Finding a jury of 'noble' peers would have been severely delayed or worse outright impossible.
25th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
Hearing Day 2
Well they have not been able to entirely avoid revealing some of the members of the guild that brought this to bear.
Yes, those seated in the courtroom and watching from the audience are rather obvious as were those, brought to the witness stand to give testimony and required to give names.
And there are some of those who we watched go in and out of the Cloth hall the last few days. Sylla and Rudy had pointed out those few others there from those shops they had visited. They're still standing in the back, so as to not get noticed, but better to be on the safe side and send them back to the Manor at the next recess.
Agreed
The prosecution said their piece, repeatedly, laying out all the charges and Silas objected, and ripped into numerous aspects and phrasings. He was doing rather well. Then 'the hearing' broke for recess. We sent Sylla and Rudy back after they let us know whom else they recognized. We collected our notes names and descriptions of all the confirmed or suspected competing guild members that had put us through this.
Thomas Orlin, the magistrate we had met at the Arryn dinner was now the one presiding. It was the only time we had met, though his wife had purchased items from us earlier in the week. He listened to Septa Ana, Septon Lucos, Ser Ruthermont, our cousin Ser Robar, and our brother all give character testimony in support. It was a bit awkward having three knights wearing armor sitting there and clinking about in the seat behind us as well. We are not sure if their presence would be good or bad, as it could very well be seen as intimidating, even though they were not allow to bring their swords within the building. The squires held them just outside. Nevertheless, they were here, and uncle Yohn had made it very clear we were leaving tomorrow regardless of outcome.
And related to that there does seem to be many exchanged glances between Orlin and Robar
Yes we may have to ask Uncle Yohn what exactly has transpired that he decided to not make us aware of.
"We shall address each charge in reverse order." Silas began. "For the accusation of resisting the seizure of illegal wares, it should be deferred, for should her wares not be found illegal, which I strongly suspect shall be the outcome, there were no illegal wares to be seized, and my client was only exercising her right to prevent the theft of her property."
"We object that you would accuse our own city guard as being thieves? That is unconscionable." Their opposed attorney stared.
"I do not call them thieves, they were uninformed, I do object myself that they were manipulated so."
"The actions of our city guard are not under judgment here, if you have complaint against it. Lodge it for some future venue." Orlin stated aiming to diffuse yet another argument.
"Nothing was taken, so we lodge no complaint, and I will continue. On the accusation of being an unlicensed seller of whole cloth, this is a complete fabrication with no support; I move that it be withdraw in its entirety."
"A dozen full bolts of cloth were noted in her possession, bought not from the cloth hall but straight from importers." The prosecution retorted.
"And all are still accounted for, there were none sold nor ever any intention to be sold, all were for personal use."
"That amount is excessive for 'personal use' and prevented many of our good members from obtaining the wares they themselves need for their own businesses."
"My client buys not just for herself, but for two entire households, our Lord Paramount's summer and winter homes, the Gates of the Moon and the Eyrie. That plus whatever agreements she did make with other noble houses that are too far from our fair city to make the trip themselves."
"Then such purchases should be done at the cloth hall from the resellers present there."
"Why? There is no law demanding such, and given the hostilities my client has already received from many members, anyone can see why she might choose to not enter such a place. Furthermore, for anyone with the business acumen and patience my client has shown, it is cheaper to buy in bulk from the importers than your resellers. After all, is that not the very reason why they do it themselves? I feel the real reason for this accusation is mere dislike that someone else out bid their own attempts to procure them, which has only result in the abuse of the judge and jury's time that we must address this matter at all."
Magistrate Orlin cleared his throat, and intoned a warning, "Counselor Finch, I advise you to refrain from positing your own accusations against those that has brought complaint. Allowing you to serve as 'champion of words' did not include such cross accusations; unless…your client…wishes to speak and bring such accusations directly. "
Silas glanced over at us momentarily but we only slightly shook our head, before he continued speaking. "Nay your honor"
"Then as there is no actual record or witness of the sale of whole cloth, license or no, by the accused, the accusation of being an unlicensed seller of whole cloth will be vacated."
