Winterfell grew larger the closer they came.
When he had first seen it at the edge of the horizon, it had been no more than a blurred outline beneath a gray sky: a low, unbroken line, several towers rising above it, and thin smoke curling up behind. But as the carriage traveled north, the line became walls, and the walls revealed themselves as one immense castle.
Daemon had been three when word of the glass first reached Winterfell from White Harbor.
But White Harbor and Winterfell were not neighboring houses. It took time to verify a rumor, and the days continued to pass while men and letters traveled back and forth across the North. By the time Wyman's report had gone north and Rickard's invitation had returned to White Harbor, the year had already changed.
In the meantime, Daemon had celebrated his fourth nameday.
The season was still cold, and the North's landscape had scarcely changed, but the child Rickard Stark would meet was now four, not the three-year-old of whom he had heard the tale—that he had made glass.
To Daemon himself, the castle before his eyes mattered more.
"...Wow."
At some point, he had leaned toward the front of the carriage and become unable to take his eyes from Winterfell.
Raymund, riding beside the carriage, said nothing. Winterfell was his first sight of it as well.
Stark.
A house that had ruled the North for thousands of years, once called itself kings, and still styled itself the Wardens of the North.
Raymund had seen kings. He had seen many nobles, and passed many castles upon battlefields. He was no longer of an age to gape merely because some stone walls were tall.
Even so, Winterfell was different.
It did not perch upon a mountaintop or lean against a cliff. It simply stood upon a broad plain. That made it seem all the more immense. The fact that men had built something so great without relying upon the intimidation of the land itself was proof of power.
Walls did not grow on their own.
They required men to quarry stone, move it, and lay it. They required timber and iron, grain and wages. Even after they were completed, soldiers had to be fed, breaches repaired, and the whole maintained for centuries.
In the end, a great castle was power made solid in stone: proof of how many people and resources a house had been able to command, and for how long.
In that sense, Winterfell's gray walls were rather talkative, despite saying nothing at all.
Raymund watched the castle a while, then glanced beside him.
Daemon's eyes were gleaming.
Raymund knew that look.
It was the look he wore just before becoming noisy.
In truth, Daemon had not been interested in castles themselves for very long.
Until he installed heating in New Castle, a castle had merely been a castle to him.
Large.
Tall.
A place where wealthy, powerful people lived.
That was all.
Even in his previous life, he had scarcely had an opportunity to properly examine a real military fortress. He had seen castle ruins and reconstructed palaces while traveling, but most had lost their original purpose and become tourist sites selling tickets and souvenirs.
New Castle had been different.
It had looked magnificent from outside.
Tall walls and gatehouses, towers, thick stone buildings.
Yes. This is a medieval castle.
At first, Daemon had admired it too.
But once he began tracing its interior structure to install heating, his assessment changed a little.
...A legacy system.
Of course, this world had no phrase such as legacy system.
The phenomenon itself existed quite faithfully.
When they needed a room, they attached one. When they needed a passage, they broke through a wall. Decades later, when that passage was no longer needed, they sealed it again. Someone built a stairway, a later generation added a building beside it, and still another built a room atop it.
In some sections, one had to climb an entire floor and descend again simply to reach the room next door.
Every chimney was different.
Every drain was different.
When he followed the structure in order to fit in heating flues, there were times he wanted to curse whichever ancestor had thought it wise to build that particular wall.
Still, these were buildings that had been used for centuries.
Their owners and needs had changed with every age. They could not demolish the entire castle and build it anew whenever they needed one more room.
It was the sort of place where, had he been assigned maintenance duties in his previous life, he would have written his resignation first.
Strangely, he found that sort of thing amusing now.
Because it was imperfect, it felt like a building where people had lived for a very long time.
Then a thought had occurred to him.
I could build a castle of my own someday.
Earn money.
Find a suitable piece of land somewhere in Essos.
Somewhere near the sea, if possible, with water and a place where a harbor could be built.
Then plan it from the beginning exactly as he wished.
Heating and drainage.
Warehouses and workshops.
Stables and glass gardens.
A harbor too, if he could manage it.
When Daemon found an idea he liked, he was not the sort of man who merely imagined it and forgot it.
So he began seeking books on fortification and siegecraft.
The problem was the books of this age.
It was not uncommon for the thickness of a wall to be dealt with in two lines, while the brave death of some knight upon that wall received three entire chapters.
Medieval chroniclers had been astonishingly inconsiderate of what a reincarnated mechanical engineering major might wish to know centuries later.
Still, when he read several records together, certain things gradually began to show themselves.
Why was the gate there?
Why did the tower rise in that position?
Why did the wall turn in that direction?
For that reason, Winterfell was an interesting castle even from afar.
"Old man."
"What?"
"Those are double walls, right?"
Raymund looked ahead as well.
"So it seems."
As they came closer, the higher inner wall behind the outer wall became clear.
The books said the outer wall stood around eighty feet, while the inner wall was close to a hundred.
Daemon immediately converted them in his head.
About twenty-four meters.
About thirty meters.
Then he became irritated at once.
What the fuck is this feet nonsense?
Daemon had hated imperial units since his previous life. He converted feet to meters, pounds to kilograms, and every time he saw Fahrenheit he was reminded that the progress of humanity had not always moved in the right direction.
To spread the metric system in this world, he would first have to create the "international" part of the International System of Units. For now, the most economical option was to curse alone while converting everything.
The walls had been tall even as numbers.
In person, they were more than tall.
Daemon tipped back his head.
"That's insane."
"The height?"
"Yeah."
The ground around them lay wide open.
An attacking army would have to show itself from far away. It would drag carts, ladders, and siege towers beneath arrows, cross the moat, and then climb an outer wall some twenty-four meters high.
Suppose it somehow succeeded.
That was worth celebrating.
Then an inner wall thirty meters high awaited it.
It was like depleting a boss's health bar in a game only for a second phase to begin without warning.
The attackers of the age had no concept of games, so they had probably just cursed.
The corner of Daemon's mouth rose.
"Whoever built this must have had a truly awful personality."
Raymund glanced down at him.
"Is that praise?"
"The highest praise."
A soldier who crossed the outer wall would find himself trapped between the two. Behind him stood the wall he had just climbed at the risk of his life, and ahead loomed the still higher inner wall. Defenders atop it could rain arrows and stones down from an overwhelming advantage of height.
"It's a complete kill zone."
Raymund's gaze turned downward.
"What did you say?"
"A place that's good for driving people in and killing them efficiently... Ah!"
His earlobe was seized.
"Old man!"
"Your language is frivolous."
"But the meaning is right."
"The meaning is not the issue."
His fingers tightened a little more.
Daemon grimaced.
"Ah, all right!"
Only then did Raymund let go.
Daemon covered his ear and looked up.
Raymund said bluntly, "Do not say whatever comes to your mouth before your elders."
"Is that really so important?"
"It is."
The answer came at once.
"And do not forget your age."
Daemon fell silent for a moment.
"I'm four now."
"Yes. Only four."
"Only is a little—"
"I do not care if you make yourself look ridiculous."
