`This has gotten fucking complicated.`
Daemon stared ahead from horseback. His original plan had been simple: leave Sea Dragon Point, stop at Deepwood Motte to pay his respects, report the royal summons to Rickard Stark at Winterfell, then ride south with only Raymund, Luwin, and a handful of retainers. At King's Landing, he would bow properly before Aerys II, answer only what was necessary, learn why the king had summoned him, say nothing about Blackfyres or dragon eggs, and return quietly to the North without attracting needless notice.
That was all.
Yet Rickard Stark's grey direwolf now streamed before him in the wind, followed by the Manderly merman, the Mormont black bear, the Ryswell horsehead, and the Umber giant breaking chains. The sigils of Dustin and Glover appeared throughout the procession, beneath them knights, guards, servants, wagons, and packhorses from each house. What had been a modest party when it left Sea Dragon Point had swelled into something it would be shameless to call a small retinue.
By now, even Daemon was beginning to wonder whether he was merely going south to show his face to the king, or whether the northern lords had decided to take a grand excursion together.
"Hahahahaha!"
Thunderous laughter erupted beside him. Before Daemon could turn, a thick palm slammed into his back.
Thud!
"Urk!"
His body lurched forward. He clenched the reins and barely stopped himself from embracing his horse's neck. When he managed to straighten, the startled horse snorted and tossed its head.
"Oh! You didn't fall!"
Mors Umber, riding beside him, sounded impressed.
`Fuck.`
`I almost did fall.`
Mors Umber of Last Hearth was an exceptionally large man even by northern standards. Mounted, he still looked thick as a wild beast, and his hands were large enough to knock down a man with a single blow. He had probably meant it as a friendly pat. To the recipient, it felt little different from a flying log.
"They said you were twelve, but you're fully grown!"
Daemon smiled.
"Ha ha."
`I'm not.`
`I'm still growing, you lunatic.`
Then he saw Mors's hand rise again. This time Daemon braced his stomach and waist in advance, managing to remain merely shaken in the saddle.
Thud.
It still hurt.
"Good! That's what a northern man ought to be!"
`I was born in Tyrosh.`
He did not bother correcting him. It was unlikely Mors's palm would suddenly become gentler if he did.
Then Jeor Mormont spoke from the other side.
"That's enough, Mors."
For an instant, Daemon had hope.
`Ah.`
`At least Lord Jeor is sensible—`
"I haven't had my turn yet."
Daemon's expression froze.
`Fuck.`
Jeor's hand rose.
Thud!
This time one shoulder sagged. The two men laughed together, and Daemon laughed along, though the laugh leaving his mouth was utterly different from the scream in his head.
"Ha ha ha..."
`Why is your way of expressing affection physical damage?`
`People have words. Use language.`
Luwin moved his horse closer and leaned over slightly.
"My lord."
Keeping his eyes forward, Daemon answered quietly.
"What is it, uncle?"
"Mind your expression."
Daemon's smile stiffened a fraction.
"...Is it showing?"
Luwin merely looked at his face. That was answer enough.
Daemon forcibly rearranged his mouth.
"How about now?"
"Slightly better."
"Thank you for the praise."
"It was not praise."
Daemon looked ahead again, watching the endless northern banners sway in the wind and wondering once more where matters had begun to go wrong.
# *
When Daemon left Sea Dragon Point, he first stopped at Deepwood Motte. It was a detour, but House Glover had aided him steadily since he first took charge of Sea Dragon Point. Whenever he needed timber for repairs, knowledge of roads west of the Wolfswood, or guidance through the changing weather, the Glovers had helped. It would have been rude to journey all the way to King's Landing without greeting the house that was practically his neighbor.
The welcome at Deepwood Motte was greater than expected. Meat and fish filled the table, several bottles of drink were opened, and among them was Campbell, the liquor Daemon had made.
Someone lifted a cup with a smile. "This drink truly seems born for the North. One cup warms a man's belly even on a winter night."
Daemon answered solemnly, "That is if you drink only one cup."
"And two?"
"You sleep better."
Laughter filled the hall, and Daemon joined it.
`The repeat-purchase rate should be good.`
It was an occupational habit he had acquired after years as a lord. Whenever someone praised his product, his next thought was not pride, but the next order.
There had been no problem then. Nor had there been when he reached Winterfell.
Rickard Stark, whom he had not seen for two years, silently inspected him after Daemon dismounted and paid his respects. His eyes traveled from Daemon's head to his shoulders, chest, longer legs, and back to his face. Daemon thought he had become accustomed to that reaction.
"Even I can tell I've grown a great deal."
Rickard's mouth moved faintly. "So you have."
"My mother's reports did not mention it, did they?"
"No."
"If she started reporting my height, she'd measure and record it every month."
Rickard gave a short laugh. "Your mother certainly would."
Daemon had already been large for ten, but the following two years had only made his growth more violent. His limbs lengthened, his shoulders broadened, and years of being beaten by Raymund while practicing swordsmanship, riding, and running had made him more than merely tall. Without being told his age, one might have taken him for fourteen or fifteen.