"Thank you, your honor. Now, these next many accusation, are most unfair, unconscionable, and unfounded. To accuse my client of using witchcraft to curse many a members shop? That is a serious charge that infringes on her very honor and character with vile words. The jury has already heard from the good Septon and Septa of her piousness. The prosecution described customers and workers in their shops trying garments or examining cloth and developing itching rashes. I say that sounds more like a problems with the cloth, and that they should be far more concerned with where they received said cloth than looking for someone convenient to blame that they already disliked.
I still want to know what the hell is up with that. Just where did that come from? Did they just make that up to try and gain more ammunition? Maybe we can find some of these customers and treat them just to know?
I say it is well too late for that, and regardless of what happens here there will be rumors. Pursuing it would be unwise, not that we would even have time since we leave on the morrow.
"The members of the guild accuse my client of 'conducting perverse and immoral business in the rooms of the Golden Pearl.' Again this is a disparaging attack upon her honor. Though perhaps we should be more clear as to what was really implied with such words. I would ask the prosecution if they could elaborate."
"A woman, renting a room and accepting numerous 'guests' at all hours, I would think the implication made by the aggrieved party is obvious."
"I am afraid it is not obvious, so please if you would, be more precise, and declare exactly what it is you accuse my client, a noble lady of the realm, of doing in her own private room, with such supposed guests."
Yeah call the fuckers out on that.
The prosecution was stymied for a moment, conferring in whispered tones. As the silence grew murmurs among the audience and jury began to rise until the magistrate banged a cudgel on his table calling for silence.
"Since the prosecution has not expressed a precise statement, I would ask your honor to all me describe what transpired myself." Orlin nodded. "That my client has sold and fitted undergarments for various customers is known. They were all women who require privacy for being measured and fitted. Just as any person visiting a tailor in this city, including many of those whom are members of the aggrieved party, would require. If they would call those activities perverse and immoral, then they would be saying their own actions are of the same alignment. If not for her rented room, where else would such be done? Not the entry floor of the inn! No that would have definitely been the perverse and immoral choice. The only proper course was to provide the privacy such ladies of station require."
More silence followed, before Orlin spoke. "Does the prosecution have a response?"
"She hired harlots and thieves to hawk her wares and entice customers away from proper shops. Harlots have only one thing to sell when they entice persons to an inn."
"Street performers, bards and children, for their talent at getting the attention of a crowd, not harlots or thieves, one of whom was assaulted and many threatened by a man admittedly employed by a member of the aggrieved guild. Unless this court would care to summon and question each hire, we have but speculation vs. at least one known case of the aggrieved guild actually hiring a brigand."
"Regardless of who was hired, stealing customers in such a way is illegal."
"I concur that the nature of who was hired is irrelevant, so that aspect should be ignored from the prior accusation."
"One accusation at a time, neither of you have finished addressing the accusation of witchery or harlotry. Or did I interpret the implication of the latter wrong?" Orlin shouted.
"If I may remind the court," Silas continued, "As both of these, and others not yet addressed, are direct accusations against the honor of a Lady, my client has the right to have them decided with a champion of swords rather than one of words, in a trial of combat. I believe she has three such champions ready and waiting, unless perchance the accuser would prefer to withdraw such base claims. Not withdrawing such claims would require the direct naming of all who would state such to be met face to face."
Nobility does have its privileges
The nuclear option isn't going to get us much good will though.
Defeat crept into the eyes of the prosecutor and those he conferred with. Not it became just a matter of cleaning up. "We withdraw the accusations of witchery and conducting perverse and immoral business."
Low born cowards, it is as expected
Not having people die or get injured because of us is a good thing Myranda. What happened to Arnie was bad enough. As much as I want these ass-hats to feel the hurt, you know I don't mean it literally.
Fine, fine. Except for that Moe fellow, he can eat steel, or swing from a rope while the crows eat his eyes.