"What?"
"Do not diminish your mother's dignity too."
Daemon became a little quieter.
Looking ahead, Raymund added, "It means think once before you speak."
That was all.
The lesson was brief, and his ear hurt.
It was not a refined method of education, but it was effective.
"All right."
Daemon remained quiet for about three seconds.
"Still, I think it counts as child abuse."
Raymund's hand moved.
Daemon covered both ears.
"A joke."
Raymund did not dignify him with a reply.
As they neared the castle, the marks of time became clearer. Though all was gray granite, weathering differed from section to section, as did the shapes of towers, windows, and arrow slits.
There was no knowing whether Winterfell had truly been built eight thousand years ago, as legend claimed.
Eight thousand years sounds like bullshit, no matter how I look at it.
He did not say it aloud.
His ears had learned.
Yet even if the number in the legend was exaggerated, that did not make the castle any less ancient. It was unlikely the first walls remained unchanged to this day. When they collapsed, they would have been rebuilt; when necessary, raised higher; when some new siege method defeated them, strengthened by the next generation.
A wall did not refuse to be used merely because the knowledge behind it had been learned from an enemy.
A castle was, in the end, much like a house's history book.
The difference was that it was written in stone instead of paper, and erasing a wrongly written sentence required dozens of masons.
"The greater the house grew, the more unpleasant a castle it must have become to face."
Raymund looked at him.
"Did you choose those words?"
"Very carefully."
"Then that will do. Keep speaking like that."
Daemon was somewhat dissatisfied, but did not argue.
They passed through Winter Town, where there were more people: men carrying firewood, servants leading horses, people moving laden carts. Eyes followed the unfamiliar carriage that had come up from White Harbor.
At last, Winterfell's gatehouse filled his vision.
Daemon tipped back his head again.
"Wow..."
This time Raymund looked at the same sight for quite a while.
Daemon had lived with him for years. He could distinguish the eyes that counted soldiers, entrances, and escape routes upon entering unfamiliar ground from the eyes that simply admired something.
"You were impressed too, old man."
The response came a little late.
"A little."
Daemon's eyes widened.
"Wow."
"Why?"
"There are things that impress you too."
Raymund looked down at him.
Daemon immediately faced forward.
Shortly afterward, the gates opened.
As the carriage passed through the deep shadow beneath the gatehouse, Daemon reflexively looked up at the arrow slits, the thickness of the doors, and the width of the passage.
He began to speak, then glanced once at Raymund.
"The gate is... quite sturdy too."
Raymund said shortly, "Better."
"What's better?"
"Your language."
"I learn quickly."
The carriage emerged into the winter light.
From outside, Winterfell was a fortress. Inside, it was closer to a small town. People lived, ate, and worked here. Horses were raised, grain was stored, and every building bore layered traces of repairs and additions made over centuries.
Daemon admired it sincerely.
"I like it here."
"You have scarcely been inside."
"Even so."
Daemon slowly looked up at the walls and towers.
"When I build my own castle someday, I ought to use this place as a reference."
Raymund did not answer.
At the time, neither of them imagined those words would return to trouble them in a remarkably inconvenient fashion only days later.
＊ ＊ ＊
The first thing Rickard Stark thought when he saw the child descend from the carriage was simple.
Small.
Naturally.
He was four.
Yet after hearing reports from White Harbor for months, Rickard seemed to have unconsciously imagined someone a little different.
He had devised a new way to heat homes.
With Manderly's backing, he had turned a glass workshop upside down and eventually made glass from sand and ash.
Rumors readily magnified men. They made one think that a person who had done something remarkable must look remarkable in some way as well.
But a genius did not have the word genius written upon his forehead.
If he did, judging people would be much easier than it was now.
His hair had been dyed black, his cheeks reddened a little by the cold. Dust from the long journey clung to his clothes.
His eyes were somewhat unusual.
At first they seemed gray, but in the winter light faint green and blue surfaced in them. They were blue-gray green, like a deep sea.
The child looked up at the old man behind him.
The man brushed dust from his clothes several times.
Daemon stood quietly, as if used to it.
Before long, the pair approached.
Daemon drew a breath.
Then bowed.
Far too deeply.
Rickard looked down at the child's black crown.
"It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Daemon. Thank you for inviting me, Lord Stark."
Rickard briefly looked at Raymund behind him.
The old man's face was expressionless.
Still, he did not look like someone seeing that greeting for the first time.
He looked more like a man who had tried to correct it many times and had already given up.
"Raise your head."
Daemon straightened.
He appeared nervous.
He did not appear frightened.
Rather, his eyes were busy.
Rickard.
The knights around him.
The gatehouse.
The walls.
The courtyard.
The drains.
Then Rickard again.
His gaze lingered somewhat longer on structures than people.
Rickard considered that for a moment.
Was that because he was a genius as well?
He dismissed the thought soon afterward.
Once a man began looking for what he wished to see, he could find meaning in any action.
"How was the journey?"
"It was good. It was a little stifling to be aboard a ship on the White Knife for so long."
"It must have taken quite some time."
"Yes. I thought it might be better if the shape of ships were changed a little, but..."
A low voice cut in from behind him.
"Young master."
Daemon's mouth closed.
The child's and old man's eyes met briefly.
Daemon looked back to Rickard.
"...It was only something I thought about during the journey."
Rickard's interest grew a little.
This time he studied Raymund.
Manderly's master of the hunt.
It was surely not an incorrect title.
But these were not hands that had only hunted. Thick knuckles, layers of callus, an ear distorted by an old tear, and a scar beneath the jaw.
He had held a bow for a long time.
He had held a sword for a long time too.
Above all, he bore traces of fighting directly entangled with other men.
The most natural explanation was that he had been a mercenary.
In the Free Cities, men who lived by their swords were common. It would not be strange if he had served Daemon's dead father for a long time and followed the woman and child all the way to the North when misfortune struck their household.
Raymund's eyes kept returning to Daemon.
It was not the habit of a guard hired for a short while.
Rickard remembered it.
Raymund, in turn, was watching Rickard.
Young.
But his eyes were not young.
They were eyes that measured people rather than simply seeing them. They took in the position of hands and feet, the balance of the body, manner of speech, and where one's gaze rested.
He did not need a loud voice.
When Rickard moved, those around him made space of their own accord.
Raymund did not like men like that.
More precisely, he was wary of them.
"I am Raymund, master of the hunt."
"Wyman has told me of you."
"Lord Manderly treats me more generously than I deserve."
That was all.
Brief, and polite only as much as necessary.
Rickard turned his gaze to Daemon again.
"Do you like Winterfell?"
The child's face brightened immediately.
"Yes."
"What do you like so much?"
"The double walls were the first thing I noticed. Even after crossing the outer wall, the inner wall is higher, so the attackers would be at a great disadvantage."
Daemon glanced sidelong at Raymund.
"And the space between them is... quite dangerous too."
Rickard looked between the two.
The child had evidently intended to use a different word.
"Have you read about fortification?"
"A little."
"At four?"
Daemon looked rather as though the question were strange.