After looking at him briefly, Rickard turned to those behind him. "Let me properly introduce you to my children."
Brandon came forward first. Ten years old.
The instant Daemon saw him, he felt a strange familiarity. Brandon was not the sort to stand still and observe an unfamiliar person; if something interested him, he looked like the sort who had to approach, touch it, and ask questions before he could be satisfied.
That reminded Daemon of a nephew his older sister used to leave with him in his previous life. More precisely, in Daemon's memories, the word was closer to:
`little shit.`
"Uncle! Look at this! Do this too! Why, uncle? Why? Why? Why?"
A small life-form that sanded away a man's sanity from morning until night.
Daemon looked into Brandon's eyes.
`Ah.`
`Same species.`
The feeling proved correct with Brandon's first question.
"Are you really twelve?"
`Annoying brat.`
"Yes."
"You're only two years older than me."
"That's right."
"Then why are you so big?"
"I'd like to know myself."
Brandon scrutinized him, then looked directly at his waist. "Do you have a sword?"
"I do."
"Are you good with it?"
"A little."
Brandon's face brightened. "Want to spar with me?"
`Little shit.`
Daemon answered as calmly as possible. "No."
Brandon's eyes widened. "Why?"
"I just arrived."
"Then tomorrow."
Daemon did not answer. Brandon apparently took that silence as consent, for he was already smiling in satisfaction.
`Why is that part the same too?`
Eddard, beside him, had an entirely different air. Where Brandon threw himself at anything new, Eddard stood a step back and surveyed his surroundings first.
Daemon dipped his head lightly. "I'm Daemon Seadrake."
"Eddard Stark."
That was all.
Daemon waited. No more questions. Eddard did not ask about his height, hair, or challenge him to a duel. He had greeted him politely and quietly finished.
Daemon's heart became peaceful.
`Quiet one.`
Wait.
`I like him.`
After spending all day as a lord hearing petitions and reports, a person's likability rose considerably from the single fact that he was quiet.
Lyanna was third. Daemon's first impression was simple.
`She's pretty.`
She was only five or six, yet her features were already clear, and her dark hair and grey eyes were unmistakably Stark. When she grew, she would draw many eyes.
`She'll make plenty of men cry.`
Ten seconds later, that seemed likely in another sense as well.
"My daughter, Lyanna," Rickard said.
Daemon lowered himself slightly. "It's a pleasure to meet you, my lady."
Lyanna looked at his face once, then immediately at his hair—curly locks divided black and red.
"What's wrong with your hair?"
Daemon paused. "It's pretty."
Lyanna tilted her head. "It's strange."
"Thank you."
"That wasn't praise."
"I know."
Apparently pleased by the answer, Lyanna smiled a little and looked at his sword. "Is it a real sword?"
"Yes."
"Is it heavy?"
"A little."
"Can I hold it?"
Before hearing an answer, she reached for the hilt. Daemon naturally swung the scabbard to the opposite side.
"No."
"Why?"
"It has an edge."
"I won't cut myself."
Daemon watched her a moment. "A sword isn't something that refuses to cut you because you promise not to be cut."
Lyanna's lips pushed out. Then she pointed at Brandon. "But Brandon gets to touch it."
`Ah.`
That short exchange told him enough. Lyanna wanted to do anything her brother did, asked why something was forbidden before accepting that it was dangerous, acted before thinking, and immediately noticed unequal treatment.
She was adorable. But adorable and easy to keep close were not the same thing.
`I can see the estimate.`
`She'll make men cry, all right. Not only because of her face.`
`Just find her cute. Getting close to her would be a headache.`
It was a perfect judgment.
At that very moment Rickard said, "Lyanna, why don't you show Daemon around Winterfell?"
Daemon's head slowly turned. Rickard wore a perfectly calm face.
`Why me?`
Of course, he did not say it. Lyanna brightened at once. "All right!" Then she took his hand.
A tiny warning sounded in Daemon's mind.
`Surely not.`
He dismissed it immediately.
`No. She's his only daughter. I've spent a few years being a lord and caught a political disease—now I suspect a marriage proposal whenever people put someone beside me.`
People could create astonishingly plausible explanations for signs they did not want to see. Daemon was no exception. Even after Lyanna sat near him at dinner, and Rickard casually put the two together again at the stables the next day, Daemon clung to the same conclusion.
`No.`
`Surely not.`
Benjen, the last, was overwhelmingly comfortable. The youngest stood quietly behind his siblings and, when his eyes met Daemon's, said simply, "Hello."
"Hello," Daemon replied.
That was all. Daemon waited. Nothing followed. No questions about swords, height, or hair. No dragging him anywhere. Just a greeting.
Daemon was touched.
`This one.`
`He's my favorite in this family.`
A moment later, Benjen asked, "Are you the man who makes liquor?"
Daemon hesitated. "...Yes."
"Father drinks it."
Daemon slowly looked at Rickard, who was very naturally looking elsewhere.
