Get comfortable, turn the page, and let’s see what this story has been hiding 🔥
✦
The first project Ned assigned to Donnel was the warehouse beside the pigsties, meant to store fodder for winter.
The architect complained to Ned, “I came north to build castles, and you have me building pigpens and rabbit hutches.”
“Donnel, the warehouse is only the appetizer. Larger projects are waiting behind it.”
Ned then brought out the plan for Winter Town.
It listed a long chain of works: barracks, stables, forgeworks, livestock pens, a great market, a brewery, more pens, and more besides.
Donnel was astonished.
“So many projects? There are no castles, but these buildings are enough for me to show what I can do. Lord Eddard, regarding the barracks, I have an initial idea. We can place a huge stone statue at the gate, shaped as a Stark ancestor wearing the crown of the Kings of Winter, holding your ancestral Valyrian greatsword Ice, with a direwolf beside him. For the direwolf, we can build it from granite and set red garnets into the eyes.”
Ned said, “Donnel, I do not want anything gaudy. I want practicality. Your first project is the warehouse. The stables and brewery have already begun laying foundations. Complete this seriously, and I will gradually hand you the other works.”
By Donnel’s own account, most of his finished work across the narrow sea had been mansions and brothels.
Ned was willing to keep him, but he still wanted to see his actual ability.
Donnel summoned craftsmen and laborers and began building the fodder warehouse.
As for the barracks, forgeworks, stables, great market, brewery, and other projects, Ned personally oversaw them, and nearly all began at the same time.
Thousands of craftsmen and laborers moved through Winter Town like ants across the earth, busy from morning to night.
Some of the skilled craftsmen and masons had been gathered from the North.
Others had come from the Vale and King’s Landing, and a portion came from the riverlands.
Ned had Catelyn ask her father, Lord Hoster Tully of Riverrun, Lord Paramount of the Trident, for aid, and Riverrun sent a group of fifty craftsmen.
Most of the laborers were residents of Winter Town.
The settlement project had attracted more than thirty thousand people.
They received land and became tenants under Winterfell’s protection.
Ned requisitioned them to carry timber and stone and work under the craftsmen, offsetting their wages against their rent.
Under Donnel’s direction, people cut trees from the wolfswood and hauled them back to Winter Town.
The North did not lack timber.
The vast wolfswood covered enormous stretches of land.
Stone, however, was far less convenient to quarry and transport.
In Ned’s original plan, stone would be quarried from the lands of the northern mountain clans.
But the mountain roads were too narrow, many little more than goat tracks, the transport costs were high, and the clans had too few people.
He had no choice but to abandon that idea.
Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, had sent three ships of stone from the Vale.
It was a generous gift, but still far from enough for the enormous expansion of Winter Town.
Ned had to choose other places to quarry stone, and his attention settled on the Sheepshead Hills.
Ned sent masons and laborers into the hills to quarry stone, and ordered White Harbor and Hornwood to requisition workers and assist.
Lord Wyman and Lord Hornwood quickly answered Lord Eddard’s command and sent men into the Sheepshead Hills to quarry stone.
Still worried that the stone would not be enough, Ned sent a letter to Roose Bolton, ordering the Lord of the Dreadfort to send men to quarry stone from the Lonely Hills and transport it to Winterfell.
In this way, stone flowed continuously from the Lonely Hills and the Sheepshead Hills to Winter Town.
Walking through Winter Town, watching warehouses, barracks, and forgeworks rise stone by stone while wooden houses sprang up one after another, Ned felt his mood brighten.
Yet on the other side of it all, large-scale construction meant vast sums of money spent.
Salt from the saltworks had already begun selling in a steady stream.
Salt from the west coast was carried to Winterfell, where Winterfell settled accounts with the lords before shipping it on to White Harbor for resale.
Salt from the east coast went directly to White Harbor for sale, where Lord Wyman settled with the east coast lords and deducted the amount from White Harbor’s taxes to Winterfell.
The saltworks provided Winterfell with significant income, but against the investment required to expand Winter Town, it was still a drop in the bucket.
Ninety percent of Winterfell’s cash reserves had already been spent.
Vayon Poole warned Ned that if the season suddenly turned cold and winter came, Winterfell might struggle to keep even its own winter stores full, much less feed Winter Town.
The beehive plan also brought revenue.
Honey from Deepwood Motte, the mountain clans, and the wolfswood clans came to Winterfell.
Winterfell itself also produced honey.
Once that honey was taken to White Harbor and sold, it returned as hard coin.
Kral and Ned adopted a series of policies to raise money.
