Chapter 14
"I'm sorry sir, but Germany cannot sell any firearms to any individual, house or nation on this world."
And another annoyed knight left his room. Patrick sighed. This was the fifth person today who tried to make a deal with him for a rifle. When he was assigned as temporary ambassador for Germany in Winterfell, he expected the local landowners to come to him with trade proposals for inventions, food and luxury goods. However, with one exception, every lord, knight, or servant who came in asked for the weapons. Coincidently, each of those proposals, which sometimes included land, gold or even a marriage contract, was shot down immediately and repeatedly.
The one exception from this was a letter he received this morning. In it, Lord Manderly of White Harbor, who would arrive here in one week, where he asked about Germany's ship designs and the possibility to buy those and hire people who could build them. As Patrick was not an expert in ships, and suspected that any ships types from the late 19th century onwards were impossible to produce in a medieval harbor anyways, he was going to forward this to his superiors through the daily radio report.
The daily radio report this morning also brought some annoying news to Patrick. Apparently, when the King came back, Patrick had to tell him and lord Stark that another group of diplomats was coming here. This time, from the US and UK, as they were EU allies and didn't like the EU to have a monopoly on the communication between this world and earth. After Germany and the Netherlands purchased the land around the portal, pressure from especially Russia and China had risen in the UN to try and declare the portal and the surrounding lands an international area, uncaring that it had appeared within the sovereign lands of Germany and the Netherlands. In order to gain the assistance of the US, UK and other commonwealth countries in this debate, the EU had to give their diplomats access to Westeros.
Aside from Patrick, two other temporary ambassadors, three assistants, and six soldiers had stayed behind after the helicopters left with the European delegation four days ago. In the meantime, not much of note had happened, except the locals harassing Patrick and his colleagues for weapons. Patrick almost regretted that the leaders had given a weapons demonstration, but understood it was necessary to prevent the local lords from doing anything stupid like invading the newly bought territories.
Today, the king had decided to go hunting, taking with him many lords and knights. Patrick would have expected today to be a little less busy, but apparently the people who stayed behind saw this as an opportunity to sneakily strike a deal for the coveted weapons. Due to this, Patrick was still behind on his paperwork, which took much more effort without a computer.
Just before Patrick went back to reading the large, drone-delivered, pack of paperwork, he heard the scream of a child, followed by a hard 'Thud'. Fearing the worst, Patrick and his sort-of-bodyguard left the room and rushed in the direction of the scream, although not before grabbing the first-aid kit.
Patrick was not the only one who ran in the direction of the scream. When he arrived in the godswood, he had the company of two servants, who had hurriedly dropped their tasks to get here.
He then heard a wolf's howl, which somehow sounded sad, coming from the same direction as he heard the scream from.
After some more running, Patrick saw said wolf at the foot of an old ruined tower. When Patrick looked closer, he saw a boy's body at the wolf's feet.
Patrick was glad he brought the first aid kit and hoped the kid, who had obviously been climbing on the ruin, was not too far gone.
One of the servants, who came with him, then said to the other one: "Quickly get Maester Luwin and Lady Stark! I'll stay here with Lord Brandon and the foreigners."
Patrick then realized just which kid was lying here. The son of the local lord, Brandon Stark. However, that did not change what he had to do here.
He checked the unconscious child over and saw that the kid had fallen on his legs, which were bent in unnatural ways and were likely broken. Patrick feared that the kid had broken his lower back too, but couldn't determine that now.
Under watchful eye of the servant, Patrick grabbed gloves, antiseptic and bandages from the kit and proceeded to bandage the wounds that were bleeding the most. Broken bones might be a big problem in the long term, but blood loss could kill Bran in minutes.
However, just as Patrick finished binding the worst wounds, he was interrupted by a female scream.
"What in the seven hells are you doing to my son?! Get away from him! Bran, are you okay?"
Patrick, realizing this could easily turn into a diplomatic incident, tried to reply calmly: "Lady Stark, your son fell off the ruined tower here. He is unconscious and both his legs are broken. I'm trying to stop the bleeding now, so he doesn't die in minutes."