"He says it's good."
Daemon looked back at Benjen. "Your father has good taste."
Benjen nodded solemnly. So did Daemon.
`Undisputed first place.`
Until then, everything had been peaceful. The trouble began after he brought out the royal letter.
# *
Rickard had already learned its contents by raven, but he read the royal letter Daemon had brought from beginning to end. Even without digging deeply into the intent beneath its language, Aerys's considerable favor toward Daemon was plain enough.
Setting it down, Rickard said, "His Grace seems to regard you quite favorably."
Daemon leaned back. "I don't much like it when important people regard me favorably."
"Why not?"
"When someone above takes an interest in someone below, it means more work."
"You speak from experience."
"I've experienced it every day since becoming a lord."
Rickard laughed shortly. "Still, you must go."
"Yes. Refusing would only look more suspicious."
"A correct judgment."
Rickard folded the letter and added casually, "I intend to travel south with you."
Daemon was pleased. Aerys had also sent Rickard word, remembering favorably that he had sought royal confirmation for granting Sea Dragon Point to young Daemon and thus upheld the Iron Throne's dignity. The king had invited Rickard to visit King's Landing as well.
`This is good.`
Entering the Red Keep with Rickard Stark beside him was far safer than entering alone. The Warden of the North was no small name even in King's Landing, and Aerys would not treat him lightly.
`Another layer of insurance.`
It seemed a truly good thing—until the royal invitation was discussed in the great hall the following day.
Winterfell happened to be hosting people from several houses: Wyman Manderly, Jeor Mormont, Roderick Ryswell, Mors Umber, close kin and knights of House Dustin, and Glovers who had come north with Daemon from Deepwood Motte. They had not gathered for Daemon; Winterfell was always a place through which northern nobles and retainers passed, dealing with winter preparations, trade, marriages, vassals, borders, and disputes.
Daemon's timing had simply been bad.
Wyman looked him over. "When I first met you, I could lift you with one arm."
"I was three then."
"Now I'd break my back trying."
Laughter rose around them. Wyman lightly patted Daemon's shoulder. "You've grown well."
There was genuine affection in the words. White Harbor and House Manderly were different to Daemon from other houses. He had lived there from the age of three; it was where he had first melted glass with craftsmen, experimented with heating, and turned the strange ideas in his mind into real things. Wyman could not quite see him as another house's child.
Roderick Ryswell's interest was more practical. "I heard of the road you improved in the west. They say horses are less worn by it."
"It is not complete enough to call finished."
"Even so, a good road earns as much as a good horse."
`A practical man.`
Daemon liked him. Jeor and Mors were simpler still: Daemon ran his lands well, endured northern winters, was sturdy, and made good liquor. Fine fellow. End of judgment.
Then someone mentioned that the king had summoned Daemon.
"So Seadrake is going all the way to King's Landing?"
"Yes. I'm planning to go to King's Landing."
At those words, the mood changed oddly.
Wyman asked first, "You are not going alone, are you?"
"I'll go with Lord Stark."
"That is fortunate, but... this is your first time at the Red Keep, yes?"
"Yes."
"Southerners have a habit of thinking northerners rustic."
`I was born in Tyrosh and grew up in White Harbor.`
Daemon did not correct him. To these people, he was already a northern lord.
Mors snorted. "What if we are rustic? A rustic's fist does not hurt less."
Jeor laughed. "Do not use your fists first at the Red Keep."
"A shame."
`Not a shame at all.`
Daemon smiled suitably. "Honestly, I mean only to greet His Grace quietly and return."
Roderick's brows rose. "Quietly? A northern lord personally summoned by the king is going to King's Landing for the first time?"
"What is wrong with that?"
"There is dignity to consider."
Someone from House Dustin nodded. Daemon finally sensed danger.
"Raymund, Uncle Luwin, and my usual retainers are enough."
"That is precisely why it will not do," someone said.
`Why?`
Daemon's expression slowly hardened. Even then, he did not understand how fully the northern nobles had accepted him as one of their own.
At first, many had viewed it the other way. Giving northern land to a four-year-old outsider had seemed strange. He was the son of a Tyroshi woman, his father's identity was unknown, and although he had made unusual glass and heating methods in White Harbor, was that truly enough to entrust him with northern lands and a house?
Daemon understood perfectly. He would have been suspicious too.
But eight years was longer than it seemed, and people's judgment changed in surprisingly simple ways. Daemon had never thought he was currying favor with northern lords. He sold glass for money, granted processes to other lords under conditions, and shared farming records because if others fell into the pits he had already fallen into, the whole North would lose. Greenhouses were not meant to make miracles, merely to raise spring seedlings sooner and preserve autumn vegetables and herbs longer. Campbell was simply liquor that sold well.
To him, it was business and estate management. The problem was that human relationships were not measured solely by intent.
Repeat such things for eight years, and to those around you, you become a good neighbor.
