Chapter Text
Rickard Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North, stared out from the battlements of the keep’s inner wall as he turned over a raven scroll in his hands. Maester Luwin had woken him up early to give him the message this morning, so urgent had Luwin deemed the news.
A light summer breeze blew over the walls as he thought about the scroll’s contents, rustling his black silk coat and long grey hair. While his son Ned preferred the Godswood, and Brandon had preferred to do his thinking on horseback, this was where Rickard preferred to consider problems of State. With all of his work laid out before him, and thousands of people who depended on his decisions in sight.
He signaled to a guard on the wall, briefly turning away from the scroll. “Bring my son to me,” he ordered. The guard nodded and started down the stairs to fetch Ned, the last child he had left who still resided within the walls of Winterfell.
Looking out over the wall, he took note of the people and houses, foundries, forges, sawmills, and stockyards of Wintertown. The hazy dawn light was heavily filtered by the ever-present clouds of coal smoke, but it was still clear enough to make out the movement and motion of all those below that depended on him.
In the distance, he saw a line of smoke steadily approaching on the horizon. An engine coming north, he thought, ore from the Iron Islands, coal from the Barrows, or fish from White Harbor. Perhaps more men, come to settle and make their fortune in Wintertown.
It had been a long time since Wintertown was a town in truth. These days, it could only be described as a city. Even now at the height of summer it boasted more than one hundred thousand souls, greater than any city in Westeros except Lannisport, Oldtown, and King’s Landing. White Harbor, too, had grown. All along the length of the engine lines hovels had become hamlets, hamlets had become villages, and villages had become towns. The great engines of the North, tirelessly built and improved in the halls of the Machinists’ Guild in Wintertown, were powering a world he could not have even dreamed of hoping for when he was a young Lord newly come in to his power.
It had been luck – a young Maester in Barrowton had crafted a pump to remove water from a coal mine in a long and dark winter. If the pump hadn’t worked, if they had found another, easier way to get the coal they needed – even if they had just used it once and discarded it after spring came – none would have known what was developed there. But the pump had saved the town from freezing, and the little coal-fired engine was adapted further to haul mine carts up from the depths and send fresh air back down. Lord Dustin brought an example to the next Harvest Festival, along with a vision of what could be done with such a tool. A vision that had been exceeded many times over once Rickard established the Guild and saw the engines spread throughout his lands.
The successes of his rule had not come without costs. His daughter, kidnapped by a vile rapist in a crown, hidden away from him in King’s Landing. His eldest son and heir, dead in the Riverlands - Brandon’s bones now dust, never to rest in the crypts with his forefathers. And yet, he admitted to himself, to most of my people, those grave insults matter not compared to the food and riches that I have brought them.
As it drew closer, he could make out the form of the approaching engine. The great machine rode a single rail, lofted high in the air atop a wooden trestle, well above the thick blanket of snow that would cover these lands in the winter. On each side of the trailing cars were large bins filled with ore going to the foundries, looking to all the world like enormous saddlebags on an iron mule.
The line cut its way through the landscape, over hills and valleys, stretching two hundred miles down the Kingsroad to the town of Timeman’s Crossing. There it met a second line running east-to-west between the Barrowlands and White Harbor. More than eight hundred miles in total, the engine tracks had become the lifeblood of the North.
Beyond simple industry, the tracks meant that fish could be brought in from White Harbor in just two days of travel - even during the worst of the winter storms. With plentiful cut lumber and iron available, the fishing fleets of the Manderlys were larger than they’d ever been, and could now support much of the North on their own. The loans required for construction would have all but bankrupted the North had the scheme failed, but now his people would never again have to spend all they had just to scrape by. Ten years of construction to span the distance from Barrowport to White Harbor, then another five to reach Winterfell, Rickard mused to himself, but it had paid for itself within one winter of completion.
The wind shifted, blowing black smoke from the town towards the castle. Once his nose would have wrinkled at the scent of sulfur and coal ash, but now it was as much a part of life as breathing. A small price to pay for the benefits it brought. Better now than when Wintertown had smelled like shit as well, during the early years of the project. The foundries and the food brought more people than had ever lived in the town before, but the loans to the Iron Bank meant there wasn’t coin available yet for sewers. The first sanitation projects had started as soon as coin was available, for he would not allow Wintertown to descend into squalor like King’s Landing. The projects had even moved faster than expected with the engines available to move dirt and stone from the excavation sites.
The sound of footsteps alerted him to his son approaching, breaking him from his thoughts of the last decades. It was something he found himself more prone to as he reached his winter years.
“Good morning, Father,” Ned said in greeting, “You summoned me?”
“A raven, from your sister in King’s Landing. I would know what you think of it,” Rickard said, passing over the scroll he had come up to the wall to consider.
“Dark wings, dark words,” Ned murmured. He read through the note quickly. “So the king is dead at last, then.”
“Aye. Younger than he might have been, for his mad father ruled for many more years than this. But what do you make of what Lyanna writes about the Faith?” Rickard probed, testing his heir’s judgement. It was always a test, these days. Rickard had to be sure he was leaving the North with a steady ruler after Brandon’s rash actions had left him dead.