"You can read books regardless of age."
One of the nearby knights gave a small cough.
"Why did you read about fortification?"
"Because I want to build a castle of my own someday."
This time Rickard was briefly at a loss for words.
"You?"
"Yes. After I make lots of money."
It was too natural.
"Where?"
"Essos."
"Why not the North?"
Daemon thought for a moment.
"I'm not a lord."
"True."
"And I'm not a knight granted land. A house might be possible, but I don't think you can build a castle anywhere merely because you have money."
This time he spoke a little more slowly.
It was plain that the child was translating his thoughts into words adults could understand.
"Here, there is always someone above you. In the North, there is Lord Stark, and lords beneath him as well."
"There are no such people in Essos?"
"Not exactly none... It seemed different."
Daemon explained within the limits of what he had read.
The Free Cities were strong.
Their power reached important places: ports, farmland, rivers, roads, mines.
But exercising authority as closely over every piece of land colored as their own on a map as feudal lords did in Westeros was another matter.
When Valyria existed, overwhelming military power, roads, and dragons had filled those gaps. But now there was no such center.
"So I thought that if there was land with few people and little importance, there might be more room there than here."
Rickard watched the child for a moment.
"Who taught you that?"
"No one taught me exactly."
Daemon tipped his head a little.
"When you look at what the books say together, it just seems that way."
Rickard did not answer.
Walys, standing beside him, looked at the child anew.
Daemon looked between them and asked carefully, "Am I wrong?"
"I did not say you were wrong."
At that moment, Liara Stark approached with a nursemaid and children.
"Could this talk not continue after we go inside?"
The instant Daemon saw her, he bowed deeply again.
Liara stopped walking.
"You need not bow quite so deeply, dear."
Daemon raised his head.
"Pardon?"
"At that rate, you will return home having seen only Winterfell's floor."
Behind him, Raymund closed his eyes for the briefest moment.
"My mother told me to be very polite."
"You have learned very well. Still, you need not bend until your back aches here."
"Yes."
Daemon smiled, looking slightly embarrassed.
Then Brandon, holding Liara's hand, stepped forward.
He looked up at Daemon.
Daemon looked down at him.
Wow.
He's really a child.
He temporarily excluded the fact that he himself was four.
Brandon looked back at his mother.
"Mama."
"What is it?"
A little finger pointed at Daemon.
"Baby."
Daemon's face stiffened.
Liara laughed, and the corner of Rickard's mouth moved too.
"I'm not a baby."
Brandon said it again.
"Baby."
"I'm four."
"Baby."
Daemon opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
There was one fatal problem with arguing with a two-year-old.
Even if you won, you lost.
The child who had been explaining Essos's power structure moments before was being treated as a baby by a two-year-old, and he was sincerely offended.
Watching him, Rickard felt a little reassured.
Yes.
He certainly was four.
＊ ＊ ＊
Three days passed in Winterfell.
In that time, Daemon roughly completed the things a guest who had traveled far ought to do. He ate in the great hall, conveyed greetings from White Harbor and Wyman's words, and followed the Poole household's steward through the areas guests were permitted to visit.
Ordinarily, it would not have taken very long.
The problem was how Daemon looked at a castle.
When an ordinary person saw an old tower, he saw a tower.
Daemon saw cracks in its walls, the direction of drainage, the position of chimneys, and door hinges.
From the escort's point of view, he was a rather exhausting tourist.
Before long, he noticed something.
Winterfell was warm.
It was a great stone castle in the heart of the North, with cold winds outside, yet some corridors and rooms held far less chill than he expected.
Daemon touched a wall as he passed.
He felt a subtle warmth.
"What are you doing?" the steward asked.
"Nothing."
That was his answer, but his mind had already grown busy.
He had read of it in a book.
There were natural hot springs beneath Winterfell, and their heat was used in many parts of the castle. The precise arrangement might not be identical in every section, but the principle of using a natural heat source for heating was unmistakable.
From Daemon's perspective, it was a little unfair.
At New Castle, he had wrestled with where to run flues, incomplete combustion, soot, and firewood consumption, while this castle only had to dig into the ground for hot water to come out.
They were born with a cheat code.
Of course, hot springs did not solve every problem. Flow rate, deposits, leaks, and the durability of pipes still needed consideration. He also wondered how far heat could be transported reliably.
But he could not tear up another man's castle floor to inspect it.
Not yet.
He saw the glass gardens too.
Frost lay outside, yet vegetables and herbs grew in the soil beneath the glass.
Daemon stared at them for a long time.
He understood more vividly why glass made in White Harbor held value for northern lords.
Then, on the afternoon of the third day, Rickard summoned Daemon to his solar.
"You're not coming, old man?"
Raymund straightened Daemon's collar once.
"Go alone."
"Why?"
"You were summoned."
"Still."
"Go."
Daemon narrowed his eyes.
"Do you trust me that little?"
"I trust you."
Daemon's expression eased a little.
"I simply do not trust your mouth."
"...I was just about to be moved."
"Go."
That was all.
In White Harbor, Raymund might have accompanied him close by. But Winterfell was different. Rickard already knew who Daemon was, and if an armed old man followed whenever a lord summoned a child alone, it would raise questions other than those of protection.
More than that, Raymund had watched Rickard for the past three days.
He did not trust him.
But neither did Rickard seem the sort to harm a child without reason.
That was enough.
＊ ＊ ＊
Rickard's solar was plainer than Daemon expected.
Thick stone walls, a fireplace, a large desk, several chairs, books.
And a map of the North occupying one wall.
Rickard and Maester Walys were in the room.
"You have come."
"I was told you summoned me."
This time Daemon bowed at a suitable angle.
The result of learning.
"Sit."
Daemon looked at the chair.
It was tall.
He planted both hands on the seat, hauled himself up, and barely managed to sit; both feet hung above the floor.
Rickard and Walys pretended not to see.
They were both adults.
Daemon wished he could pretend not to see as well.
Fuck.
He could discuss states and history in his mind, but his feet did not reach the ground.
Reality sometimes humbled a man in excessively specific ways.
When Daemon's gaze went to the stone wall, Rickard asked, "What is it?"
"The hot springs."
"You know of them?"
"I read about them. Now that I've come here myself, they're even more remarkable."
"How do they compare with the heating you made?"
Daemon answered at once.
"Here, there is hardly any need to use mine."
Walys held back a laugh.
Daemon felt sincerely slighted.
"The ground gives you heat by itself."
The corner of Rickard's mouth moved slightly.
"And the glass gardens?"
"I saw them."
"What did you think?"
"They're good."
A short, childlike answer came first.
Daemon thought for a moment and added, "White Harbor glass is inferior to Myrish glass, but I think it is sufficient for those. If it is made well, the gardens could probably be expanded beyond what they are now."
Rickard said nothing.
After a while, his gaze moved between the map on the wall and Daemon.
"It seems you like maps too."
"They're interesting."
"What is?"
"When you only look at them, they're the shape of land. But when you see them together with history, you can see other things too."
"For example?"
Daemon looked at the map.
