Seven years passed.
Brandon Stark had seen fifteen namedays.
The years had shaped him well.
The child who had once followed craftsmen through Winterfell carrying scraps of leather covered in charcoal sketches had grown into a youth who stood nearly as tall as many grown men.
His shoulders had broadened, his hands had grown calloused from years of training, and there was little softness left in him.
Though still lean, he possessed the frame of a warrior in the making.
King Rickard Stark had now seen sixty namedays.
Age had painted more silver into his beard and carved deeper lines upon his weathered face, yet little else had changed.
He still walked with the confidence of the man who had broken the Barrow Kings.
His voice still filled a hall without effort, and when he passed through Winterfell’s courts, even seasoned warriors stepped aside.
More importantly, he no longer humored Brandon because he was his grandson.
He listened because Brandon had earned the right to be heard.
The spinning wheel had seen to that.
Over the years, Brandon’s place within the royal court had changed almost as much as he had.
What had begun as permission to sit quietly in council slowly became responsibility.
At first he merely observed, saying little while listening to disputes between bannermen, reports from castle stewards and the endless discussions that accompanied ruling half the North.
Before long, Rickard entrusted him with reviewing the kingdom’s ledgers.
Harvest accounts.
Tax records.
Inventories.
Reports from the royal demesne.
The work was tedious, but Brandon welcomed it.
Numbers often revealed truths that men preferred to hide.
To his surprise, he found irregularities.
Not theft.
No man possessing even a shred of common sense would dare steal openly from the royal treasury of House Stark.
The punishment would be swift, and the memory of it longer still.
The errors were born of carelessness.
One steward counted livestock before they were transferred but neglected to remove them from the following year’s records.
Grain stored in one granary appeared twice in separate inventories.
Several villages estimated their harvests rather than counting them, producing figures that shifted wildly from one report to the next.
Each mistake was small.
Together they painted an inaccurate picture of the kingdom.
Brandon brought the matter before his grandfather.
Rickard ordered the records reviewed.
The steward responsible confessed readily enough.
He had not sought to enrich himself, merely taken shortcuts over the years until they became habit.
The old king judged accordingly.
The man lost a portion of his yearly income and was removed from his office for a time before being restored under careful supervision.
It was punishment enough.
The same mistakes were never repeated.
It taught Brandon another lesson.
A kingdom could bleed coin through incompetence just as easily as through corruption.
His attention soon returned to wool.
Improving the spinning wheel had been only the first step.
Now he sought to improve the sheep themselves.
With the assistance of experienced shepherds and herdsmen from the western hills, Brandon began selecting only the finest rams and ewes for breeding.
Animals with softer fleece, denser wool and stronger constitutions were paired together while poorer stock was gradually removed from the breeding lines.
The shepherds had thought him mad.
“A sheep is a sheep,” one old herdsman had insisted.
Brandon simply smiled.
“It won’t be in twenty years.”
The improvements came slowly. Get faster updates on g.com.
One generation yielded only a slight difference.
Then another.
By the fourth year, even the most stubborn shepherd admitted the wool had grown finer.
Combined with the improved spinning wheels now used throughout the royal lands, the quality of Winterfell’s cloth rose steadily.
Merchants noticed long before the nobles did.
They always did.
More caravans found their way to Winterfell with every passing moon.
Cloth woven in the Winter Kingdom now commanded prices no northern merchant would have dared imagine only a decade earlier.
It did not make the kingdom rich overnight.
Gold did not pour into Winterfell’s vaults as though a mine had been discovered beneath the castle.
Yet the treasury grew fuller.
Steadily.
Reliably.
The additional silver granted Rickard something he had rarely enjoyed during his reign.
Options.
Dacy Stark had grown as well.
At thirteen namedays she carried herself with a quiet grace that many expected of a noble lady, though few mistook her for a delicate flower after watching her in the training yard.
Unlike daughters born farther south, Dacy’s education had not ended with sewing, singing and household management.
She learned the bow.
She trained with the sword.
She rode as confidently as many young warriors twice her age.
As children she had scarcely left Brandon’s side.
The years had softened that habit, though not the affection behind it.
Whenever uncertainty found her, Brandon remained the first person whose counsel she sought.
Theon, now nine namedays old, had inherited more energy than patience.
The boy adored his elder brother and followed him whenever he was allowed, pestering him endlessly with questions about swords, wolves and battles.
Brandon answered what he could.
What he could not answer, he made a point of learning.
The wolves had grown alongside their masters.
Raker had become a magnificent beast, standing taller than the waist of a grown man and stretching well over two paces from nose to tail.
His dark grey coat blended easily with the forests surrounding Winterfell, while pale amber eyes watched everything with quiet intelligence.
Dacy’s she-wolf, Frost, possessed a silver-white coat and a temperament every bit as proud as her mistress.
Theon’s young wolf, Shadow, was black as midnight and far too curious for his own good.
Together they were rarely far from their masters.
Brandon’s own days remained as disciplined as ever.
Each morning began with swordsmanship beneath Jon Glover’s watchful eye.
Archery followed.
Riding after that.
When no master watched him, he trained differently.
Exercises no man in the Winter Kingdom had ever conceived.
Movements designed to strengthen joints rather than merely muscles.
Training meant to build endurance as much as power.
Balance before brute force.
His father occasionally remarked upon the change.
“You tire less than men twice your age.”
Brandon merely smiled.
There was no point explaining progressive overload to a prince born three thousand years too early.
Yet despite all these successes, one frustration lingered.
Food.
Everything returned to food.
Brandon had argued the matter before his grandfather more times than either cared to remember.
Crop rotation.
Improved field management.
Greater use of livestock manure.
Potatoes planted alongside existing crops.
Every proposal met the same hesitation.
Not because Rickard believed his grandson mistaken.
Because failure carried consequences.
The royal lands could not afford a disastrous harvest.
Nor did anyone upon the council think highly of potatoes.
“Peasant food,” one lord declared with open contempt.
“They fill empty bellies,” another added, “but kings do not concern themselves with such things.”
Brandon nearly laughed.
The greatest kingdoms in history had risen upon full stomachs rather than empty pride.
Arguing accomplished little.
So he changed his approach.
One evening, after the council had nearly concluded, Brandon stepped forward.
“I ask for land.”
Rickard looked up from the map before him.
“What sort of land?”
“A field from the royal demesne.”
The chamber fell quiet.
“I will work it myself.”
“Not with my own hands,” Brandon continued before anyone could object, “but under my direction.
Let my methods stand beside yours.”
“If they fail, the loss belongs to me.”
“If they succeed…”
He left the sentence unfinished.
Everyone present knew how it ended.
Rickard studied him for a long while.
The wheel had filled the treasury.
The improved breeding had strengthened the wool trade.
Every prediction Brandon had made thus far had proven true.
At last the old king nodded.
“You shall have your field.”
A faint smile crossed Brandon’s face.
“But understand this,” Rickard continued.
“You are wagering more than grain.”
“I know.”
“If your methods fail, this talk of changing northern farming ends with them.”
“And if they succeed?”
The old king leaned back in his chair.
“Th en every field held by the crown shall be worked according to your methods.”
Brandon bowed.
It was only a patch of farmland.
To everyone else, it was an experiment.
To Brandon…
It was the beginning of the greatest reform the Winter Kingdom had ever known.