Chapter 19
~Garth Flowers~
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal from many is research. Maester Uther has done neither and instead appears to have made up facts wholesale to suit his purposes, Garth wrote. Such a statement might make me appear negatively biased but I can promise that every impartial reader will agree with me by the end of this treatise, as I have evidence to back up such a claim. For, unlike Maester Uther, I will provide multiple citations to numerous other works about the proper way to pair wine.
Garth set the quill down and reread the paragraph. He chewed on a fingernail as he debated if that was the tone he wanted to go for. What if being against Uther from the start has people dismiss my words before they even get to them? Should I sound more neutral in the beginning and only be honest after I've provided evidence? Or what if I played innocent throughout the whole piece? Hmmm.
He leaned back in his chair and tried to think of a neutral opening. After reading Maester Uther's treatise on wine I felt the need to make some comments on his writing. I have been very careful not to offend any impartial reader: I have avoided flattery on the one hand, and scandal on the other. I have described his good qualities as they occurred, and rectified such as must be acknowledged to have been gross errors.
It would be a challenge to write with that tone throughout the whole paper but Garth, after some consideration, was reasonably sure he could do it. That being said, it would likely require multiple revisions before publishing. Just because it sounded correct on the first draft didn't mean it would come across that way.
How much time do I want to devote to this? Unlike Uther, I have duties other than research. And even if I write the perfect response to his paper, how many copies can I really afford to make?
Uther had had multiple papers of his trash, Wine Pairing: Matching Drinks With Food, made which was the only reason Garth had been able to read it. Unlike Uther, Garth didn't have a group of novices he could bully into making copies. Can't believe I'm thinking this, but Lord von Carstein's idea for the printing press might be worth revisiting.
Garth still didn't know what to make of the Lord of the Dreadfort. The man, if he could even be called that, was unlike any lord or sellsword Garth had ever met and that was without even getting into the rumors of his magic. Torrhen had a breadth of knowledge greater than many maesters, there wasn't much depth to it, but he clearly knew a little about a lot of different things.
Never would Garth, born and raised in the Reach, have thought that he'd have anything to learn about farming from a foreign sellsword living in the North and yet Garth was forced to admit that there was some truth to the idea of crop rotation. One of the fields that Garth had been overseeing had, as he had originally predicted, become weak from overuse. The field was nearly barren, what few crops that grew were withered and sickly, likely not even capable of providing enough food to make caring for them worthwhile. But the other field! Despite two years of continual use it showed no signs of depletion. Lord von Carstein had been right, the correct rotation of crops really could eliminate the need of letting a field lie fallow. The main problem was that while Garth now knew such a thing was possible, he didn't understand which crops worked together and which ones did not, and neither did Lord von Carstein. It would likely require several years, possibly a decade, of research and study before Garth could publish anything on the subject without the entirety of the Citadel seeking to take back his maester chains. Even once he did gather sufficient evidence and was able to explain why crop rotation worked, Garth was still expecting a large degree of resistance, but he hoped enough maesters would be convinced that his reputation should be safe.
Garth was pulled from his thoughts by a loud knocking on the door to his room. "Maester Garth, Ser Martyn urgently requests your presence in the Great Hall."
Pushing himself to his feet, Garth asked, "Did he say why?"
"He did not," the servant answered, pausing when Garth opened the door. "But I assume it has something to do with the group that just arrived from White Harbor. They're. . . different."
Garth raised an eyebrow but decided against saying anything as he moved out of the room and down the hallway. Going to have to teach the servants some more descriptive words. To a Northern peasant, someone with all their teeth is different.
However, when Garth eventually reached the Great Hall he discovered the servant was as accurate as he could have been. The expected group of Northerners was there but the others' presence raised questions. Why would a group of Dornishmen come this far from their home? And is that a Summer Islander talking to Lady Lyanna? And- Garth had to pause and rub his eyes to make sure he was seeing correctly. Is that an alchemist? I didn't know there were any still alive after they nearly burnt King's Landing to ashes.
Lord von Carstein seemed to be arguing with the pyromancer. "No no no, I said I might be willing to give some of you patronage, provided you proved yourselves useful. I never promised full relocation of your guild and I certainly never said I'd want you to make wildfire."
"But-" the alchemist tried only to be interrupted.
"But nothing. You come here acting as though I failed to pay a debt when it's your superiors who didn't listen to me in the first place. Here is what is going to happen: you will be given bread and salt and will then spend all your free time contemplating every possible service you people offer. In three days, you will come to my solar and try to convince me which of these services will benefit myself, my people, or my holdfast. Whatever I decide on, you will carry my response in a letter that I will dictate to you that will be written in your own hand so that there's no confusion about anything. Is that clear?"