"Why a city rose where it did, why a castle was built in a certain place, why people fought each other."
Rickard leaned back in his chair.
"Then you must have read the history of the Starks as well."
"Yes."
"What did you think?"
Daemon considered.
"The old days and now seem very different."
"In what way?"
"The old Starks..."
He chose his words.
Raymund's tuition had been paid with his ears, but its effects remained.
"They seem to have been rather harsh."
Rickard's eyes deepened slightly.
"Harsh?"
"Yes."
There had once been many kings in the North.
The Marsh King.
The Warg King.
The Red King.
The Barrow King.
And countless lesser kings whose names had not even survived properly.
Over long ages, the Starks defeated them one by one. Records repeatedly appeared of male heirs from defeated royal lines disappearing, while women of those bloodlines wed Starks.
"I do not mean it was always so. Many of the records are very old."
Daemon drew that line first.
"But it seems similar things happened repeatedly."
"What do you believe they did?"
"Rather than simply destroy conquered houses, I think they tried to bring them into their own side."
Rickard listened in silence.
"Even if the male heirs disappeared, if they married women of that house and had children, the blood of the old royal line did not vanish entirely for the conquered side either."
It was not a peaceful method.
The people of that age probably had not done such things expecting peace prizes.
But in terms of ruling after conquest, it held meaning.
"Though cruel, it seems it would have been quite effective at the time."
"And the Starks of today are different?"
"Yes. At least they do not keep going out to conquer other lands."
"When do you think that changed?"
Daemon did not answer immediately.
"I do not know exactly."
The faintest satisfaction crossed Rickard's eyes.
He said he did not know what he did not know.
Daemon lowered his gaze toward the bottom of the map.
"But I think there would have been reason to change after the great rivals within the North had mostly disappeared and they had gained control of the Neck."
"The Neck?"
"Yes."
The Neck was an excellent shield for the North.
At the same time, it was land the northern armies had to pass through when going south.
Narrow causeways and swamps.
Soldiers.
Horses.
Wagons.
Supplies.
Terrain good for defenders was not necessarily kind to attackers too.
"When there were many other kings within the North, they would have had to fight constantly. Otherwise, they might have been conquered in turn."
"And after unification?"
"The cost in money and people of going south to conquer one more stretch of land becomes much greater."
Daemon shrugged slightly.
"At some point, protecting what they had became more cost-effect—"
His mouth stopped.
Daemon rolled his eyes for a moment.
"...I think it may have cost less."
The corner of Rickard's mouth moved ever so slightly. There seemed little need to ask whose education that was.
"Then what of Theon Stark?"
Daemon gave a small laugh.
"He troubled me too."
Theon the Hungry Wolf.
He was too excellent a counterexample.
He had stopped the Andal invasion, crossed to Andalos to fight, conquered the Three Sisters, and sent forces to the Fingers.
"Then was your thought not wrong?"
"My first thought was."
The answer was too calm.
Walys looked at Daemon.
"So I changed my thinking a little."
"So easily?"
Daemon looked puzzled instead.
"If it is wrong, you should change it."
Growing attached to a hypothesis was human.
Defending a false hypothesis to the end was something beyond merely human.
Daemon had no interest in that territory.
"It is not as if every Stark suddenly became meek the day they conquered the Neck."
His explanation was simple.
A house did not change its character overnight.
A house that had repeatedly conquered and occupied was not likely to have suddenly sat before the hearth and fallen in love with peace. As times changed, what actions were profitable likely changed gradually as well.
"I think a king like Theon may have been in the middle of that transition."
"What sort of middle?"
"His way of fighting was harsh like the old kings, but his purpose was closer to defending the North."
Rickard narrowed his eyes slightly.
"So how do you judge Theon?"
"I think he was a great king."
"Many in the south call him a barbaric king."
"Because he was cruel."
Daemon did not deny it.
He hung corpses from ships, displayed enemies' heads along the shore, and burned villages.
"I do not think he was a good man."
After a moment's thought, he added like a child, "Especially from his enemies' point of view."
The corner of Rickard's mouth moved.
"Yet a good king?"
"A good person and a good king are not the same thing."
This time Rickard questioned those words.
"Why not?"
Daemon hesitated.
His mother and Raymund would say he needed to choose his words when judging kings in such a place.
And Raymund had, in fact, said exactly that.
Rickard noticed his hesitation.
"Go on."
"My mother and Raymund dislike it when I say whatever comes to mind."
"That old man?"
"Yes."
Daemon unconsciously touched his earlobe.
"He says my language is frivolous."
The corner of Rickard's mouth moved slightly.
"He does not seem entirely wrong."
"It is an important matter to me."
Walys looked down.
Daemon became serious again.
"Anyway, he said if I speak strangely, people will not only think I am ridiculous. They will think strangely of the people who raised me too."
A pause.
"I do not want them to be criticized because of me."
Rickard watched the child for a long while.
Swallowing words from fear and choosing words for another person's sake were different matters.
"Here, you need only give your reasons properly."
"Then..."
Daemon thought briefly.
"For example, the late King Aegon V."
Walys's eyes changed slightly too.
"From what I have read, he seems to have been a good man."
He had seen the lives of common people firsthand.
He had tried to protect them and grant them various rights.
At least in intent, he had been a king who wished to make his people live better.
"Is that the behavior of a bad king?"
"No."
Daemon shook his head.
"But wanting to do good things and actually accomplishing them are different matters."
One needed strength to suppress the opposition of nobles.
If one lacked strength, one had to persuade or compromise.
Above all, if matters ended in a state where the next king could overturn them at will, one had to consider how much of those good intentions would remain.
"I think being a kind man and how well he did as king can be judged separately."
"Then if the result is good, is a king good whatever means he uses?"
Daemon did not answer immediately.
He thought a little.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because results come the next day too."
Rickard's gaze stilled.
A rebellion was crushed brutally today.
Viewed only today, it was a success.
But if it gave rise to a greater rebellion ten years later, that too was a result.
Taxes were collected heavily this year and the treasury filled.
If peasants starved to death next year, one could not call it success by looking at a single line in the accounts.
"A good result in the short term and a good result in the long term can be different."
Rickard nodded slowly.
"Then let us return to Theon. You said he was cruel, yet a good king. What do you believe he did well?"
"First, he was lucky."
Rickard looked somewhat surprised.
"Lucky?"
"Yes. Because a great enemy appeared from outside."
The Andals.
In an age when Stark and Bolton had fought each other for a long time, an enemy arose whom both sides had to face first.
A common enemy did not erase old hatred.
But it was remarkably effective at changing the order of whom one had to kill first.
In Theon Stark's time, Stark and Bolton fought together and won together.
"People who had once thought of themselves as Stark men or Bolton men may have thought of themselves a little more as northerners while fighting the Andals, might they not?"
"That is what you mean by luck?"
"Yes. But luck arriving and making use of it are different too."
After driving back the Andals, Theon did not remain still.
He crossed the sea to Andalos.
"The records say it was vengeance."
"I think that was true too."
"Too?"
Daemon nodded.