Glassmaking that began in White Harbor spread through the North. Unlike the early green glass full of bubbles, sheet glass had become fairly reliable. Under terms Rickard Stark approved, lords who paid fees and kept standards could establish workshops on their own lands. Daemon earned money; the lords with workshops earned money; craftsmen and jobs appeared; and the need to haul all glass from afar decreased.
Glass greenhouses did not turn northern winter into summer. Yet they helped start planting earlier, preserve late-autumn vegetables, and protect precious herbs and seed crops. It need not be a month. Half a month, or sometimes just days—time insignificant in the south was different in the North.
Even Daemon's records of failed farming helped. Others could see the fields ruined by standing water, planting done at the wrong time, and seeds unsuited to the region, and repeat fewer mistakes. Northern food did not become abundant overnight, but in good years a little more remained, and in bad years a little less was lost. That little accumulated over years.
Colored glass became fashionable in a manner Daemon had not expected. Northerners did not suddenly decorate sept windows with the Seven as southerners did. Instead, they put their own colors into the windows of winter halls, feast chambers, and large rooms where people gathered during blizzards: white weirwoods and red leaves, grey direwolves and snow-covered mountains, patterns modeled after the runes of the First Men.
One house made it, and the neighboring house saw. The neighbor made it larger, added different colors, and carved its own sigil into it.
`People are the same everywhere.`
It was wonderful for the economy. More workshop orders meant more craftsmen; more craftsmen meant more charcoal, timber, ore, and wagons. White Harbor sold finished goods farther afield, while houses such as Ryswell earned direct income through the workshops and greenhouses on their own lands.
And Campbell was simpler. How many northern lords disliked liquor? It was tasty, strong, and suited winter. That was all.
Whenever those changes occurred, Valena carefully maintained the relationships as well. When new glass was made, she sent suitable gifts to Winterfell, White Harbor, Deepwood Motte, Bear Island, Last Hearth, the Ryswell lands, and Barrowton. She did the same when the first matured Campbell was ready—not expensive enough to burden them, but not so small as to be forgotten.
`Mother's good at sales.`
Valena did not call it sales. She called it relationships. While Daemon buried himself in workshops, casks, roads, and ledgers, those relationships grew over years like compound interest.
The people who had once asked why northern land was given to a foreign child began saying Seadrake glass was useful. Later they spoke of workshops in their own lands, or of greenhouses helping them through a winter. Then they began asking whether any new Campbell had come out.
Eventually, the conclusion became simple.
`Well.`
`At that point, he's one of us northerners.`
The problem was that Daemon alone did not know it.
Wyman stroked his beard. "White Harbor has some matters to settle with King's Landing merchants anyway."
`Don't do it.`
Jeor said, "I have matters in the south I can look into as well."
`You don't.`
`You just invented them.`
Roderick considered and nodded. "If Lord Stark goes himself, it would not be bad to settle a few Ryswell matters too."
`Please.`
House Dustin offered men, and House Glover offered knights and attendants. It became perfectly natural to say that houses not going personally could send a close relative or trusted knight each.
Mors was delighted. "Good! There is no harm in having plenty of swords!"
`We're going to see the king.`
`Not to war.`
Only then did Daemon realize his plan had completely escaped his control. Luwin quietly came beside him.
"My lord."
"Yes, uncle?"
"Mind your expression."
Holding his smile in place, Daemon asked, "...Is it showing?"
Luwin nodded slightly.
`Fuck.`
Daemon fixed his face and realized desperately:
`I should have had a social life.`
He should have sent letters himself, appeared in person sometimes, accepted hunting invitations, attended feasts, and taken some notice of how the other side viewed him.
But the problem had begun in his previous life. A very familiar, infuriating face came to mind.
Kim Jaebong.
`Ah.`
`It's because of that fucking bastard.`
He had already been fooled once during his master's degree: Just a little more. You're doing well. I'll support you. I'll find you a position. So he pursued his master's. He should have stopped there. Instead, he was urged to do a doctorate. It would be a waste to stop now. You have talent. I'll support you to the end.
And he believed it again.
`You said you'd support me.`
In the end, the only thing pushed upward was Kim Jaebong's achievements; responsibility was pushed down. Once in the doctoral program, Daemon had scarcely any time to learn human relationships outside the laboratory. At conferences, he revised presentation materials instead of meeting people. When he might have broadened his connections, he stayed up all night clutching experimental equipment.
Then he reincarnated. What changed? This time he buried himself in his estate: roads and workshops, furnaces and mines, liquor casks and ledgers.
`Fuck.`
`It's karma.`
`I'm getting beaten by karma now.`
By the time he came to his senses after cursing dead Kim Jaebong for a long while, the discussion was almost over.
"Then we shall set the southern journey according to Lord Stark's procession."
Daemon jerked up his head.
`What?`
Wyman nodded. So did Roderick, Jeor, and Mors. Dustin and Glover men were already calculating the size of their retinues.
Daemon very slowly looked at Raymund.
`Old man.`
Raymund surely sensed that stare. A man who had spent his life discerning movement and murderous intent could not have missed it. Their eyes almost met. Then Raymund looked naturally out the window.