Upon hearing of Bran's injuries, Catelyn started crying and carefully enveloped Bran's upper body in a hug. Patrick, happy that she didn't call for the guards to arrest him and sure that Bran would not die of blood loss within an hour, decided not to interrupt her. She would likely prefer the local doctor, or Measter as they called him, to try and heal him anyway. Patrick hoped fiercely that just the legs were broken. The locals seemed to know how to treat broken legs, but there was no way in hell that they could fix a spinal injury. The people here also seemed to have a warrior culture and would likely look down upon the boy in the future if he became a cripple.
When Maester Luwin arrived, he predictably ordered Bran to be moved to a secluded chamber where he would try to treat him. He seemed very interested in the bandages and antiseptic Patrick had used, but refrained from asking Patrick about them in favor of moving Bran as fast as possible to the castle.
Patrick, realizing he couldn't do much at this point, decided to inform his superiors via the radio. If the wounds of the boy were as bad as Patrick feared, then the only way for him to possibly regain the ability to walk was by extensive treatment in a hospital, followed by weeks of revalidation. Treating the boy in a hospital in either Germany or the Netherlands could get them a lot of goodwill with the local lords. However, getting Lord Stark to agree might be difficult, and some people on earth might object to any Westerosi passing through the portal.
Turning on the Radio, Patrick started giving the rapport: "Hello, Patrick Mertz speaking. The son of Lord Stark fell from a tower approximately half an hour ago. Both of his legs were broken and I suspect that his spine might be broken too. I managed to stop the bleeding and clean the wounds before the local Maester arrived and took him away for treatment. As the locals are probably unequipped to deal with a spinal fracture, it might be in Germany's interests to take him to a hospital. Should I make that offer to lord Stark?"
After a few seconds pause, the secretary of the ministry of Foreign Affairs who ended up with radio watch duty answered: "Hello mr. Mertz, Liselotte Wehner speaking. I'll send the information up the chain. Given the sensitive nature of the request, I don't expect the Ministry to have an answer today."
Patrick, knowing the speed at which the bureaucracy worked, would be pleasantly surprised if they gave an answer in the morning radio report. Then again, this was an rather urgent request, and all European nations were moving surprisingly quickly in regard to the affairs on the Westerosi side of the portal.
During the rest of the day, none of the locals came to Patrick's room, leaving him alone with his paperwork. During dinner, after the lords came back from their hunt, the general mood was thoroughly downtrodden. None of the drunken cheerfulness that Patrick came to expect at these dinners was present anymore. Instead, the Lords offered their support to Lord Stark to deal with the heavy injuries of his son.
During the dinner, Patrick heard the rumors he had been fearing. Bran did not seem to be waking up soon and was almost certain to be a cripple when he woke up. Apparently, Measter Luwin had accidently let that slip when one of the Lords came in Brandon's room to offer Lady Stark their support. Patrick sympathized with the boy and hoped that Germany would let him be treated in a hospital.
As Patrick was not in the mood to continue working, he decided to take a trip to the Winterfell library. Even though he was an ambassador in Winterfell, he knew almost nothing about the local culture and history. Before he came here, he only read through a single report on the culture, history and customs of the Seven Kingdoms, which was hastily put together from conversations with locals from the Fishing Village. Even though Patrick had some enlightening conversations during his stay here, he still only knew some of the most important facts of the local history. A few trips to the local library would hopefully fix the holes in his knowledge.
Once Patrick arrived at the library, he was astounded by its size. True, any library in a decent sized town in Germany was significantly larger, but this collection was put together by a single family without the existence of the printing press!
Half an hour later, Patrick was a lot less enthusiastic about the library. Apparently, the locals did not know the concept of a sorting system, which resulted in a cliché romantic story with a princess and a knight, fairy tales about elf-like creatures, and a book depicting the habits and biology of freaking dragons sitting next to a book describing the history of the Red Kings and their transition to becoming House Bolton. Honestly, what aristocrat had so much free time that he could write a book of hundreds of pages depicting a single non-existing creature?