The alchemist seemed about to respond but thought better of it and simply nodded.
"Good." Lord von Carstein made a shooing gesture. "Now, who's next?"
I can see why Martyn thought I should come here. Garth gave a nod of acknowledgement to the freshly married castellan, and got a brief one in return, as he made his way up towards his lord. Even if I'm not called on to provide counsel, I need to be aware of visitors like this.
"Greetings Lord von Carstein, I am Ser Manfrey Martell here on behalf of my cousin, the Prince of Dorne. He tasked me with negotiating a trade agreement between our houses."
"I know I extended an open invitation to your family to come visit the Dreadfort, but I must admit I had expected a little notice before any of you showed up. Doran does have one of my owls, after all."
"Ah, well." The Dornishman gave an awkward cough. "My primary task coming North is actually escorting the three and seventy men who will be joining the Night's Watch. We could have continued our voyage from White Harbor to the Wall but it was decided to take the land route so that we might stop here."
That statement resulted in a great deal of murmurs breaking out in the room among the Northerners. Garth only realized the significance because of his study of the North and the Wall since coming to the Dreadfort. There's less than a thousand men across the entire wall, three and seventy joining at one time is a significant event. Why would the Dornish even care about the Wall?
"The Night's Watch didn't even get that many recruits right after the Rebellion," Lord von Carstein pointed out. "How'd you get all those people willing to join up in peacetime?"
"Prince Doran issued a decree that prisoner cells across all of Dorne were to be emptied and that Sunspear would shoulder the cost of transporting everyone."
"That must have taken a fair chunk of money, not just the normal expenses of traveling the entirety of Westeros but the need for additional guards to make sure people don't try to escape."
The Martell nodded. "Aye, but my cousin wanted to ensure the prisoners reached their destination. In Dorne we have the luxury of not worrying about the repercussions of an understaffed Wall, but that doesn't mean we should shirk our responsibilities to it. Which is why, in addition to providing men, I've also brought supplies. Rope, tools, saddles, nails, swords, preserved food, whatever was thought might be needed."
His lord said nothing but was likely thinking the same thing as Garth. What caused Dorne to suddenly remember their 'responsibilities' to the Wall? Presumably, it has something to do with Torrhen but what? Do they seek his approval? What would they hope to gain from that? He did spend time in Dorne, it's possible the Martells became aware of how much he knows and seek to acquire that knowledge themselves. It's not as though he has anything else going for him. . . unless he really does possess some kind of magic.
Magic was dead and gone from the world, that was what Garth had been taught by maesters older, wiser, and more learned than he. It was what he had discovered himself after spending a night trying to light the glass candle. So when Garth had started overhearing some of the smallfolk gossip about strange happenings in the Dreadfort, he had dismissed it as superstitious nonsense. But the stories never went away and had even grown as time went on. From claiming that Lord von Carstein needed blood from the guards to people saying they had seen the skeleton of a rat moving around on its own in the hallways. It eventually culminated when, a fortnight ago, the tour of the holdings had been completed and Lord von Carstein returned to the Dreadfort. The men that had accompanied him talked about how their lord had summoned the ghost of a girl to discover her murderer. Garth had assumed the Northerners had simply been deep in their cups during the trial because, well, they were Northerners. But if the ruling house of Dorne was interested in his lord, Garth had to start considering more outlandish theories.
I'll have to talk with him later tonight and try to get to the bottom of all this. I can't be an effective maester of the Dreadfort if I don't know what's going on.
~Lyanna Stark~
She pounded her fist against the door to her brother's solar. She barely restrained herself from just shoving her way inside but there was a servant scrubbing the floor down the hallway and he would have seen her. Torrhen might not have cared when the smallfolk gossiped but she didn't need anymore rumors spreading.
"Something the matter, Krell?" Torrhen's voice echoed out through the door. "What's going on?"
The giant bodyguard looked down at Lyanna, seemingly expecting her to answer the question, which did not surprise her. Lyanna had had more conversations with the recent litter of puppies born in the kennels than she'd had with Krell over the entirety of the time she'd known him, and the dogs didn't have the ability to talk back.
"That was me, we need to talk," she said tersely.
His sigh was audible through the door. "Enter."
Coming into the solar, Lyanna was surprised at what she saw. Torrhen was not seated at his desk, rather he was laying on the floor in front of the desk, his feet resting on the seat of one of the chairs for visitors. He was staring up at the ceiling, where an enormous banner was stretched across.