`Old man.`
Raymund looked outside.
`Look at me.`
He never did.
`Traitor.`
At that instant Daemon resolved, `Fine. When this journey is done and I return, I'll really do it. I'll meet people. I'll write letters myself. I'll invite them, and when invited I'll show my face. I'll attend hunts and feasts occasionally, listen to what happens in other houses, and at least learn how people around me judge me.`
`Communication.`
`I'll work fucking hard at it.`
Considering that Mors and Jeor were currently taking turns hitting him, it was perhaps a belated realization.
In the end, the southbound party became several times larger than Daemon had first imagined. Rickard Stark led it. Wyman Manderly, Jeor Mormont, and Roderick Ryswell joined under the excuse of their own business, as did Mors Umber. Relatives and knights of Dustin and Glover came too. With each house's attendants, guards, servants, and wagons, the procession became conspicuous upon the road.
When Daemon first saw it complete, he was speechless for a while.
`I am going to greet the king, right?`
`We're not holding a northern trade fair, are we?`
When every house began adding gifts for the king—fine furs, horses, crafted goods, White Harbor wares, colored Seadrake glass, and Campbell—the suspicion only deepened.
Daemon alone found it horrifying. To northerners, it was natural. Their young lord was going before the king for the first time. The Warden of the North was going with him. Naturally, they would preserve his dignity, especially when they disliked southerners looking down on northerners as rustic.
In Daemon's terms: `Hey. Aren't we one people? Our young lord is going south. Can we let southern bastards treat him lightly? We've got to make him look good.`
Daemon was only beginning to understand.
Still, his back hurt.
# *
"Seadrake!"
Mors called again. Daemon's body stiffened by reflex.
"Yes?"
"Come closer!"
`I don't want to.`
When he brought his horse near, Mors laughed loudly and struck his back.
Thud!
"Urgh!"
"Sturdy, just as I thought!"
Jeor laughed at the sight. "Mors seems to like you very much."
`How does that mean that?`
A man of House Dustin laughed and joined in. "If he's fine after that, let me have a try."
Terror appeared on Daemon's face. "No, wait—"
Thud!
"Aaaagh!"
This time an actual scream came out, and laughter burst around him.
"Now he sounds twelve!"
"That voice is definitely a child's!"
`Why is everyone hitting me?`
`Does getting close mean you're allowed to use violence?`
`Is this northern friendship?`
Instinctively, he looked at Raymund. Normally, the man's gaze changed if a stranger came even two steps too close to Daemon, as if he would inspect any hand stretched out wrongly starting with the wrist.
Yet now his lord was being struck repeatedly.
Raymund sensed Daemon's eyes. His head moved slightly. Hope entered Daemon's eyes.
Then Raymund looked into the forest on the other side.
`Old man.`
He looked at the forest.
`I'm getting hit right now.`
He kept looking at the forest.
`Do your usual thing.`
Apparently even a bird was fascinating enough to ignore him to the end.
Luwin came beside him. "My lord."
Daemon gritted his teeth. "I know."
"I have not said anything yet."
"You're going to tell me to mind my expression."
"Precisely."
Daemon slowly inhaled and smiled. "Is it showing?"
Luwin examined his face. "Very much."
"Fuck."
"That can be heard as well."
"Ah."
Daemon shut his mouth and looked south again. It was bothersome, noisy, and his back hurt. The plan he had made had long since vanished without a trace.
Yet somehow, he did not entirely dislike it. That was the most irritating part.
Daemon had not been born in the North. He had been born in Tyrosh; his mother was Tyroshi, and his biological father had nothing to do with the North. When he first came to Sea Dragon Point, he had not considered the North his homeland. It was merely land where he had to survive.
He saved the estate because if it failed, he failed. He cared for food because hungry people caused trouble, heated rooms because cold killed people, made goods because without money he could do nothing, and shared techniques with other lords because that earned him money too.
To Daemon, the last eight years had been estate management. To northerners, they had been years in which he endured winter alongside them, shared ways to earn money, left a little more food to eat, and created new goods and work.
His intent might have been business, but relationships accumulated through results. At some point Seadrake had become a northern house, and Daemon had become a northern lord. Regardless of what he thought, it had already happened.
Daemon sighed softly.
`Ah.`
`So this is why making people like you is frightening.`
He did not remember trying to make people like him. His mother maintained relationships; he had only made it possible for everyone to earn money. Yet it had accumulated into:
`Aren't we one people?`
Still, he had learned one thing for certain.
`When I return, I'll really meet people and live properly.`
Then Brandon's voice burst from behind him. "Daemon!"
Daemon's eyelids lowered.
`Ah.`
`Little shit.`
"What?"
"When we camp today, let's spar with swords!"
"No."
"Why?"
Eddard rode quietly beside him. Seeing his face alone made Daemon feel calm.