Whatever. Patrick took the book about the Red Kings to a table and started reading. The book was hard to read, but the history it described was very interesting. It first described the conflicts between the Red Kings and the Kings of Winter, before describing the final war between the two Kingdoms in a surprising amount of detail for something that happened 4000 years ago. Patrick was about to start reading about the beginning of House Bolton as a vassal house of the Stark Kings of Winter when he noticed a familiar tiny man sitting down on the same table.
Tyrion Lannister was a very smart and driven man. During the negotiations, he had been the one who was most keen on establishing relations with the European Union, and he did manage to sell the idea of making Lannisport the main trading hub for the Seven Kingdoms with the EU well enough that both Germany and the Netherlands were tempted to follow up on the idea. Of course, this was all dependent on the approval of Tyrion's father, but if Tywin's mind was as keen as Tyrion's, he would see the opportunities in this.
Patrick hadn't seen Tyrion around the castle except during the meals, but seeing him read a high-school level book on physics answered the question of where he had been.
After some time, Tyrion closed the book he was reading and started speaking.
"So, Ambassador, I can see you're enjoying the fine history of our lands. Can I ask some questions about the books for clarification?"
"Certainly, Mr. Lannister, I would be happy to answer any question on these topics. It has been some time since I finished high school though, so I might not be able to remember everything."
"That actually comes close to my first question. Is it true that all children are required to learn the information in all these books?"
"That's not entirely correct, but it comes close. First, all the textbooks the EU delivered two weeks ago are geared towards higher levels of education. The children who are less gifted at learning do not need to learn as much during their years at high school. Secondly, many of the courses, which include Physics, Chemistry, Biology and History, are only compulsory for a few years. Only the students who actually choose to follow those courses need to finish these books."
Tyrion seemed somehow a bit relieved at this statement. Did he think all the children in the EU needed to memorize the high school books on all topics?
"Thank you for the clarification. Now, I was just reading this book and saw this so called 'periodic table' with all the different elements. In it, the elements seem to be sorted on their weight, but that can't be correct. Gold has a number of 79, and lead 82. However, I know from experience that a gold is denser than lead. Is there something about this system that I'm missing?"
This question started a train of questions that forced Patrick to frantically remember knowledge he had almost never used since finishing high school. He was happy that he had chosen to do the beta courses in high school, otherwise he would not have been able to answer anything. Still, some questions required him to ask for a moment and read the relevant textbooks for himself.
After more than an hour, Tyrion had all of his questions at least partially answered. Patrick, now mentally tired, decided to go to bed instead of continuing with the history book. However, before he left the library, Tyrion asked a final question.
"Ambassador, I have heard you treated the child before Maester Luwin took over. I heard that he might never be able to walk again. If such an accident would happen in your country, would the local Maesters be able to heal the child with your better knowledge of medicine and biology?"
"It depends on the severity of his wounds. If it is just broken bones, than we could easily heal Brandon without any side effects. However, if his spinal cord is broken and his lower body is paralyzed, then it would be harder. If we treat him soon enough, then he might be able to walk again, although likely with some walking aid. However, if the injury to the spinal cord is bad enough, than even our best treatment will not be able to heal him from his paralysis and he would be forced to use a wheelchair for the rest of his live."
"Hmm, so even with all those advances in the sciences, not everything can be healed. Thank you for the enlightening conversation and answering my questions."
After saying goodbye, Patrick went straight to bed. He went to sleep wondering about the decision the government would make regarding Brandon's fate.
AN: Here is a new chapter of the Winter Portal. I had some trouble to find a good starting point for this chapter (I was originally not going to do a small timeskip, but realized there was not much more to write about the EU visit), but I managed eventually. I expect the next chapter to be done quicker than this chapter, seeing as I have moved my focus back from my new story to this story. I hope to finish that chapter in a week, but it might take a bit longer.
I could have gone both ways with Bran, as events have butterflied enough that Bran might not have climbed the tower on the day of the hunt, or Jaime and Cercei decided not to have fun that day. However, story wise, it is more interesting to let Bran fall anyway.
As always, thanks everyone who favourited, followed or reviewed my story!