I knew he had placed an order with a seamstress at White Harbor, I guess it must have just arrived. Surprised it was done so quickly, although. . .
The cloth did not have the skull and crossbones of House von Carstein nor the wolf of House Stark. Instead, it was red and white stripes with a blue box in the corner, numerous white stars in the box. Other than the sheer number of stars, it was rather simple looking and likely didn't take too much time.
What's the meaning of this banner and why is he staring at it?
"What's up, Lyanna?"
Checking to make sure the door was firmly closed first, she spoke, "Torrhen, where the fuck did you hear about distilling alochol?"
Without moving from his spot on the floor he craned his neck to look at her, one of his eyebrows raised. "From someone I met a long time ago, why?"
"Because the summer islander arrived from White Harbor. I was telling her everything we've done so far, I didn't know the face of someone with skin that dark could go that pale. Apparently, we've been doing something wrong and may have poisoned ourselves."
Torrhen blinked rapidly. After a few seconds he seemed to finally realize what it was she had said and sat up. "What? How?"
"I didn't understand the entire explanation but we need to discard the first cup anytime a new batch is made. Otherwise the drinker risks going blind or even dying."
"Ffffuuuuuuuccccckkk." Torrhen's teeth clacked on the final syllable of the drawn out curse. "Martyn will need to be checked out by Garth given his fondness for moonshine. For however long until the uh, what's-her-name says it's safe."
"Xanda," Lyanna supplied before asking the next thing worrying her. "What about the casks we took with us? Ned and Catelyn both drank moonshine at Winterfell. Not to mention the Glovers and Mormonts."
His brow furrowed, Torrhen was silent for a moment. "No, those casks should be fine. I was there when Garth made them, they came from later in the batch. Probably going to need to dump the barrels we have in storage though, no idea what stage in the process they came from. Fuck, so much time and money gone."
"What about us? I've tasted quite a few of Garth's experiments when he's made changes to the recipe."
"Oh, don't worry about that. Undead can't be poisoned, you're in no danger there."
"That's good," she admitted as her brother lay back down on the floor. "But Torrhen, we got lucky this time, assuming no one ends up poisoned. We can't keep doing this."
"What do you mean?" he asked, not looking at her, his focus back on the banner on the ceiling.
"All this new stuff you've been doing. The syrup, the moonshine, you ordered a bunch of beets from Bear Island to try and get sugar out of them, a pyromancer from the Alchemist's Guild showing up here, and people are talking about your magic. You're drawing too much attention to yourself, rumors are spreading amongst the smallfolk, it won't be long before it gets to the other lords of the North."
"You're right."
Lyanna stopped, not expecting Torrhen to agree with her concerns. She was momentarily at a loss for words.
He continued, "For so long, I didn't want to be part of all this. I avoided the yard, avoided learning how to rule, avoided everything that reminded me of the fact that I was stuck, in Westeros, in the North. The library was my escape from here, getting lost in the stories, it made things better. And then father sent me to foster under Roose."
There were a lot of emotions in Torrhen's voice when he said that name, too many for Lyanna to identify.
"When Ned put me in charge of the Dreadfort, I thought it was what I needed, what I deserved. I'd clean up the mess I made here but it was also an opportunity for me to improve things. To raise the standard of living for so many people, to fix so many things. To make just a small part of Westeros not a living embodiment of the Dark Ages."
He sighed and Lyanna kept her silence. Torrhen had clearly been thinking about this subject a lot and he needed to get these words out.
"I've been watching and listening, you know, through the rats. Can only do one at a time that way but it works, I can hear what people say about me when I'm not there."
That's. . . I did not know that was possible. Maybe I shouldn't have given up on learning magic.
"Most of our smallfolk are concerned about me but since you and Martyn are here, they have faith things will work out in the long run. But the first group from White Harbor," he trailed off and let out a long breath, "they were quite different. Suspicious, of me, of you, of everything and everyone here. And they were searching for answers."
"What, why?" Lyanna blurted. "The Manderlys have always been loyal to us."
"They've been loyal to the Starks, I am a von Carstein. Based on what I've overheard, my guess is Wymen figured out there's something unusual about me and thinks I'm taking advantage of the lord of Winterfell through a combination of Ned's inexperienced due to his recent elevation and the fact that he's in my debt since I saved your life."
"Let them search for answers in that case, you'd never betray Ned. They'll learn that eventually."
"That had been my plan originally. I knew I would have to be slow. People prefer comfortable lies to painful truths and finding out the way they've been living their lives, the way their parents and their parents and their parents lived their lives, the way they've all survived to this point, that it might not have been the best way, pushback was inevitable. I had originally assumed I'd be able to eventually win people over with my successes. Now I wonder if I was wrong."