"As there is also no law against whom someone is allowed to hire, the accusation about hiring harlots and thieves, which is unproven, is also vacated," The magistrate announced.
"And of stealing customers?" Silas strategically asked "That is a rule applied only to their own members to mitigate competition between member shops, not a law. My client is not a member and does not have a formal shop, we have never contested this, but that should also not make her subject to their rules."
"Agreed, continue"
"The prosecution has also accused my client of selling product which are improper, un-becoming temptations to the flesh, and fit only for those of immoral character. This again comes as an attack against her honor, and not just hers. By calling every person who has every purchased such as having immoral character than the insult a great many ladies of this city as well as many noble ladies of the Vale, for my client has sold items to a great many noble houses. I fear what might transpire if such an accusation were to remain as it is so described. As for the idea that they are improper or temptations, perhaps the accusers are merely confused. My client has sold underclothes, so their purpose is to be worn under the clothes."
More murmuring and an occasional muffled giggle circulated the court. Orlin banged his cudgel again, "Your response?" he asked the prosecutor.
"We withdraw the accusation."
"My client is also accused of not abiding by guild rules on price and quantity. Though as before, she is not a member, and guild rules are not law. As before, I motion that this to be vacated."
"Agreed." Orlin stated.
"Now we come to the accusation that my client has sold goods of inferior quality. I will show that not only is this false, but that no one, aggrieved party included, sells a similar item. That my client's products are entirely unique, and thus is not in competition with anything as the aggrieved party implies. Now as recalled from my request the prior day, the accusing guild has had from then to now to bring items that they consider in competition to my client, so that both the quality of them, and the features that they lack, can be compared…"
What followed was Silas putting on the little sales routine that we had literally scripted up for him. He pointed out all the features the competitors lacked, double stitching, padding, adjustable straps, hook and eye closures, under wires, adjustable back, even the fancier parts of silk and lace, all the while chiding the very quality of their own items which they claimed were superior.
"..I say the shows only that the accused wishes to try and dupe customers into such 'features' that a woman does not need at unnecessary expense..." The prosecution attempted to retort.
"And I say that perhaps, lacking the anatomy of a woman that your clients do not know what a woman's body requires. And given that their guild bars women from entry, also prevents them from learning what that is as well. So it is not surprising that so many would flock to my clients wares since they cannot be had elsewhere."
Chuckles erupted from the audience again, and Silas and the prosecution got in a bit of a shouting matching before Orlin repeatedly banged his cudgel to bring silence back.
"If the court would allow," Silas continued, "Another test of quality can be had, I propose that a random man from the audience be selected to test the hold stitching on any selected item, one from my client and one form the accusers, by tearing it asunder and see whose gives way first."
This had been another idea we had put forward, and prepared for by making sure strongly stitched items were the only ones available to choose from. Overconfidence by our accusers, and the curiosity of Orlin and the jury won out and it was allowed. It hurt to see the best item of our remaining unsold wares get ripped apart (because of course they would select that one) but it was also clear the man briefly struggled to do the deed. It was a lot more satisfying watching the competitions so called undergarment rip effortlessly after a single tug.
"That is demonstration enough; the wares are unique, and clearly not inferior." Orlin began, "As such they are not illegal, and had no right to be seized, or attempted to be seized as it were. Also it is no crime to not be a member of a guild, if it was then most of this city would have to be arrested. This leaves the only remaining charge of being a foreign seller operating without a license."
"My client is no foreigner, but a Lady of the Vale, with family that can be traced back to the first men."
"But she is not a resident of this city! And by your own admittance has no shop here, and that is what a foreigner means to the law!" the prosecutor almost shouted, aiming to score what points he could.
I think that is as much mileage as we are going to get out of this. We placed a hand on Silas arm, and nodded, this had gone on far enough. That was the one charge that was unlikely to be avoided anyway.
