Capítulo 12: Making a Living to Making Money
Mid 270 Summer
Alsya collapsed onto my chest after she finished hard, showing me what victory really feels like. I brushed her dark hair away from my face and wiped some of the sweat from her brow.
"Tell the slave woman to bring more wine." she moaned in exhaustion causing my chest under her to rumble with laughter.
I bid the woman to do so from her place in the room nearby, then turned my face back to my naked wife, "My dear, we cannot call Ysolt a slave woman." I chuckled again at the mental gymnastics, "Slavery is illegal. She's a thrall. We're not slavers, we're just old fashioned."
"Ah yes, the one part of the culture you happen to embrace is the one that allows you to collect bed slaves, as many as you like." Alysa lightly sneered as our ginger thrall brought her a goblet of wine purchased on one my ventures in Lannisport, "It would have been far more socially acceptable for you to have simply taken out your lusts on poor Brandy. The gods know how long she has yearned for your affection."
"But, my dear, that would be adultery." I jokingly scoffed and we both laughed about it.
We knew how marriage in Westeros works. I am free to openly slake my passionate desires with anyone I so choose, only finding conflict if the male relatives of the woman are powerful enough to avenge any 'dishonoring' that has occurred. Meanwhile if I discovered that she has done the same I can - and am expected to - cast her aside and declare all her children bastards, sending them away from my lands to beg for succor with her birth family who may or may not choose to shelter her after her whorish wanton ways have shamed the family so.
I appreciated Alysa's disconnected emotional temperament. Her natural inclination to cold logic cut through so much headache. She must have suffered greatly in canon, married to a tried and true simp loser. Feeling sorry for her suffering I grabbed onto her motherhood rounded butt cheeks and started bouncing her on my cock as back pay for those years of pain.
And this time, when she wanted no more she had someone to tag in and try to exhaust my indefatigable manhood.
They made a valiant effort.
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Though I wanted to jump right into trading this year considering my large stocks of luxury goods on hand, domestic duties put a kibosh to that. The rapid shift over the last year and half of people moving to the harbor village at the foot of Mormont Keep and away from the perimeter fishing villages required an intelligent intervention before the compromises of the now start causing future suffering.
Though we never bothered creating strictly accurate census data, we knew from yearly taxes that Bear Island hosted around forty five hundred people before the boys and I dropped another three hundred and sixty thralls on our shores.
As of now the harbor village has grown from simply the largest settlement on the island to the home of over half the population, who moved there due to jobs provided by me as both the direct and indirect support for my trading ventures. Before this migration the village looked sad and poor, but now it looked like a complete shanty town. Conditions were cramped and dingy enough that we were just asking to get hit hard by a fire or plague.
Fortunately I had three hundred and forty hard as nails men who'd spent the last ninety days living rough and wild on hand to kick start the process of building an organized, clean, and defensible town capable of bearing the current population and its rapid expansion. People complained as we moved them into tents to clear and level the land required, but it was just whinging, and quickly stopped when the sturdy longhouses started going up and the crushed stone paths paved the important routes through the settlement.
The project should have taken three months to finish, but swiftly ballooned to take up the rest of the year when those living in the outlying villages left their homes and traveled to us in search of a more prosperous and secure life. While it less than doubled the need for housing, we needed to clear and grade far more land, fell and season more timber, triple the expansion of our docks, and since I had all my citizens in one place, defend them.
We build earth and wood ramparts to separate us from the wild interior and the sea. Anyone looking to harm us would find no egress unfortified. In the cold and damp conditions of our home, it'd take Danny and her dragons showing up to burn us out, and considering the highly improbable series of events that see her getting those fire breathing lizards, I'm willing to delay worrying about them for the next thirty years.
By the end of the work we'd cleared the land of trees for acres around our newly built harbor town, transformed the lives of the citizens, completed the most expansive project in the history of the island, and completely wiped out my savings as our only form of trade during this time consisted of us purchasing food from Seaguard. The complete draining of my cash reserves proved to be a very temporary set back, and an easy sacrifice for the greatly improved efficiency of my now urban population.
When I did not arrive for any further ventures within half a year, Ser Lionel Lannister sent a raven with a message inquiring of my welfare, and after informing him of my labors the man and his wife embarked from Lannisport on a heavy trading carrack loaded with food and nails, arriving at our work in progress docks in the tenth month of the year and staying with us for a fortnight.
He congratulated me on my accomplishments, though having never seen the state of Bear Island before, the effect was far less dazzling than it truly is. He also congratulated me for the bulging midsection of my wife who was due within the next three months. They smartly ignored the swollen belly of my silent ginger servant. Little did they know, my children by Ysolt would be legal Mormonts, no need for any legitimizing by a king.
I intended to take a new salt wife with each great raid, and by the time of the War of Five Kings, the Mormonts would outnumber the Freys. We shall pass over them as a raging tidal wave, and wash away all their iniquity with blood and steel. It will be biblical.
Rockhall received its first noble guests. The underhill manse continued expanding after my marriage to Alysa, and I spent the last seven months replacing the doors, wall cladding, and furniture with weirwood. I'd mostly finished the renovations by the time the Lannisters arrived, and when the couple saw my home wall to wall full of the one of the most expensive building materials in the world their estimation of me jumped several fold.
Ser Lionel had been quite giddy when I revealed to him the quantities of exotic pelts, ivory, and weirwood I intended to take to Lannisport before the coming of the new year, and the man promised to set up an auction for the goods when he returned home. When I brought up the topic of a strategy to best monetize future supply, Lady Brenda Lannister required a fan to cool her excited blood, and Ser Lionel looked quite hot under the collar. We kept it toasty in Rockhall, but not that toasty.
As very minor nobility quite removed from the Lords of their houses the stigma against earning your coin instead of sitting around rent collecting did not apply. The opportunity to facilitate the sale of such rare luxury goods meant a giant leap in their personal fortunes, and in truth I didn't need to even be generous with their cut of the sales for them to be greatly enriched.
When the time came for us to follow them down to Lannisport, I took with me the full eight ships of my fleet, three more having been finished throughout the year. Only two were loaded with the goods for auction, but I saw no reason not to unload some more pine on the Westerlands.
Ser Lionel practically rolled out the red carpet for us, and it became apparent why when the Lannisters successfully bid for a large portion of my luxury goods. Not the Lannisport Lannisters, but a procurer for the Lannisters of Casterly Rock.
As he watched merchants from Myr and Tyroshi take their billets, the man informed us that House Lannister would reserve right of first offer in the future before any such spectacles as we put on would be nessasary. To keep rare Westerosi goods out of the uncouth hands of foreigners was worth a premium price. After all, money was of no concern to House Lannister.
"You've done it, lad." Ser Lionel declared as the procurer walked away imperiously, "You've got the attention of the richest house in Westeros."
I couldn't help but laugh, causing him to scowl.
"Phrasing, my friend." I smiled, "In different context that statement would be very menacing."
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Originally I chose the durations on Bear Island's reconstruction arbitrarily, and when I went back to do the math I realized that Jorah and the Boyz were slacking off, nearly at half their productive capacity. Which makes sense as they needed to prep the work zone and their materials. This means my numbers in this chapter were both arbitrary and factually correct. I feel like I have achieved some kind of literary paradox or I'm a scheduling savant. Yeah, 20. Definitely, 20.
I also like how G Ser Lionel is. This dude gets in the car and rolls with it where it goes. This dude let's you know what it means when the Mexicans got on boots.
You can support me and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
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