NOVEL NEXT Chapter 19: The Green Dream
Mid 272 Fall Helga
Helga caught her breath as she kept her white knuckled grip on the thin birch switch. On the floor before her lay the curled up form of one of the five vapid cunts her husband brought home on his last raid. Five incredibly beautiful women, but Helga had raised dogs smarter than them. She blamed their terminal stupidity on the men in their lives and herd mentality. Women who men fight each other to steal since before they've even bled tend never learn the harsh reality of the world until it's too late. Put five of those creatures together and their stupidity loops and feeds each other like imbecilic echoes growing louder and louder instead of slowly fading away.
The weeping woman on the floor should be thanking her for this small cruelty. If the Lady Alysa heard her cursing their godless sorcerer of a husband in the Old Tongue, she'd have had that tongue removed. The woman was lucky that the Lady took petitions each day in the Rockcourt, the furnished space outside their home. Though Alysa spoke at the level of a toddler in the Old Tongue, she understood far more than the words she could pronounce, and the plain Lady of Rockhall was waiting for an opportunity to make an example of one of these new and beautiful women.
Maybe this beating would spare this woman from being that example.
Helga doubted it. Each of the five new wives thought that she would be the one to use her beauty to twist the dour Lord of Bear Island to her will. They simply did not understand.
Jorah Mormont does not feel like other men feel. A cold heart beats in his chest, and his only true love is gains. His home is a nursery not because of his base lust, but because each son is a soldier carrying his magic bloodline, his fleshy sorcery whose home is the apple sized nuts dangling between his massive thighs.
His seed cared not for the cycle of the moon, nor fertility. Once spilt inside a cunt, pregnancy always followed, pregnancy of such ease a woman might forget she carried even days before the birth if not for the swollen bulge of flesh at her core, and delivery of no risk. Three such deliveries she'd been party to since arriving at Rockhall, including her own.
Helga tried for years to conceive each of her daughters, suffered much for it, and nearly died at each birth. The Lord of Bear Island had her pregnant before she stepped foot on his ship, she didn't vomit a single time in the entire gestation, and she walked away from the birthing rather than spend days on the brink of life and death.
Her son, Ralof, was born with the same hefty genitals as his father and brothers. Another soldier in the Mormont Army, one day to fight the whole world if need be to see the family continue to rise higher and higher. Helga would ensure Ralof and the next child growing in her will get the best they could out of their father, and she didn't care how many times she needed to beat a bitch to keep the cruel Lord of Bear Island from having to set his house in order.
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Mid 272 Fall Me
Well, that was weird. I awoke on my ship and got back to my scheduled expedition to Old Town, putting the dream of me being a pregnant lady beating another pregnant lady with a switch on the back burner. I do not desire a Freudian breakdown of why that is in my subconscious.
We'd traveled further down the coast than ever before, past the ruins of Tarbeck Hall and the forest controlled by the Crakehalls and their bannermen, and into the Reach past the home of the petty Oakheart Kings.
The Reach is everything the North isn't, flat, soft soiled, temperate. A soft land of easy living that produces soft people en mass.
We stoppedin the Shield Islands visiting the town of Lord Hewett on Oakenshield Island. Though all four of the Shield Islands of the Reach could fit fit almost twice over on Pyke, Lord Hewett's Town was twice the size of Lordsport, and I spent a week there housing my men using my Lannister Gold as I stayed with House Hewett. For me this was a chance to see for myself how these famous islands proved time and again to be a giant pain in the ass for the Ironborn, as well as a masterclass in the efficient use of space.
Lord Humfrey Hewett proved to be a man of similar demeanor and intelligence as his liege lord, Mace Tyrell, and as such he was incredibly easy to guide into bragging about everything on the island that caught my interest and soon I understood this bastion of security for the Reach down to the mortar between its stones.
I gifted the man the skull of a great white shark and the antlers of a mega moose. The latter a far more frightening creature than the former for those of us familiar with the menace that is the moose. I'd explore the other islands on future trips, but doubted I would find as useful a host as dear Lord Humfrey.
Unlike the tightly packed coast of the Westerlands, the Reach spread its keeps out across great distances and we only passed by Bandallon, the keep of the House Blackbar, and Blackcrown of the Bulwers on our route to Old Town. Across the mouth of the Whispering Sound stood the more impressive Three Towers, though their fort mattered little with the blazing castle lighthouse of the Hightowers billowing smoke in the distance.
The tallest tower in the known world guided ships into the busy port city of Old Town, a port more bustling with ships than even Lannisport. Despite that, our arrival lined up perfectly for us to dock beyond the massive ringwalls that jut out into the water to narrow the entrance of the harbor. Once more, the Lannister gold came into play as it took me nearly a week to gain an understanding of the labyrinthian alleys and crooked streets that led to many marketplaces. Eventually I found buyers for my goods, and even found the prices offered favorable enough to offset the length of future voyages, but not this more exploratory venture.
Ulfric benefited greatly from the long exposure to different ports and climates, though keeping him from running off or straight into the oncoming danger of a busy city was tiresome. He benefited far more from the prices and variety of food and livestock available to us. Between the slightly better prices for my products and significantly lower prices of food and livestock, my choice to only buy coal in Lannisport and seeking to buy foodstuff here increased my profits for this voyage greatly.
I loaded up all four of my seventy oar ships with grain, dried fruits, roots, nuts, sheep, and pigs, but the Thunderer did not take on more than the supplies we needed for the trip home and an extra allotment in case of emergency. Instead I sought out the sellers of horses and purchased powerful draft horses and well trained destriers. I intended to sail this route three more times should the arrival of winter allow it, and by that time I'd have a healthy population for breeding. Between them and my own herd that originated from the Ryswells, I hoped to breed a line of northern warhorses for my campaigns in the Lands-Beyond-the-Wall. If I also managed to create something advantageous for tournament use at the same time, who am I to question such good fortune?
Lastly I visited the various armorers of Old Town. Though Lannisport is the headquarters of metallurgy and goldsmithing in Westeros, the culture lacked the overabundance of chivalric tradition of the Reach, and thus the stiff competition in armorers seeking to outfit the many, many, many knights who compete in many, many, many tournaments each year. Across five different armorers I commissioned two sets of tournament armor and three suits of battlefield plate. Each man had slightly different ideas about design and aesthetics, and I had enough money to see for myself who among these men had a future working with House Mormont.
I also commissioned barding and armor for three of my destrier stallions, both for my practice this winter and to figure out how to scale it up should I create the warhorse I am hoping for. I'd pick up all my orders next time I docked in Old Town, and begin training in the joust for my debut in the premier event of the tournament scene come spring. So I loaded up my purchases and sailed north.
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An ominous title.
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