The king’s decree did not remain within Winterfell for long.
Before another moon had passed, riders bearing the direwolf banner departed in every direction, carrying sealed orders to the stewards of the Crown’s lands.
Granaries were counted, fields surveyed, seed stores measured, and shepherds summoned from their villages.
What had begun upon ninety humble hectares was now to be attempted across every field cultivated by the Crown.
Brandon spent much of the following year upon the road.
Some days found him walking newly marked fields beside stewards and ploughmen, correcting mistakes before they became habit.
On others he rode between villages, speaking with reeves and headmen, explaining why one field should rest while another was sown, or why potatoes belonged beside the kingdom’s older grains rather than apart from them.
Many listened eagerly.
Others looked upon the young prince with doubt.
Such men had worked the land as their fathers had before them, and their fathers before that.
Strange ways seldom found quick acceptance among honest folk.
Yet the king’s seal rested upon every order, and so they obeyed.
Brandon committed every part of his methods to parchment in his own hand.
Nothing was omitted.
The order in which crops were to be planted, the turning of the fields, the keeping of sheep upon resting land, the gathering of hearth ash before the plough, the breeding of stronger flocks, and every other practice he had proven upon his own lands was carefully recorded.
When the work was finished, the parchments passed into the hands of the scribes .
The scribes copied it.
One copy became ten.
Ten became a hundred.
Before long, Brandon’s words had reached every holdfast, village, and settlement that tilled the Crown’s cultivated lands.
Stewards studied them.
Reeves committed them to memory.
Village elders gathered their smallfolk to hear the instructions read aloud.
The work demanded patience.
Fields had to be measured anew.
Shepherds instructed.
Men taught habits they had never before practiced.
It was labor that could not be finished within a single moon.
Nearly a full year passed before the last of the Crown’s cultivated lands had received both the parchments and the instruction needed to follow them.
Only then did the seasons turn.
Winter came.
Snow settled upon the fields, and frost hardened the earth until no plough could hope to break it.
Brandon’s reforms had spread across the kingdom, yet their true measure would have to wait until summer returned.
Only then would the harvest reveal whether his confidence had been justified.
The preparations, however, did not end with the coming of winter.
There were far too few sheep to graze every field as Brandon intended.
Such numbers could not be conjured in a single year.
Flocks required time to grow.
To hasten the matter, every settlement upon the Crown’s lands received two breeding pairs from the royal herds, with strict instructions that their offspring be carefully tended and added to the village flocks rather than slaughtered.
Years would pass before enough sheep filled the fields.
Brandon had expected no less.
By then he had seen seventeen namedays.
His lady wife, Lyarra Stark, born of House Dustin, had reached sixteen.
Dacy had flowered into a maiden of fifteen namedays, while young Theon had reached eleven.
Though winter kept many within Winterfell’s walls, Brandon’s routine changed little.
Each morning he crossed swords with Theon, correcting the boy’s stance as often as he struck him.
The prince had inherited both stubbornness and determination in equal measure, and Brandon quietly shaped his younger brother’s training according to the knowledge he carried from another life.
When sword practice ended, he often joined Lyarra and Dacy upon the butts.
Both women had become fine archers.
Dacy possessed a fierce competitiveness that showed itself whenever a bow rested in her hands, while Lyarra shot with calm patience, loosing one arrow only after she was certain of her aim.
The friendly contests became a welcome part of their days.
Raker had grown into a beast worthy of the old tales. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
Standing well over a man at the shoulder, the direwolf inspired fear wherever he walked.
Brandon often slipped into the great wolf’s skin, racing through the snow-covered forests, feeling the bite of the winter wind upon fur instead of flesh.
Theon could now do the same with his own direwolf, whose size had increased greatly over the years, though he had yet to rival Raker.
Another matter occupied Winterfell as well.
Dacy’s marriage.
She had reached an age where offers would soon begin arriving from noble houses throughout the Winter Kingdom.
Rickard and Edwyn had already begun discussing suitable matches, both agreeing that she should strengthen House Stark’s ties with one of their most loyal bannermen.
No decision had yet been reached.
There was time enough for that.
Winter brought more than snow to Winterfell.
It brought joy.
Before the year was out, the birthing maid confirmed what Brandon had already begun to suspect.
Lyarra was carrying his child.
The news spread quietly through the castle before reaching the Great Hall.
Rickard received it with a smile rarely seen upon the old king’s face.
Edwyn clasped his son’s shoulder in congratulations, while the queen thanked the old gods beneath the heart tree.
For Brandon, it was another reminder that he no longer built only for the kingdom.
He built for those who would one day inherit it.
The looms never ceased their song.
Even as winter tightened its grip upon the land, the weavers continued their work within Winterfell.
Merchants still braved the frozen roads in search of the fine northern wool that had earned such renown beyond the kingdom’s borders.
Silver flowed steadily into the royal treasury.
Not enough to make kings greedy, but enough to keep the granaries filled, pay honest wages, and ensure that no man who served the Crown went unrewarded.
It was a quiet prosperity.
The sort built not in a single harvest, but over many years.
And Brandon knew better than most that kingdoms were not transformed in a day.
They were changed one season at a time.