"What?"
"It's like you said Lyanna, I've been drawing too much attention to myself. And that's despite the fact that I've been innovating slowly. What I'm doing is too different, too unusual. I've ruled the Dreadfort for barely two years and yet the Manderlys, one of the Starks' most powerful bannermen, think I'm up to something. While I'm on good terms with Dacey, the rest of the Mormonts have grown suspicious since she never told them why she turned me down. The Glovers seemed indifferent to me on our visit. Sure, the Martells like me but they're across the continent. Beyond Ned, I have no allies in the North. Maybe it's time I start acting like someone in my station is expected to."
"It is good that you've realized the very thing that I was coming here to talk to you about," Lyanna said slowly. "Does this mean you have a plan going forward? Are you going to abandon some of these projects of yours?"
Torrhen didn't answer, he just stared up at the banner on the ceiling. Hands were clasped over his chest, his thumbs slowly twiddling. She sat down on the floor next to her brother, crossing her legs and resting her hands on her knees as she regarded him.
Torrhen didn't seem to be aware of her change in position as he continued looking upwards. "I didn't want this to change me. I tried to hold onto what I could remember, but so much of what I can recall is just pointless. What good is knowing the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody if I can't recall the names of all the books of the Bible, let alone what's in them? This flag? I used to be proud of it but now that I'm looking at it, it's just a glaring reminder of what I've lost and the situation that I'm now stuck in. Do I accept the situation and go native? Or do I stand strong and try to remain apart?"
What is he talking about? I've never seen this banner before and he's never mentioned a library called the Bible before. What sort of the training did the Boltons put him through that he's reminiscing like this?
"Torrhen, talk to me. What's going on?" she asked softly.
"It's. . . it finally hit me, after Hedgerow. How people saw me. The reactions I got to my use of magic."
Right Hedgerow, I really should have talked to him about that before now. He certainly sent tongues wagging by summoning the spirit of a murdered girl in front of a whole town. I imagine in a moon or two the story will make its way down to Robert and he'll be asking me about it.
"It wasn't like I used magic for some nefarious purpose, I was looking for a killer of a young maiden, as just a cause as there can be. I knew the initial reactions would be bad, but I thought after people had time to sleep on it, they'd be more accepting. Some of them were fine with it but just as many were fearful, worried, terrified, that as a foreigner I didn't care about them. That I'd use them as blood sacrifices or something, I even heard one family wish the Boltons were still around because 'at least you knew what to expect with them'. That one hurt."
"Oh, Torrhen." Lyanna reached out, running a hand through her brother's hair.
"What's the point in helping people if they don't want your help? If they actively wish, not only for you to not help, but for things to go back to being worse? They'd rather have the illusion of safety than actual safety."
"We're nobles," Lyanna said with a shrug as she continued to stroke Torrhen's head. "Having that title comes with a responsibility to look out for the smallfolk in our care, whether or not they appreciate it is immaterial, we have to do our duty lest everything fall apart."
Torrhen closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "Hmmm, bees don't waste time explaining to flies that honey is better than shit."
She nodded even though he couldn't see it. "Exactly. Smallfolk don't have our education, our training, you should still respect them as people and treat them well but at the end of the day, you know more, your sums, how to run a holdfast, swordfighting, everything really."
"Are you really giving me the 'with great power comes great responsibility' speech?" he asked with a chuckle.
"I was not aware such a speech existed, but - yes, I guess I am."
Opening his eyes, Torrhen turned his head to meet her gaze. It had taken time, but she had finally gotten used to the pure white orbs in his head. "I want to make sure we're on the same page here. It sounds like you're telling me to stand my ground against the less informed, and drag them kicking and screaming into a successful future."
"You're the Lord of the Dreadfort, you're honor-bound to do so."
He sat up and pushed himself to his feet. "Sounds like I have some work to do then. Thanks for the talk, I needed that."
"You're welcome, we're family after all. Nothing wrong with leaning on each other in times of need," Lynanna said, dusting her clothes off as she stood up.
"I'll need to do an inspection of the crypts, see what condition all the bodies are in to find out which ones are usable."
Lyanna nodded along until Torrhen's words finally reached her. "Hold on, what now?"
~Author's Note~
In which Lyanna attempts to talk Torrhen into not being so weird and acting more like a normal lord, something he was pondering anyway, and then inadvertently convinces him to keep doing what he's been doing. All because she forgot that he doesn't view lords and smallfolk as different.