Silas nodded back in acknowledgement before speaking again. "We concede the point that my client is not a resident of the city, and that she sold without license. I would add that, my client did attempt to gain license but was denied by the very guild that has now been shown to have falsely accused her of so many things, which left her little recourse, as would be the case of anyone they decided to exclude."
"That is within the guilds rights," the prosecutor replied. "It is the guilds who are given the legal authority to grant license to sell within their trades, and to decide upon membership and enforcement of rules. The accused, despite her heritage, is not a master of the craft or been in the requisite apprenticeship, and lacks the proper capabilities for many aspects of the craft on account of her fairer sex. Such restrictions are necessary to prevent a flood of products or a manipulation of the markets that might cause ruin or harm to our fair city."
Orlin looked toward Silas and us. "You do not deny that you have sold wares without license?"
"My client does not contest such".
"Then with your admittance, we do not even need the Jury to deliberate on guilt. Dowager Lady Myranda Hersy nee Royce, for being guilt of being a foreign seller operating without license you are hereby fined 70 stags. Regardless of how unique your wares are, those wares which are within a trade represented by a guild cannot be sold within the city, unless you are a member of a guild pertaining to that trade and hold a shop within the city. This hearing is adjourned."
We paid our fine soon after and that was that. Despite eliminating nearly all of the charges the prosecution and guild members seemed to be congratulating themselves.
So according to the law we cannot sell our textile related wares in the city, unless we are a guild member.
Yeah, though I do think that means the other items are fine.
The question that remains is what, if anything, did Uncle Yohn do to play a hand in this? His confidence in our planned timely departure not being interrupted was rather precise. Although it was not the best outcome, it was the absolutely least damaging one.
Seventy stags, that is one-third of a Gold Dragon.
In actuality, that is a rather steep fine. That could have easily ruined or tightened the belts of most small to medium level merchants, but is not much of anything to us. No 'loss of honor' from all the other base accusations, though we may need to consider what other rumors may develop.
I still want to know what the hell happened to cause that witchcraft bullshit. And did Yohn or your father even, want this outcome to put a stop to our trade and business? What else can we do?
I cannot say, I would hope not, but we heard the magistrate. We cannot legally sell without being a guild member and owning a shop in the city. Since we have no intention of joining those 'ass-hats' as you say, well, we will just have to form our own competing guild.
Devious Myranda is best Myranda.
I have only you to blame.
Hah, no, you never needed any of my help for that.
Dinner w/ House Shett of GT topped the end of a long fuckin day. Myranda so tired she was out for most of it. Also I am fuckin drunk, and can't write too good. We played our observe and report bit for Uncle John…Yohn. Fuck why can't peoples here have normal names.
Everyone wanted to talk to me, yeah? Fucking trial is why of course... talk of the town or the house or whatever. Haha I sold some stuff though, fuck you asshats. A Noble's personal lands and house and aint in the city. No jurisdiction for that. Wasn't this drunk at the dinner, was I? Took the bottle back to …celebrate my victory or drown my lament? Sorry Myranda… you get extra time tomorrow, cause don't fuckin wake me up until after the hangover is gone. Shit we have to leave tomorrow too, my bad.
26th day, 9th Moon, Short Summer, Long Summer, 294 AC
Well, Carline is still asleep, and left me with the pounding headache, so off to the Apothecary with my guards and Sylla for some medicine to take for it, because Caroline used it up last night!
"M'Lady.." Nathan did not smile as we approached. "You have been the talk of the town."
"Mmmm.. I know… willowbark, chamomile…Gods I wish you had those beans called coffee."
"What is coffee? Nothing like Oleas I hope. I have no more of that to sell you."
"It nothing like Oleas, it's a stimulant that is brewed to... wait, what? More to sell me? When did you do that?"
"Your servant..."
"My apprentice"
"Your apprentice did acquire a lot of it while getting numerous other things. I was admittedly curious what possible use you would have for it, but well, that was then…"
The hangover did slow my mind, before I recalled the rashes on Sylla's hand and her request for gloves…
"Sylla! What…did…you…do?"
Last edited: Jul 29, 2017