“The dismissal of Jon Connington as hand is unfortunate. He let us complete our works here in peace, more focused on the politics of the South than what happens north of the Neck. The crown has surely noticed that they take more in tax from the North than they once did, but I do not believe they know how much has changed here since King Rhaegar last visited.” Ned answered, “And we don’t know what this new Hand will be like. Septons have served as the Hand before, and done well, under Jaehaerys the Conciliator. Lyanna has written little of Aegon, whose sickness sees him oft abed and rarely in court, so I believe we will have to concern ourselves more with the wishes of this Septon Benedict than we will with the King’s actions.”
“A good understanding, son,” Rickard acknowledged, “Yet I fear for what these changes might mean. We do not know how the new King or Hand thinks. Lyanna was not even aware of this Septon before he was elevated to one of the highest offices in the land.”
“Do you think the new leadership might allow Lyanna and young Jaehaerys to come North?” Ned asked.
“He may allow Lyanna to travel, but Jaehaerys is now the heir until Aegon has a son by Rhaenys,” Rickard said, “He will likely have to go to Dragonstone to take up his seat. And Lyanna will not want to leave her son alone in that nest of vipers. More, the new King and Hand may desire to continue to hold them close, as assurance that we will not step out of line.”
“Have we not offered leal service to the crown these past twenty years?” Ned asked, “Even after what Rhaegar did with Lyanna and what happened to Brandon? What reason do they have to still distrust us so?”
“They must know we still begrudge them what happened, son. They are not fools to think we have been placated by time. The North Remembers, they know this. And Lyanna has written of changing moods in the court. The courtiers still call her a seductress and a whore, as if being kidnapped by King Rhaegar was her own doing, but now more of them whisper that she is a savage and a heathen too.”
“You’re worried then, about the Faith?” Ned said.
“I’m always worried,” Rickard grimaced, “I must worry. For thousands of years the Kings of Winter fought against the Andals. We have had but a small span of peace, compared to that. And the South is no place for a Stark.”
“If you worry about unrest in the South, should I write to the Blackwoods and request that Marna and Brynden stay in Winterfell until the wedding?” Ned asked. He said it calmly, but Rickard could see the gleam of hope in his eyes. Ned loved his children, and the loss of his only daughter to the south had not been received well. Ned’s wife Alys had been wroth, leveraging her position as Lady of Winterfell against him. For three moons Rickard’s sheets had been damp, his food cold, and his clothes wrinkled. The servants had likely not needed much encouragement from Alys, as they too loved the fierce and dutiful young Marna. She had an easy way of charming people to her side, especially the smallfolk, much as Lyanna had. He allowed it, though, because Lyarra had done much the same to him when he first sent Ned to Barrowton to foster. Better for her to express displeasure in this manner than to try and subvert his rule or challenge him at court.
Yet despite knowing why he asked, Rickard still gave the question due thought before giving his response. “I think not. Perhaps if things worsen, but as of now we have naught but fears and uncertainty, no true cause to act. The reason for her betrothal still holds – the South needed to be assured that we would not completely separate from the crown after what happened with Rhaegar. House Blackwood is good stock of the First Men. Even if this new Hand seeks to increase the power of the Seven, the Blackwoods still hold fast to the Old Gods. She will be safe there.”
Ned gave a short nod in response. He wasn’t pleased, but Rickard couldn’t balance decisions affecting the safety of the whole North against only the happiness of his son and granddaughter. Marna would do her duty well in the south, he knew, even as he also feared for her as her grandfather.
“Another thing, Father,” Ned said, “The Lady Barbery stopped me on my way to see you. She bade that you visit her this afternoon as she has matters she wishes to discuss.”
“She oversteps herself,” Rickard snapped back, “It is not her place to summon the Lord of Winterfell. We feed and house her as is her due as Brandon’s widow, but she has mothered no line of Starks. She has had many years now to adjust to her new position but it seems she still sees herself as the wife of the heir.”
“As you say, Father. I can address the matter with her.”
“It’s not your place to deal with this Ned, not yet,” Rickard sighed, calming down. “I must be the one to handle the Lady Barbery. If only she did not decide to rear her head whenever my worries were at their worst. Mayhap this time she will finally consent to wed again. I would happily make her a match in Dorne, or Essos, or with a Wildling Lord north of the Wall – somewhere far away from here.”
Ned covering up a bark of laughter in response. “As you say, Father.”
The former Lady Ryswell had felt she was owed a place as the Lady of Winterfell, being usurped when Brandon died before she could fall with child. It would have been easier to keep her claim to the title had she been more attentive to her duties when she had it, but Ned’s Dustin wife had long since taken that mantel from her after he became heir. She remained within their walls as a nuisance, bitter in her age and refusing to remarry, even as many fine matches were proposed by her father and good-father.
“For now, we continue as we have,” Rickard said, returning to their original matter, “We proceeded with caution and seek to prepare the North however we can. Winter is coming.”