They placed clerks in every market of Winter Town to collect management fees, struck at the black market, raised taxes on high-income groups such as goldsmiths and brewers, and focused inspections on the accounts of brothels, gambling dens, and taverns.
Tax evasion was punished with a fine triple the amount owed, and in a short time tax revenue tripled.
Kral and Ned also turned their attention to the prisoners in Winter Town’s cells.
After Winter Town’s population surged, order declined.
Thieves, poachers, and lechers were caught almost every day.
At first, Ned sent them to the Wall to take the black.
Later, deciding that was too generous to the Night’s Watch, he sent them to the New Gift settlements, where they wore chains and did hard labor to atone for their crimes.
Recently, however, Tomard, who oversaw the New Gift settlement, wrote that the place was already overcrowded.
He had no houses for new prisoners, and the settlement’s food stores were nearly exhausted.
He had no choice but to seek help from the Night’s Watch and House Umber.
Lord Commander Mormont was very eager for the scum in the settlements and complained often that Winterfell had not sent the prisoners to the Wall, but instead housed them in the New Gift.
In the solar, Kral offered Ned a suggestion.
“Lord Eddard, since we are troubled by money, and since the prisoners in the cells must be fed, why not let them pay coin to atone?”
Ned agreed with Kral in his heart, but wearing the mask of a lord, he had to put on at least a little resistance.
“If we do that, would the realm’s law not become a sheet of blank parchment? Once such a precedent is opened, rich and powerful men may commit crimes without fear.”
Kral chuckled.
“Lord Eddard, I am not speaking of lechers, murderers, or other grave offenders. I mean men who fought while drunk in taverns and brothels, or those who cheated in gambling dens. Their crimes are minor to begin with. Why not let them pay coin to redeem themselves? And poachers as well.” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Ned said, “I pity poachers. Many are poor men who cannot fill their bellies. But their crime cannot be excused. If smallfolk all run into the wolfswood to hunt, great stretches of land will go untilled. Poaching itself violates noble property. If Winterfell pardons poachers, every northern lord will complain.”
Kral said, “Lord Eddard, I never said you should pardon them. How do you usually punish poachers?”
Ned considered.
“Either cut off one hand, or exile them to the Wall to join the Night’s Watch.”
Kral curled his lip.
“A terrible punishment indeed. But once you cut off their hands, they become cripples, lose their labor, and become burdens on the North. I have a suggestion. Fine these poachers into service to Winterfell. They can hunt for Winterfell and slowly redeem themselves.”
Because he wore the mask of a lord, Ned pretended to refuse.
“You call them servants, but it sounds no different from slavery. I warn you, slave trading is unlawful in the Seven Kingdoms.”
Kral said, “Not slaves. At most, something like ironborn thralls. Slaves have no choice. We can let them choose: lose a hand, go to the Wall, or enter Winterfell’s service and hunt for Winterfell.”
Ned said, “Winterfell does not lack hunters.”
“But it does not have enough,” Kral replied.
“Lord Eddard, the wolfswood is full of deer, boars, wolves, roe deer, and hares. With so much game, we can organize a large hunting party and bring back meat every day. We can open an eating hall and a tavern at Winterfell’s gate. Extra game can be butchered and sold directly in the market. I believe many smallfolk will come to spend coin with us.”
In the Seven Kingdoms, nobles looked down on merchants and disdained trade.
But Ned carried memories from another world and was not so rigid or inflexible.
He agreed to Kral’s plan.
The poachers in the cells all agreed to enter Winterfell’s service in exchange for forgiveness.
Serving Winterfell was far better than becoming a brother of the Night’s Watch or losing a hand.
The next day, Farlen, Winterfell’s kennelmaster, took a group of hunters who had once been poachers, along with more than twenty hounds, into the wolfswood to hunt.
That night, wagons loaded with boars, roe deer, hares, and pheasants returned to Winterfell.
A few days later, the Wolf House Eating Hall, Wolf House Butcher, and Wolf House Tavern formally opened.
Fresh game became their signature fare.
The eating hall’s prices were low and suited to the poor.
The tavern offered better surroundings and higher prices, with mead, ale, and even Dornish red available.
Ned looked at the crowds in the tavern and eating hall.
“I never thought I, Lord of Winterfell, would become a businessman, competing with the smallfolk for scraps of profit.”
Kral smiled.
“Lord Stark, even rivers begin as small streams. Wealth always grows from little to much.”
✦
✦
✦
Ready for more?
I hope this chapter pulled you deeper into the story.
Stick around, because there’s still a lot waiting just ahead.