"I think it would also have been a warning not to come again."
It did not end with stopping them on the northern coast.
Come again, and we will go all the way to your homeland.
That message alone held meaning.
"And I..."
Daemon hesitated a little.
"I think he may have brought back useful craftsmen and skilled workers."
Walys immediately cut in.
"There is no record of that."
"Yes."
Daemon acknowledged it at once.
"That is why it is only my hypothesis."
"Why did you think so?"
"Because he went so far."
To Daemon, an expedition was not an arrow drawn upon a map.
It consumed ships, food, soldiers, and time.
After spending that much, if one killed every blacksmith, mason, and shipwright of an enemy more advanced in technology and returned with only objects, it seemed a little wasteful.
"I think I would have brought them back."
"You think Theon did too?"
"I do not know that."
He did not state it as fact.
"I mean I think I would have done it."
Rickard liked that answer.
He did not mix his own thoughts with records.
"Then was that expedition not simply raiding in the end?"
"It was."
The answer came too quickly.
Rickard smiled a little.
"Then how was he different from the ironmen?"
This time Daemon thought before answering.
"I think what the raiding was for is different."
The Andals invaded.
The North stopped them.
Theon attacked the enemy's stronghold, took resources, and returned.
It was a means used within one war.
By contrast, in the old Iron Islands, raiding itself had seeped into their way of life, economy, and honor.
They raided this year to live.
They launched ships next year to raid again.
Again they took people and goods.
"One was a method used while waging war," Daemon said.
"For the other, the method itself seems to have become the purpose at some point."
Rickard considered that for a moment, then naturally moved to the next question.
"Then what of the Three Sisters and the Fingers?"
Daemon looked toward the map.
"Those seem a little different from Andalos."
"How?"
The Vale had been among the first places where the Andals established a strong foothold.
The Three Sisters and the Fingers lay directly before the North.
"Rather than wait for the Andals to reach the northern coast, did he not strike first at the space from which they could cross again?"
"Conquest for defense?"
"He must have desired conquest too. He actually took the Three Sisters—"
Daemon's mouth halted once.
"...occupied them."
A faint smile passed through Rickard's eyes.
Daemon pretended not to notice and continued.
"Still, it is completely different whether such a position is held by a power hostile to the North or by the North itself."
An outpost.
A buffer.
A sea route.
Daemon marked distances on the map with his finger.
"In Andalos, he struck a distant enemy and returned. Here, I think he was trying to push the defensive line farther forward from the North's doorstep."
Rickard stared at the map for a long time.
From there, the discussion of Theon naturally led to the Boltons.
"A moment ago, you said the Andal invasion gave Stark and Bolton a chance to fight together."
"Yes."
"Then let me ask one thing."
Rickard's finger pointed northeast.
"Why do you think the Boltons, who styled themselves the Red Kings for so long, ultimately remained beneath the Starks?"
This time Daemon thought a long while.
"I do not think there was only one reason."
"If you had to choose one?"
Daemon looked once at the warm stone walls around him.
"Could it have been a difference built up over a long time?"
"What difference?"
"There may have been productive capacity, for one."
Rickard's brow moved.
Daemon added at once, "I do not know the exact harvest yield. The existence of hot springs does not mean every Stark land had good farming."
That could not be confirmed by records.
But if Winterfell, the center of the house, used less firewood in winter and could feed people more reliably, even a small difference could accumulate over a very long time.
Glass gardens.
Hot springs.
People and livestock surviving winter.
Seeds and herbs that could be preserved.
"In a single winter, it may not have been much difference," Daemon said.
"But if royal houses fight for hundreds of years, would not even a small difference keep accumulating?"
Rickard listened silently.
"What else?"
"I think they may have handled people differently too."
"The Starks and Boltons?"
"Yes."
Daemon chose his words.
"The Starks were not a kind house either."
Walys's brows rose slightly.
Rickard continued to listen without reaction.
"When you look at the old records, there are a great many stories of killing and conquest."
"And?"
"I think the Boltons put terror too far in front."
They flayed men.
They displayed it.
This is what happens if you defy us.
Terror worked swiftly.
There was no need to distribute an instruction manual.
The problem was that people understood it too well.
"If someone seems like the kind of person who will flay you even if you surrender, you might think it better to fight to the end."
Rickard's eyes shifted.
"And the people around them would see it too."
Today, they were allies.
Would they still be allies tomorrow, when they became weak?
If a house used terror almost as an identity, surrounding lords would calculate their future as well.
"You can make people obey from fear, but it would be hard to make them like you."
The child's expression was simple.
The meaning was not.
"And the Starks?"
"The Starks must have been frightening too."
Daemon did not romanticize them.
"But after winning, records more often show them trying to bring their opponents into their own system."
Marriage.
Vassalage.
Absorbing the blood of old royal houses into their own line.
A liege under whom a defeated house had a greater chance of surviving.
That difference might have shaped the choices of neighboring houses over a very long time.
Rickard said, "Then the Andal invasion was an opportunity for the Boltons as well."
Daemon's face brightened.
"Yes. I thought so too."
They fought alongside an old enemy.
They stopped the same enemy.
They won together.
If that happened several times, the boundary changed.
Stark's men.
Bolton's men.
Above that, there arose the category of northerners.
Unification did not end merely because a king drew a line on a map.
People also had to change how far they considered their own side to extend.
Rickard remembered that answer.
Then he shifted the subject somewhat.
"Of the Stark kings you have read of, which did you find hardest to understand?"
Daemon's answer came instantly.
"The Burning King."
"You did not even need to think."
"No."
This time, genuine dissatisfaction appeared on Daemon's face.
Brandon the Shipwright had sailed west into the Sunset Sea and never returned.
His son grieved.
That, Daemon understood.
The problem came afterward.
He burned the fleet.
A fleet was not wood piled in the shape of ships.
One selected, cut, seasoned, and transported good timber. One raised keels and ribs and fitted planks. Sails, rope, and iron fittings were needed.
Harder still to restore were the people.
Shipwrights.
Carpenters.
Captains.
Sailors who knew winds and currents, reefs and coasts in their bodies.
A fleet was an organization binding ships together with such people.
It was somewhat too expensive a thing to use entirely as firewood merely because one king was heartsick.
"Especially when the Iron Islands are right off the western coast."
Daemon's face sincerely said that he could not understand.
"I think a king can grieve when his father dies, because a king is still a person."
His voice lowered a little.
"But if he is a king, should he not avoid making the realm pay the price of his grief in his place?"
This time Rickard did not smile either.
For a while, only the sound of firewood burning in the hearth could be heard.
After that silence, Rickard asked, "Then what of Torrhen?"
Daemon raised his head.
"The King Who Knelt?"
"Yes."
Again, there was no hesitation.
"I think he was a great king."
For the first time, clear surprise appeared on Rickard's face.
"Even though he gave up his crown?"
"Because he gave it up."
The Field of Fire and Harrenhal.
Three dragons.
There had already been enough examples in the south of what happened.
One could not say with certainty that Torrhen would have lost had he fought.