`Quiet people really are the best.`
Lyanna, naturally, was not coming as far as King's Landing. But until departure she persistently hovered around Daemon: Show me your horse. Show me the sword again. Do women ride horses at Sea Dragon Point? Have you ridden a ship? How big is the sea? Why is the dragon sigil silver? Why can't I drink Campbell?
Daemon answered most of her questions. After catching her when she slipped while trying to climb into a saddle alone by stepping on a stable pillar, he became certain once more.
`She really is pretty.`
`But I can see the estimate. Getting close to her would be a headache.`
He remembered Rickard continually putting Lyanna beside him: at meals, during the tour of Winterfell, at the stables. Several times he suspected it. Several times he denied it.
`Surely not.`
`No. She's his only daughter. I've just caught that political disease.`
Benjen, by contrast, remained perfect until the end. At the gate, he looked up at Daemon and said, "Come back safely."
"I will."
"Bring more liquor."
Daemon narrowed his eyes. "Not for you to drink, right?"
"Father."
Daemon nodded in satisfaction. "You'll grow into a great man after all."
Benjen nodded seriously. Conversation over.
`Undisputed first place.`
So they left Winterfell. The road south was long, but in retrospect only a few scenes remained unusually clear in Daemon's memory. The first was the Twins.
# *
They might have gone directly to King's Landing, but Manderly and Ryswell business overlapped, and the enlarged procession's route was adjusted. In the end, they turned toward the Green Fork and passed through the Twins.
When Daemon first saw the twin castles and the stone bridge between them, he honestly admired it.
`Wow.`
Castles on both sides of a river, with passage effectively confined to one route. People and goods moving north and south all had to pass there, while detours cost greatly in time and money.
`What a fucking business model.`
Then he heard the tolls, and his admiration changed.
`Those fucking Frey bastards.`
There were endless charges one could levy for people, horses, wagons, cargo, and noble retinues.
`They extort an absurd amount just because they planted one bridge right.`
`No.`
`They did plant it right, though.`
That made him angrier.
Walder Frey, the old lord who had ruled there for a long time—at first Daemon had intended to respect his business sense. Until he stayed a night at the Twins.
At dinner, a girl was introduced. Walder said, "My daughter." Daemon greeted her courteously. Soon another girl appeared. Also a daughter. Then another, and then an older daughter.
Daemon's eyes slowly turned to Walder, then to the daughters, then back to Walder.
`Wait.`
Everything he had vaguely heard about Walder Frey's marriages and number of children came together in his mind.
`This fucking bastard.`
`His brain is genuinely attached to the end of his cock.`
`Does this man not die in the saddle?`
When old Frey began explaining one daughter's virtues at particular length, Daemon finally understood.
`Ah.`
`This bastard is floating a marriage proposal to me.`
At that moment, two beings long dormant in the depths of his mind appeared again. The mist split. On the right stood the Confucian Dragon holding a genealogy; on the left, the solemn Neo-Confucian Tiger.
They looked down at House Frey's family tree for a time. This time they did not even check for incest.
The Confucian Dragon shut the genealogy first.
`A family with which one cannot associate.`
The Neo-Confucian Tiger nodded gravely.
`One must never forge ties with such a household.`
Daemon narrowed his eyes.
`Huh.`
`This time it's not incest.`
The Confucian Dragon answered, `That is a lesser concern.`
The Neo-Confucian Tiger clicked his tongue. `Their household customs are rotten.`
They returned into the mist.
`Hey. Wait.`
There was no answer.
`I never thought the day would come when you two seemed normal.`
That day, he entirely agreed.
When Daemon left the Twins, his impression was simple:
`They built the fucking bridge well.`
`I fucking hate the Freys.`
Next came the Kingsroad.
# *
After riding the Kingsroad for several days, Daemon completely revised his opinion of Jaehaerys I.
"Wow."
At first, that was all. The road was good. Of course it was not comparable to a modern paved road. Rain made some sections muddy, and wagon wheels had worn deep tracks, but by the standards of the age it was another matter entirely. Horses and carts traveled the massive road joining north and south; armies, merchants, people, and news moved along it across the kingdom.
`Jaehaerys I, this man...`
`He's fucking incredible.`
Then the lord in him began thinking before the engineer. The very fact that a royal government could push a state project of this scale demonstrated considerable authority and mobilizing power. Yet though roads stretched across the kingdom, there was no administrative organization through which the center's hand could directly reach the farthest local level. Royal officials were not densely spread through the provinces; ordinary taxation ran through vassals; military power ultimately depended on each lord's forces.
Infrastructure connected the realm. The operating system was still feudalism.
`The infrastructure is built, but the administrative OS is feudalism.`
What a waste. If they had pushed institutions forward one generation further, the state's structure might have been very different.
Then Daemon shook his head.
`It's easy to give advice from behind when you know the outcome.`
Still, he acknowledged Jaehaerys I.
`He really did build one hell of a road.`
Daemon could see several things to apply to roads at Sea Dragon Point. The trip was not entirely useless.
Then came Harrenhal.
