章 40: Entry Twenty-Nine
Date: February 10, 300 After Landing, Winter, Long Winter
Location: Winterfell
Queen Catelyn Stark has locked herself in the sept for the Faith of the Seven for the last few days, since a raven arrived from the Vale informing of Lady Lysa's death. I am starting to realize exactly why people see messenger ravens and say, "dark wings, dark words." So soon after her father, and with Bran missing and presumed dead, the passing of the Queen's sister seemed to have hit her hard.
I would attempt to console her, but my wife and Maester Luwin are already working on that. The young Prince Rickon (8) has been by her side more recently as well, in fact I rarely see him separated from her, and never far from his direwolf, and I think she will be clinging more to her children now. Sansa is soon to be 14, Arya will be turning eleven soon, and so marriage alliances will soon be considered for both of them, as well as Prince Robb once he returns from the Wall with his father.
Since I didn't make the trip to the Wall, I have taken my role of Lord of War to heart and organized needed supply lines to aid King Stark as well as to the rest of the realm. Snows have crippled most of the lands north of the capital, and once the thaw comes I plan on implementing better roads as well as planting trees to mark them (maybe planting one of the famous weirwood trees at every mile?), but in the meantime we will do what we can to aid them as well. For now, even with the population of Winter Town having swollen to well over fifty thousand people, there is plenty of food stored for the people and beasts. I suspect pigs can be raised, and fed upon, during most of the Long Winter, since they don't need a lot of room and eat leftovers.
Anyway supply trains are being organized to bring excess food from the Riverlands, where the Winter won't be as harsh, and have them brought to Winterfell. From here, the supplies can go where we need them. I've been in contact with new Lord Protector of the Vale, Petyr Baelish, who has been neutral in all of the recent conflicts, who has agreed to sell what food they can spare to us at a very reasonable rate (in exchange for a favor at some future date I suspect). Supplies from the Vale, as well as Braavos, will arrive at Eastwatch-by-the-Sea and White Harbor respectively. Tyrion agreed to send us food, they can sail straight to Seagard, Flint's Finger and Deepwood Motte, but the conflict with the Ironborn will keep their ships docked. I think instead of having them supply us, Tyrion can send the food into the Riverlands to make up for what we take from there.
When Summer comes, and I unveil a horse-drawn reaping machine to end the era of handpicking the ripe grains, I suspect food production will explode and we won't have to worry about food shortages again.
It occurs to me that the reason technology and its development has been stagnate for so many years is because there is only a single place for high education available to the people. From what I understand, mostly from speaking with Luwin, the Citadel is almost military in its organization and with clear lines of thought. While that is successful, it puts a limit on innovation as there are only a few hundred people there at any one time, all of whom are trying to learn. Not innovate. And if there are any innovations that don't seem useful, they are then ignored.
With Winter here, I think I will use this long "off-season" to have a school built in Winterfell. When I asked about it, Luwin seemed interested in the idea. I will even have one built at Sea Dragon Point when I arrive, but I also have plans to grow my school into a college or university. It Westeros is to change, grow and become better, it needs intelligent minds. I'm only one person, and can't think of everything. I've already written and drawn designs for letterpress printing, a technique based off of Gutenberg's press, that will allow thousands of sheets of text to be copied each day. Oddly enough, paper making is already a common enough practice in Westeros, it just needs to be scaled up to meet the coming demands. Still, I like to use chalk and slate until I have firm details worked out.
I've also gotten soap production in Winterfell going strong, and proved the benefits as several new mothers can attest.
Huh, I guess my mind is wandering. When I'm out there, fighting, my mind focuses on the fighting. But here, sitting at a desk with little to do but write letters, thoughts and ideas are flooding into my mind like a dam just burst. There are no distractions here, not unless you make them, so with so much information in my head I'm starting to find that the only way to focus them is to write them down. I only just realized that I was about to write the very detailed process of soap making when I forced myself to stop.
Oh, from the news coming in from the south, King Stannis has a newborn son, named Orys. Hopefully he will grow up to be a just leader, and my own children will not have to war with him.
And hopefully he will be a smarter leader than his father. The fleet from the Reach arrived in Ironborn waters…and was quickly smashed by the much larger Islander fleet. Forty thousand men from across the Stannis's kingdom were lost, while the Islands lost only a few hundred who were born in those waters and know them like the back of their hands. Worse for them, a few ships arrived at the Shield Islands and its 10,000 men took them for their Drowned God. Asha Greyjoy was reluctant to launch her fleet there, after being forced off of the Westerlands, but between the two of us we came up with a workable plan. Now Highgarden itself is within reach of the Kraken, while the holds of Old Oak and Bandallon are open for raiding.
I find it odd how I have become such a good friend with someone who tried to kill me, but somehow it works. Dacey also finds it odd, but mostly funny.
Anyway, it's time for Jon's sparing session. Arya and Syrio will be there as well this time, so things should be interesting.
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