There was always chance in war.
But whether a king should gamble tens of thousands of his soldiers' lives on that chance was another matter.
"He lost the crown."
Daemon folded one finger.
"But the army lived."
Two.
"House Stark lived."
Three.
"Winterfell remained."
Four.
"And they continued to rule the North almost exactly as before."
Rickard said, "He lost the name of king."
"Would he have been a better king if he had burned everything else just to protect that one name?"
Rickard did not answer.
Daemon did not press him.
After a moment, he spoke again.
"I think that choice would have been harder, actually."
"What would?"
"He must have known people would condemn him."
The King Who Knelt.
The name remained even centuries later.
Daemon continued slowly.
"The Burning King burned the North's fleet because of his own grief."
A beat.
"I think Torrhen Stark burned his pride to save the North."
That required no joke.
The solar fell quiet.
Daemon thought a little more.
"And northern lords could not all have been fools."
Rickard's brow rose a little.
"What do you mean?"
"There must have been dissatisfaction."
The king did not fight.
He submitted to dragons.
There must have been people who disliked it.
"But if most truly thought Torrhen a coward and believed fighting was right, it would not have been strange if something greater happened afterward."
They could have removed Torrhen.
Raised a new king.
Rebelled against the Targaryens once more.
But no such thing happened.
"Would there not have been many who were relieved inside?"
They returned without dying.
Their sons lived.
The soldiers returned.
And the king bore the greatest disgrace himself.
"It seems Torrhen took the responsibility for the decision and concentrated it upon his own name by kneeling."
Rickard asked quietly, "Is abandoning even one's own honor part of a king's duty?"
Daemon nodded.
"If it can save people."
A moment passed.
"Honor does not mean only what other people call you."
Rickard spoke no word for a long while.
When he had first summoned Daemon, he intended to test him.
How much did he know?
Why had Wyman found this child so interesting?
What truly lay behind the glass and heating?
At some point, he had ceased testing him.
He wanted to know what answer would come next.
So he asked, "Then let us look not at the past, but the present."
Daemon raised his eyes.
"The present?"
"Imagine that you are in charge of the North."
Daemon's face became strange.
"Me?"
"It is only a supposition."
"Ah."
"If the North had to do one thing first now, what would you choose?"
This answer came slowly.
Daemon looked at the wall map for a long time.
The Wall.
Winterfell.
White Harbor.
The Neck.
The eastern sea.
The western sea.
After a long while, he said, "If I could choose only one thing, I would build the western fleet again."
Rickard's brow moved.
"The west?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because there isn't one."
"I know that."
"Exactly."
Daemon pointed at the map.
In the east, there was White Harbor.
A port and merchant vessels.
Shipwrights and fishermen.
People who lived by the sea.
The west was different.
The coast was long and the Iron Islands lay just across the sea, yet the North's seapower there was far too weak.
"I hear Quellon Greyjoy is a moderate man."
"Yes. I think he is moving in a good direction too."
"Yet you would build a fleet?"
Daemon looked at Rickard.
"He will not live forever."
Rickard's gaze stopped.
"And there is no guarantee the next person will think the same way."
Daemon did not view the old ways of the Iron Islands as a mere hobby of madmen.
The islands were poor.
There was little farmland.
They depended on the sea.
And for centuries, raiding had become tangled with livelihood, honor, and identity.
"Lord Quellon may be able to stop it now if he forbids it."
"He could."
"But what if the person changes?"
If an old culture could be deleted by a single royal decree, politics would be a far easier profession.
Unfortunately, human society had no delete button.
"You believe they will raid again someday?"
"Someday."
Daemon was calm.
"I do not know whether it will be the next ruler, ten years from now, or a hundred years from now."
Then he looked at the map.
"But the North will still be here."
Rather than guessing who the other side's next ruler would be, it was better to be prepared to respond whoever came.
"So now?"
"Yes."
Daemon nodded.
"It is not that a fleet is unnecessary because the Iron Islands are quiet now."
A pause.
"They are quiet now, so there is time to build one."
Looking for a shipyard site after war broke out would be a little late.
It was much like digging a well after the fire began.
Rickard asked, "The base?"
Daemon finally climbed down from his chair.
The map mattered more than the loss of dignity caused by his short legs.
He walked before it and pointed northwest.
"Sea Dragon Point."
"Why there?"
"The Wolfswood is near, and it opens directly onto the western sea. I read that the old fortress of the Warg King still remains there."
"It is little more than a ruin."
"If it can be used, repair it. If not, build anew."
"I thought you liked old castles."
Daemon answered seriously, "Liking something and being crushed to death beneath it are different matters."
Walys covered his mouth.
Daemon continued. "But it must be surveyed first."
"For what?"
"Whether it is truly a suitable place for a harbor."
A map could not tell him.
Depth.
Reefs.
Tides.
Winter waves.
Wind.
Ice.
Ships had to be sent out to inspect the coast itself.
Even after finding a suitable place, he did not mean to create a grand fleet from the start.
A small pier.
Repair facilities.
Timber yards.
Fishing boats.
Merchant ships.
Expand it little by little.
Rickard asked immediately, "And the money?"
Daemon's face tightened.
"That is the problem."
Warships did not go hungry merely because there was no war.
Nor did timber cease rotting because a peace treaty was signed, and sails and ropes did not repair themselves out of patriotism.
A standing fleet consumed money simply by existing.
"That is why I do not think we should build a naval base from the beginning."
"Then what?"
"First make a place that earns money from the sea."
Rickard's gaze moved to the Wolfswood on the map.
"Timber."
Daemon's face brightened.
"Yes."
Large timber was heavy and bulky.
Rather than carry trees cut in the west by wagon across the North to White Harbor and load them onto ships again, it was far cheaper to ship them directly from the nearby western coast.
If transport costs fell, even trees that were not worth cutting now became merchandise.
Where timber gathered, merchant ships came.
Where ships came, repair facilities were needed.
Where repair facilities arose, carpenters and shipwrights gathered.
Sailors, sailmakers, and rope makers followed.
In peacetime, they traded.
When war came, that entire industry became the foundation of a fleet.
Rickard summarized it shortly. "Trade in peacetime feeds the fleet in wartime."
Daemon smiled at once.
"Yes. That."
Rickard studied the map a little longer.
"Manderly would like the sound of that."
Daemon paused.
"Wouldn't he like it if it makes money?"
"He would. After all, there is no one who likes money."
Daemon considered that a little, then nodded.
"Then we should make him join in from the beginning."
"Manderly?"
"Yes."
There was no need to compete head-on in precisely the same market as White Harbor.
White Harbor looked to the eastern sea and the Free Cities.
The new harbor would look west.
The Westerlands.
The Reach.
Parts of the Riverlands.
The Sunset Sea.
If Manderly received a share to invest, or sent shipwrights and merchants, he became both a competitor and a stakeholder.
"If some of his money is in it too, he will not want it to fail."
This time Rickard laughed.
"I begin to understand why you get along so well with Wyman."
Daemon looked genuinely puzzled.
"Me?"
Rickard did not bother explaining.