# *
When he first saw its outline in the distance, only one word came from Daemon's mouth.
"Wow."
Closer: "...Wow, fuck."
Closer still, Daemon tilted his head back until his neck hurt.
"That's fucking insane."
No other expression suited it. Winterfell was large. He had seen White Harbor's walls. Sea Dragon Point's castle had become a fairly respectable fortress over years. But Harrenhal was a different kind of thing altogether.
It looked less like a castle than a mountain people had begun making out of stone and failed to finish. Its towers, walls, gatehouses, and yards were all absurdly vast. As a lord who knew how much labor and coin it took to move each stone and beam, Daemon found that all the more mad.
`They say it took nearly forty years to build.`
`That bastard Harren the Black...`
`He's insane in another sense.`
There was no modern heavy equipment. Men quarried stone, shaped it, and moved it with people and beasts. Men had to fell, season, and transport timber, feed and house countless laborers and craftsmen. Sustaining construction on such a scale for nearly forty years required unimaginable labor and logistics. It was not simply masons and workers: quarries, forests, draft animals, wagons, food, fodder, carpenters, smiths, overseers, guards, and the farmers feeding them all multiplied the numbers like a snowball.
Daemon tried to imagine the scale, then gave up.
`The total man-days would be fucking insane.`
He lacked data for an exact calculation, but one thing was certain: sustaining a project like this for decades in a feudal society was not normal.
Then other records came to mind: prisoners, forced labor, dead workers, a castle made by squeezing the Iron Islands and the Riverlands dry.
His admiration cooled.
`...Ah.`
`That's how.`
He looked at Harrenhal again. "He was a bastard."
Luwin turned his head. "Did you say something?"
"Nothing."
`No, really. He was completely insane.`
An outside conqueror had crushed the lords and people of the Riverlands, squeezing the entire region for decades merely to leave his own name behind. Daemon's historical curiosity rose.
`But what about rebellion?`
`If he oppressed them that badly, how did he last forty years?`
People could not revolt simply because they were exploited. They needed a prospect of success, weapons, leaders, trust in one another, and above all confidence that Harren would not slaughter them all if they failed.
When Aegon finally appeared, the Riverlords saw their chance and turned from Harren at once.
`Ah.`
`It wasn't that they didn't rebel.`
`They couldn't.`
The instant someone holding a stronger sword appeared, all they had endured erupted. Daemon stored that truth away. Constantly crushing people did not create loyalty. It only made them endure.
It was an important lesson for a lord.
Only then did another feature of Harrenhal catch his eye. Its towers were twisted.
"...Wait."
They were not merely blackened. The stone's original angles had vanished as if it had flowed down, and parts had melted together like giant candle wax.
Knowledge from his past life leapt into Daemon's mind: thermal shock and cracking, spalling and explosive fracturing. He could understand those. But melting?
`I don't know what stone that is.`
`But it melted stone that much?`
Without knowing its exact composition, he could not know its melting point. But silicate rock would require an enormous temperature. And that heat had been applied broadly, continuously, enough to twist part of the towers like that.
Daemon's mouth opened slightly. "Balerion did this?"
The Black Dread. A name he had known only from records.
"He did this?"
He thought of the egg hidden deep in Sea Dragon Point. An egg cold some days and warm on others; something that had seemed to call for him with babbling sounds. He had once held it against his chest for hours. He remembered what he had said before Valena and Raymund.
`If it hatches, I'll ride it and fly.`
Daemon stared at Harrenhal's melted towers for a long while before thinking very seriously:
`...Do they have any sort of safety gear for riding dragons?`
The romance remained. It merely became a little more real.
They passed Harrenhal and continued south. At last, King's Landing came into sight.
# *
When the city's outline first appeared at a distance, Daemon honestly marveled. Along the Blackwater Rush, masts rose like a forest from an endless harbor. Inside the walls, roofs crowded together beyond counting, and the Red Keep rose prominently upon the hill behind them.
"Wow."
White Harbor was a great city, but King's Landing was different in scale. As they approached, the number of people became the first thing one felt: wagons piled with goods, cattle, men leading horses, merchants, porters, farmers, sailors, foreigners, noble retainers, and peddlers constantly entering and leaving the gates. People moved ceaselessly through the harbor and main streets.
`It's really huge.`
Then the wind changed.
Daemon inhaled without thinking.
"..."
His eyes narrowed.
`What is that?`
He inhaled again. Sweat and human filth. Horse dung and cow dung. Fish and rotten vegetables. Leather. Smoke. Sewage. Liquor. Every smell whose identity he could not even guess combined in the warm air and punched him in the nose.
`Wait.`
He smelled again. It was a mistake.
"Bleegh!"
He bent forward. Brandon, riding nearby, laughed. "Is it the smell?"
Holding his nose and mouth, Daemon glared at him.
`Why are you fine?`
To a nose accustomed for years to the cold, relatively clean northern air, it was practically chemical warfare.
They went farther in.
`Fucking stink.`
A roadside drain appeared.
`Fucking stink.`
The wind blew again.
