Game of Thrones: Path of the Hungry Bear

Mid 269 Spring

Seaguard felt refreshing, seeing a genuinely beautiful town and working economy after fourteen years of Bear Island interspersed with brief trips to our near equally impoverished neighbors was enough to grind down a modern man's soul.

Lannisport blew Seaguard out of the water.

We didn't actually get dock space at the port till the morning after we arrived. The port was flush with vessels from everywhere, all seeking to siphon a little of that Lannister gold for themselves. It didn't take me long to see a merchant from Essos purchase the work of a goldsmith for more money than the last twenty generations of my family laid hands on combined.

Not a particularly high bar to hurdle.

I sent the smartest of my sailors into the port to look for opportunities to sell our cargo, and by smartest I mean smart enough to not accept any offers without my approval, not actually smart. I moved through the port as a part of this scouting force, and specifically began looking for the prices of the resources I needed to start freeing up the citizens of Bear Island for more productive ventures.

It quickly became apparent that any worked goods were far out of my price range, but Lannisport contained many industries of the Westerlands, and raw goods came in from every part of the kingdom to feed those industries. Though there was local competition for my lumber, it was nothing compared to the absolute deluge of metals and ores flowing into the ring walled city from the bottomless mines of this kingdom.

Truly, the only things staying off the complete devaluation of many materials dredged up from the earth, are the difficulty of acquiring them by hand and the availability of vast foreign markets. Even still the prices I saw for astounded me, for iron in the North came so dear, and here was sold so for so little.

I came upon a knot of people in the flow of those going about their business where I found one of my older sailors weeping on the street. A part of me wanted to simply ignore him, and the shame he brought onto himself, but I relented and grabbed the man, pulling him away from the derisive presence of those who stopped to judge him.

"What's wrong with you, man?" I demanded with a firm hand on his shoulder.

The man looked up to me - for even standing straight the top of his head was of a line with my nipples - and with shaking voice he told me, "Coal, they have coal. And it's so cheap."

Coal, the black gold in the North. Wood burns by the hour. Charcoal burns up within a handful. Coal's burn time is measured in days. Even in the coldest winter conditions, a furnace of coal burns for a full day and night.

I'm surprised the man had even heard of the substance, considering the way the noble families hoard the stuff to see them through unusually long winters. And when the snow falls and the white wind blows, coal is more valuable than food. You have forty days to starve, but the cold will kill you in far less than one.

I didn't ask the man about his reaction, invoking my right to Northman stoicism to cover my apathy. Instead we simply returned to the ships and I gathered the offers that my men brought in that evening.

After another night sleeping on our ships I set off for a day of negotiations, eventually leaving my timber in the hands of a carpenters guild. The price gained for three loads of raw timber gave me enough coin to purchase three loads of food, two loads of iron ore, one and a half loads of coal, or one load of copper ore. That's with docking fees, tariffs, and taxes coming out of the coin previously acquired from the sale of half my pelts in Seaguard.

The guild took my raw pine, for a fair price, but there was far more interest in my capacity to produce cedar, and there was a great demand for the hard wood of fir trees. I had a access to them on my land, but not enough fill the demand by myself. I'd have to see if my Glover relatives feel like selling to me.

I'll give them an offer in coal so as not to insult their honor with my 'counting coppers'.

The sale of my furs and grease attracted the attention of the merchants from Essos more than locals, and not for the quality of my goods nor the versatility, but simply due to the exotic nature and the story behind the products. Quite simply, bear hides and grease sourced from a place known as Bear Island. It wasn't just a product, but also a story, and any merchant can sell a good story to rich suckers.

In the end the lot, both pelts and grease, went to a merchant from Tyrosh and the funds from the sale were enough to enable me to fill my ships with a load of food, one of coal, and a final of iron ore for the return trip, make payroll, pay off all fees and taxes, and still go home with a small chest of silver for my trouble.

I got to keep even more of the silver as the men unanimously chose to take their pay in coal and food. The guy who broke down in the street wasn't the only one to break down in tears as we loaded the ship with coal. Almost everyone from the North has lost someone they knew to the cold.

After making sure everyone knew the proper safety and hardware requirements needed for using coal to heat a home, I agreed. Generously giving the people what they want and keeping all that worthless silver for myself. I'll have to toughen up or everyone might start to think I'm a pushover.

We sailed up the coast, leaving once again before we could be hit with another days fees, and had another ten days of peaceful sailing. No storms, no pirates, no Ironborn. Almost as if I wasn't the protagonist of a story who needed to encounter exciting hardships to keep readers interested. Or the conditions of the world simply have lined up well for me. I might have to toss a coin when I get home to determine which of those I believe.

Despite the relief I felt leaving, I felt the same on the return, sailing up the mouth of our familiar harbor and stepping onto the docs to a hero's welcome. At least from the small folk. And that was before we'd even started unloading the ships. Once people saw what we'd brought we transformed from heroes to gods, at least till the shock wore off. The sailors moved the goods up to the keep and once done took their cut back home with them, leaving me with a three stockpiles of strategic resources, a chest full of silver, and Maege.

"Come on, let's see it." the older woman sneered as I obliged and opened the chest for her to see, "Silver! That's all betraying the honor and squandering the respect of the Mormonts was worth? Silver!"

"No." I told her in a cold response, "The honor and respect of the Mormonts would have been worth the coal. All this is extra."

"You'll pay for this, Jorah, you young fool." Maege growled, "And silver and gold won't buy back what's been lost."

Thankfully, she stomped off after that and I gotta go home to Rockhall and show off my chest full of beautiful silver coins to my boys. Ulfric ran his three year old fingers over the polished coins proclaiming them 'So shiny!' in delight while Galmar joined the Knights of Nee in response as he picked up coins and threw them back into the chest.

"You've taken a dangerous step, husband." Alysa commented as she passed our youngest, Kodlak to me, "If you'd failed, everyone would just laugh at you for being young and dumb. But you succeeded, and of course you succeeded. I've never seen anyone be so sure of himself without feeling like a complete fraud."

"I assure you, I spent half that trip with my balls up in my throat and my stomach in my boots." I informed her and she just snorted and shook her head.

"How did anyone take you seriously with your neck swollen up to three times its normal size?" she laughed and then then regained her composure, "You aren't going to stop, you want more, and those who rise up do not last long in the North."

I put a hand on her cheek and nodded, "The Starks have tolerated the Boltons and their vileness for thousands of years. They'll tolerate me for the next few decades. And for the rest? They'll have to get through my friends and relatives before they can even think of crossing the Bay of Ice to bother me, and I will have many friends and relatives before long. Glover for me, Norrey, Liddle, Barley for the boys. I'll bind them all with wealth and blood."

"If only it were as easy as it is to say." she lamented.

I responded, "The hardest choices require the strongest wills."

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Will the power of money overcome the petty laziness of the nobles of Westeros? Will the bindings of blood stave paranoid high lords? Find out in future installments of 'Path of the Hungry Bear'!

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