Daemon's plans had a recurring quality.
He did not make the largest thing from the start.
He tried something small.
He watched.
A problem occurred.
He fixed it.
If it seemed workable, he expanded it.
That had been true of heating.
It had been true of glass.
It was the same in matters of policy.
Rickard remembered it.
Then he deliberately threw out another problem.
"Then it would be best to properly restore Moat Cailin as well."
Daemon stopped.
"Moat Cailin?"
"The Neck is the North's shield, according to you."
Militarily, it was not wrong.
Indeed, it was too correct.
Even the remaining towers could control the narrow causeway. Restoring the old castle in full would make it a nightmare for any army coming north.
When Daemon first read the records, he had thought the same thing.
Why don't they repair something this useful?
Now, he thought differently.
"I would not restore it extensively."
Walys looked at Daemon too.
"Why?"
"Because it would draw too much attention."
"But it is militarily useful."
"Is that not exactly why it is more troublesome?"
A fortress did not exist solely as stone.
What people who saw that stone from afar thought of it was also part of its political meaning.
Moat Cailin was especially unfriendly in that regard.
Seen from the north, it was a shield.
Seen from the south, it was a bolt locking the door.
"If Stark suddenly rebuilt Moat Cailin on a grand scale, people in the south would wonder."
"What?"
"Who are they trying to keep out?"
Rickard grew quiet.
"We could call it defense."
Daemon asked in return, "Defense from whom?"
Rickard's eyes narrowed.
There were many explanations for a western harbor.
Sell timber.
Develop the coast.
Expand trade.
Prepare against Iron Islands raids.
But Moat Cailin was a castle that existed from the beginning to stop armies coming north from the south.
"And if glass begins being made in the North, the heating changes, and then we build a western port and fleet too?"
Every individual thing had its reason.
Together, they told another story.
Rickard spoke first. "The North is preparing to live without the south."
Daemon nodded.
"Those who view it harshly may see it that way."
"Independence."
"Some people may think even that far."
The problem was not only the south.
Within the North, there could be men who longed for the age of the old kings.
Stark repaired a fortress without any such intent.
Others attached intent to it.
They were restoring the king's gate.
The North was preparing to stand alone again.
After that, rumors did their work by themselves.
"Repairing one castle could make it seem as though you had made a promise you never made."
Rickard said nothing for a long while.
Militarily, restoration was right.
Precisely because of that military value, it was politically dangerous.
"So only maintenance?"
"Yes. Only enough that it remains usable and does not collapse further."
"Yet a western fleet is all right?"
"That can be explained as being made to sell timber—"
Daemon's mouth halted.
Raymund was not in the room.
Yet his ears remembered.
"...It can be explained that way."
Rickard finally laughed.
"You have learned quite a bit from that old man."
Daemon touched his earlobe.
"I learned with my body. I am trying to be careful."
Rickard's laughter lasted a little longer.
Yet he was thinking.
This child did not see only height when he saw walls.
He saw the people and money needed to build the stone.
When he saw a king, he judged whether he was a good man and whether he was a good ruler separately.
In the rivalry of ancient houses, he saw not only victory and defeat in battle, but productive capacity and the time in which trust accumulated.
When he spoke of fleets, he thought first not of the number of ships, but of ports, shipwrights, sailors, and merchants.
When he looked at a fortress, he saw not only the enemy it might fight, but the minds of people viewing it from afar.
Before meeting Daemon, Rickard had wondered somewhat what face a genius possessed.
Now, the question itself seemed absurd.
What was different was not the face.
It was the way he saw the world.
The solar was quiet for a while.
Rickard stared at Sea Dragon Point on the map.
Then he suddenly said, "Come to think of it, you said you wanted to acquire land in Essos and build a castle."
Daemon's face brightened slightly.
"Yes."
"After earning money."
"Yes."
"Finding land where you can build a harbor."
"If possible."
Rickard rubbed his chin once.
"That would be quite troublesome."
"Pardon?"
"You would have to cross the sea and find land. You would need to learn who claims that land as their own. You would have to pay its price and establish relations with the surrounding cities or powers from the beginning."
The smile gradually vanished from Daemon's face.
Every word was true.
Rickard calmly placed a hand upon the map.
"But it seems you have just chosen one suitable place yourself."
"I did?"
His finger stopped at Sea Dragon Point.
"Would you like to do it yourself?"
Daemon looked at the finger.
Then at Rickard.
"...Do what?"
"What you said."
"What?"
"Rebuild the old fortress."
A pause.
"Build a harbor."
Another pause.
"And set ships afloat."
Daemon still did not understand.
Rickard spoke more directly.
"I am considering granting you the old fortress and the desolate land around it as a fief."
The solar became quiet.
Even Walys did not react at once.
Daemon only blinked.
"Uh..."
Once.
"Me?"
"Yes."
"Me?"
"Must I say it twice for you to understand?"
"No."
His usual manner of speaking slipped out at once.
Daemon shut his mouth.
"...No. That is not what I meant."
For the first time, the child who had spoken without pause about thousands of years of history, kings, war, and fleets was completely at a loss for words.
Rickard found the sight somewhat amusing.
"Why?"
"Wait a moment."
Daemon raised both hands.
He had wanted a castle.
That was true.
He wanted land as well.
A harbor too.
Workshops.
But that was for later.
After earning more money.
After becoming an adult.
After finding suitable land and preparing.
Now?
Daemon looked down at his hands.
They were small.
His fingers were short too.
They were hard evidence against which it was difficult to argue.
"I'm four."
"Yes."
"And you are telling me to be a lord?"
"There is no law saying a four-year-old cannot become a lord."
"That is usually when their father dies and they inherit."
Daemon's voice rose a little.
"I do not have lands to inherit."
"That is why I am saying I will give you some."
Daemon shut his mouth.
Why won't this man understand plain words?
Rickard leaned back in his chair without concern.
"I saw the glass you made."
Daemon's expression changed slightly.
"The glass White Harbor sent?"
"Yes."
Rickard tapped the desk with a finger.
"It was inferior to Myrish glass."
Daemon was a little startled. He had apparently expected praise.
Rickard continued, "It was thicker, green remained in it, and it had bubbles."
"...Yes."
"But it was sufficient for glass gardens."
Daemon raised his head.
"What I require is not a lens from Myr."
It let light in.
It kept out wind.
It kept out snow.
Its price could potentially be lowered further.
Most of all, it did not need to come from across the sea.
"That is more important."
Daemon watched Rickard for a moment.
"I heard of the heating too."
"That was—"
"If you mean to say neither was done by you alone, I know."
Daemon's mouth stopped.
"The glass was made by White Harbor's craftsmen."
"Yes."
"And there must have been separate men who laid the bricks for the heating."
"That is correct."
"Their share belongs to them."
Rickard's voice was calm.
"But there is also a separate share for the one who first thought another method might exist, tested it, sought the reason when it failed, and brought it at last to a usable form."
Daemon said nothing.
"I have reckoned that value too."
It was strangely unfamiliar to hear.
His previous life had been the opposite.