`FUCKING STINK!`
Profanity exploded through Daemon's mind.
`Is this the capital or a shit pit?!`
From then on, he began to see the city's structure. Alleys jutted from the main roads wherever they pleased, with narrower lanes branching from them. It was painfully obvious that growing buildings had gradually consumed the roads. There were drainage facilities, but nowhere near enough for this population.
Daemon stared at the city in disbelief.
`Aegon I, you fucking idiot.`
`You conquered so well—where did you sell off city planning when you built a capital?`
A counterargument came immediately. It was impossible to foresee perfectly that this would become so large a city. A small settlement had grown for decades, a century, two centuries into what it was now. Records also said Jaehaerys I had worked substantially on road and sanitation problems.
`Fine.`
`I understand it logically.`
Then another gust came. Daemon's face twisted.
`Still an idiot.`
Aegon was cursed again.
Then, as Daemon judged King's Landing a giant shit pit, his gaze abruptly stopped.
People. More precisely, their number.
At the gates, harbor, markets, and main streets, people and carts moved without end. He had heard that the permanent population numbered in the hundreds of thousands, but there was no reason to trust figures of this age as if they were modern statistics, nor did he know who had counted them. Yet one thing was certain to the eye.
`There are fucking many.`
And the people connected to this city were not limited to those who slept here. Sailors entered the harbor; farmers brought goods from surrounding countryside; nobles and knights with court business came with retainers. Pilgrims, mercenaries, wandering craftsmen, peddlers, seasonal laborers, and merchants from Essos flowed in constantly, then flowed back out.
Daemon started to calculate numbers, then gave up. He did not need to. Where this many people gathered, goods gathered too. Money gathered. Information gathered.
White Harbor was an excellent trade city. But King's Landing was the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. The king was here. Great nobles gathered. Merchants crossed the Narrow Sea. Where there were many rich people, even strange goods eventually flowed in.
Daemon's back slowly straightened. Light returned to the face that had been dying behind a covered nose moments before.
`Oh.`
`Wait a moment.`
There might be grains, vegetables, fruits, or medicinal crops common only in the south that could survive in the North—varieties unexpectedly hardy against cold, quick-growing, or able to live on dry ground. He could bring them to Sea Dragon Point and plant them.
If they died, he would change the conditions, plant again, and find those that survived.
`Something will take.`
The same went for livestock. Daemon's eyes changed as he watched cattle and horses passing along the road. Southern horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and chickens surely differed in build or productivity from northern stock. Daemon was neither a geneticist nor a livestock expert, but he knew the basic concept of selective breeding: retain creatures with good traits, examine breeding results, and select again.
`Even if I don't understand genetics properly...`
His mouth curved upward.
`If I keep trying, I'll find something useful.`
Nor were there only seeds and animals. Where many people gathered, there were many craftsmen. Where craftsmen gathered, techniques and tools followed. At the harbor came medicinal ingredients and metals from Essos, timber difficult to find in the North, dyes, spices, fabrics, books, and pottery.
King's Landing abruptly began to look less like a capital to Daemon than an enormous specimen storehouse.
"Fuck."
Raymund's eyebrow moved. Daemon smiled.
"This is a treasure vault."
Only minutes ago, it had been a giant shit pit. In a few minutes, its rating had soared to a treasure vault inside a giant shit pit.
Daemon nodded in satisfaction. Change of plan. First, meet the king. Learn why Aerys summoned him. End the talk suitably. Leave the Red Keep safely. Then:
`I'll scour this place clean.`
He did not mean robbery. He intended to visit every market, livestock market, dock, trading company, bookshop, and workshop. If he found useful seeds, he would buy them; he would inspect livestock, obtain samples of new goods, and speak to any worthy craftsman.
`I came all this way. I can't go home empty-handed.`
Coming because of the king was unavoidable, but returning with nothing while such a market lay before him would, by Daemon's standards, be the greater crime.
`I need to make the business trip pay for itself.`
Luwin, riding a little behind, studied Daemon's face. He had seen that expression countless times over the years in workshops and laboratories. Daemon's eyes brightened. The corners of his mouth rose. The way he looked at things around him changed. And before long, people suffered.
Luwin sighed quietly. "My lord."
Daemon turned. "What is it, uncle?"
"What are you thinking right now?"
Daemon smiled brilliantly. "Nothing at all."
Luwin's expression darkened further. He already knew that answer was the most dangerous one.
Daemon paid him no mind. His gaze was already beyond the gates: markets and people, the harbor, and beyond them the Red Keep towering upon its hill. The amusement faded a little from his face. No matter how tempting the market, there was something he had to handle first.
`All right.`
Daemon took a small breath, immediately regretted it, and covered his nose again.
"Ugh."
`Fucking stink.`
Even so, he did not look away this time.
`I'll settle things with the king quickly.`
His eyes turned back to the city.
`Then I'll inspect every useful seed and animal there is.`
Finally, he looked up at the Red Keep.
`First.`
`The king.`
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