The meal stayed easy.
Domeric did not put trade on the table.
Horas did not reach for it.
Dessert came.
Horas’s patience did not last through it.
“Ser Domeric.
My father, Lord Paxter, will take the whole of Lonehill’s iron at one part in ten over the market.
What do you say to that?” He kept the rest of the hand in his sleeve.
Ten parts in a hundred was a stone thrown to see how deep the water ran.
Domeric set knife and fork down.
“I had Lord Paxter’s letter.
I cannot give him what he wants.
We had a collapse in the workings.
The ore slowed.
The forges slowed with it.
For a month my men have been trying to put the face back together.
The stone is still not clear.
The old count will not return as easily as a price on a page.” A collapse.
Horas sat with it.
The hills were fat with open ore.
One fallen shaft should not have emptied a trade.
Then he had the rest of it: the lord was naming a problem because one part in ten was not a problem worth solving.
Business could wait a little.
He told himself that twice.
“If not this month—the next?” “You will have heard of the Karstarks.” Domeric’s face found a decent grief and wore it.
“Last month they came at my land for no cause I will honor.” There were no secrets among lords.
Horas made the expected noise.
“A greedy house.” The attack, then.
The feeling in his gut went sour.
“I lost men,” Domeric said.
“I have not the hands I had.
Push the fires now and the miners and smiths will put their tools down and walk.” Horas opened his mouth and found nothing in it.
He was not a smith.
The reasons came stacked and clean.
“I am sorry for it.
House Redwyne did not come empty-handed.” “Other houses bring hands as well.” “Even so—” “There is no even so.” Domeric cut him there.
“A sale is a word kept.
I have orders already promised.
I will not break them for one part in ten and spend the year explaining myself to men I still need.” “Still—” Lord Paxter’s last instruction sat on him: come home with the trade, whatever the room required.
Horas put the floor on the table.
“Three parts in ten.” Three fingers.
“The Arbor will buy every bar and blade you make at that price.
It is more than any other house will wear, and more than White Harbor.
At that number they will have nothing honest to say, and you will have a reason they cannot argue with.” The words were out before he could call them back.
The whole of his father’s line, spent in one breath.
What was left to bargain with now?
“That is a serious offer,” Domeric said.
“Lord Paxter means to own this trade.” He let the silence work.
Three parts in ten was a high number.
Higher than he had expected from an island that far south.
Paxter would pay it to take the market first and lift the price after.
Even then the Arbor would eat well.
For Lonehill it meant the profit doubled.
The hole in the books would close.
There would be gold left over.
Lords did not buy and sell on gold alone.
If he took the Arbor’s purse and put the Manderly hulls aside, he would make an enemy of White Harbor.
House Manderly sat in the three-year count as an ally he could not do without.
They kept the only navy the North owned.
When the War of the Five Kings opened they could put ships in his water in a week.
That was why he had spent three years making himself sweet in that hall.
The Arbor had ships too.
The Arbor was a month of sea away.
In a war those hulls would not come north in time to matter.
Near, armed on water, and already half a friend.
Far, armed on water, cool, and rich enough to throw three parts in ten on the table.
He could not cut it clean.
So he did not.
He opened his hands.
“A man still keeps his word.
I told other houses they would have their iron.” Horas came up out of the chair.
“Ser Domeric.
Lord Wyman’s granddaughter is a beauty.
My sister Desmera is known for the same gift, and she does not sit second to a girl in White Harbor.
You might think on that as well.” His throat went dry on the last of it.
He had come to buy iron.
He had spent his father’s floor and then thrown his sister after it.
Gods.
What was he doing?
Domeric clapped once and laughed.
“The Arbor is generous.
I have heard your sister is a handsome girl.” “Then you will—” Horas wanted the thing sealed before the candles died.
“Give me a few days.
I will speak with my own people.” “I can wait.” He did not like waiting.
He also could not see the reason that would refuse a price like that, or goodwill wrapped in a sister.
“Of course.
Finish the cakes.
Sleep.
Tomorrow I will have you shown the town.” After the supper Domeric went back to the bedchamber.
Night in this country ended early unless a man was making children.
He put a flame to the candles and took a pen to the girl he already wrote.
My lady Wynafryd, It has been too long since a letter of yours sat on this desk.
I keep your face as a man keeps a star he has already named.
I must be honest with you, and the honesty is not a trick to lift a price.
I am heir to the Dreadfort.
That name has not filled my coffers as men suppose.
My lord father is not as free with his gold as the songs would have a son be.
You will have heard that House Karstark came at these hills last month without a cause I will honor.
Men died.
I cannot even put the widow-coin in the hands that are owed it.
Lonehill is a poor, dangerous seat.
The clans in the stones still want a fight.
The wildling bands are worse.
I must keep a host for the war that is coming, and the keeping of it has opened a hole in my books.
House Redwyne of the Arbor has arrived in the middle of that hole.
They will take every piece of iron I can make at three parts in ten over the market.
I have not forgotten what stands between us.
What I feel for you is worth more than a count of dragons.
But my smiths want their wage.
My miners want meat in the bowl three times a day.
I have put three warhorses under each of my soldiers besides.
These are northern men.
They left their houses and their children to stand in my line.
I will not send them to a war on foot.
I believe a lady as kind as you will see why the choice sits badly in my hand.
Always your servant, Domeric Bolton The poor-mouthing was the point of the page.
Roose Bolton had never been tight with his only trueborn son.
The Karstark war had not left the ruin he had written down.
The rest was a shape he needed White Harbor to see.