He thought of it.
He calculated it.
He tested it.
He stayed awake through the night.
When the results came, Kim Jaebong's name was placed first.
Under the guidance of his supervising professor.
Guidance, my ass.
The bastard had been hard to see until things worked, then acted as though the idea had been his from the beginning once results appeared.
Credit for achievement in a laboratory had always been mysterious.
The work was done below, but the names rose upward.
Yet Rickard Stark said the craftsmen's share was the craftsmen's share.
He said the value of the idea and method would be counted separately too.
Daemon liked those words.
That was why they frightened him more.
The reward was too great.
"Still, a fief is a little..."
Rickard asked, "Is it insufficient?"
"No!"
Daemon shouted immediately.
Then he found his manners again.
"The opposite."
The corner of Rickard's mouth rose.
Daemon quickly raised another issue.
"And I am an outsider."
"I know."
"My mother is Tyroshi too."
"Yes."
"We have not been in the North long."
"I know."
Daemon gestured as if frustrated.
"If you suddenly give a fief to an outsider child, will people simply remain quiet?"
This time Rickard did not answer immediately.
He watched Daemon for a moment, then slowly stood.
From the eye level of a four-year-old, that alone made him much larger.
Rickard walked to the map of the North.
From the Wall to the Neck.
From the eastern sea to the western sea.
He looked across the broad land once, then turned his eyes to Daemon.
"You have forgotten one thing."
Daemon asked, "What?"
Rickard said, "That I am Stark."
Daemon's mouth closed.
His voice was not raised.
Nor did he sound boastful.
That made it heavier.
"Who in the North I entrust with which land and make my vassal is for me to decide."
His finger touched Sea Dragon Point.
"I need not ask every person's permission."
"But there will be people who complain."
"There will."
"They will call me an outsider."
"They will."
"Some will say you are mad for giving land to a four-year-old."
The corner of Rickard's mouth moved very slightly.
"I will hear that too."
Daemon looked at him as though dumbfounded.
"And that is all right?"
"Daemon."
Rickard tapped the map once with his finger.
"Complaint and defiance are different matters."
Only then did Daemon fall silent.
When he first saw Winterfell, he had thought a great castle was a house's power hardened in stone.
Now the lord of that castle was showing the same truth in a much simpler way.
...Ah.
This man is the boss of the North.
Rickard continued calmly.
"The reasons can be explained."
Development of desolate land.
Defense of the western coast.
Reward for the glassmaking and heating techniques newly brought to the North.
"If they still wish to complain after hearing that, let them."
Then, after a beat:
"But I have no intention of asking their permission to choose my vassal."
The solar grew quiet.
Daemon swallowed without realizing it.
He thought he understood a little why Raymund was wary of this man.
"What about the royal family?"
A faint smile appeared in Rickard's eyes.
"That is a little different."
Daemon felt relief for no reason.
Yes.
However great a Stark might be, he was not above the king.
There was rank in this world too.
"If we establish a new fief and greatly rebuild an old fortress, we should inform the royal family and follow the necessary procedures."
Daemon nodded quickly.
Right.
That is normal.
"But."
Another but.
Daemon's face stiffened.
Rickard tapped Sea Dragon Point once.
"That is as far as it goes."
"Pardon?"
"If the royal family wishes to prevent us from developing desolate northern land, establishing a vassal to defend the western coast, and repairing a ruined fortress—"
A pause.
"Then this time, they will have to explain their reasons."
Daemon's eyes widened slightly.
Was it wrong for the North to develop abandoned land?
Was it wrong for Stark to reward one of his vassals?
Especially when the reward went to someone who had brought skills needed by the North?
Politics did not move on right and wrong alone.
What the other side could say publicly mattered too.
"We can write the document to send to the royal family," Rickard said.
Walys naturally bowed his head. "If you wish it, I will prepare it."
Daemon whipped around.
"Already?"
"If my lord commands it."
"No, wait."
Daemon raised a small hand.
"I have not said I will do it yet."
This time Rickard laughed.
"True."
"Not true. I mean—"
"You are right. I have not yet heard your answer."
Daemon watched him warily.
"I really am four."
"I know."
"I am not even an adult."
"Yes."
"I have never managed a fief."
"Naturally not."
"I have never even managed dozens of people."
For a moment, he remembered junior researchers from his previous life's laboratory.
Daemon immediately erased the thought.
If that was called management, many people would feel wronged.
Above all, he had no wish to become another person like Kim Jaebong.
"That is why you would need a guardian."
Daemon's face stiffened.
"...You have already thought of a guardian too?"
"You spoke longer than I expected."
"During that time?"
"It was enough."
Daemon opened and closed his mouth.
Rickard became a little more serious.
"Yes. You are four."
Daemon nodded quickly.
That was right.
That was it.
He was four, by all common sense.
So this mad conversation ought to end here.
"But."
Ah, fuck.
That damned but again.
"You are not an ordinary four-year-old."
Rickard was not smiling.
Rather than list Daemon's deeds one by one, he said something a little different.
"What interested me most today was not how many answers you knew."
Daemon blinked.
"Then what?"
"The way you face what you do not know."
He did not know whether Sea Dragon Point was truly a good harbor.
So he would survey it.
He did not know how much it would cost.
So he would begin small.
He did not know how Manderly would respond.
So he would think of ways to share profit.
A counterexample appeared against his historical interpretation.
So he corrected his hypothesis.
"You did not say you knew what you did not know."
Daemon's expression changed slightly.
"You said you would look when you did not know."
Rickard said, "Test it."
A pause.
"And correct it if it is wrong."
Daemon said nothing.
That was true of heating.
Of glass.
Of reading history.
Of speaking of the North's future only moments ago.
He did not claim to possess the answer already.
He spoke of how to come closer to the answer.
"When Wyman called you a genius without equal in all ages, I thought he was exaggerating badly."
Daemon listened quietly.
"Now it sounds a little different."
Normally, he would have felt smug inside.
He did not dislike being praised for being clever.
He rather liked it.
But this time, a fief was attached to the praise.
Its weight was different.
Rickard pointed to the map again.
"You said you wanted a castle."
"...Yes."
"A harbor too."
"Yes."
"Workshops too."
"That is right."
"Then."
His finger stopped at Sea Dragon Point.
"Is there any need to cross the sea at all?"
Daemon looked at the map too.
Only moments ago, that place had been a point in a plan.
A candidate site for western coastal defense.
An outlet for timber.
A fortress abandoned long ago.
But now it looked a little different.
His land.
His castle.
His harbor.
A place that could become those things.
Daemon swallowed without realizing it.
Rickard said, "Build it yourself."
Daemon could not answer.
"Show me whether what you spoke of today is truly possible."
A piece of firewood collapsed in the hearth, scattering small sparks.
"Show me."
Rickard did not urge him further.
He had already said all that needed saying.
The seed had been cast.
And during the past three days, he had learned one thing.
What expression the child before him wore when he found a new possibility.
Daemon's blue-gray green eyes did not leave the map.
Little by little.
Very little by little.
They were beginning to shine.
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