Chapter II.3: The Wild Wolf’s Hot Blood Quickens Fastest (I)
Karmic Acumen
Well-known member
Chapter II.3: The Wild Wolf's Hot Blood Quickens Fastest
"-. 278 AC .-"
Lady Lyarra's egg ducts sometimes made Luwin wish his predecessor was still alive just so he could push him off a parapet. It was an unfair thought – even if he hadn't turned coat, the late Maester Walys would have had no means whatsoever to influence the disease, let alone its effect on the Lady's womb. The more he failed to reverse the swellings, though, the more Luwin understood the appeal of scapegoats. But he hurried to kill that thought as well, before it distracted him from his examination like so many times past. Magic was not an exact science, he'd found, and purely intent-driven magic was even worse. The third eye was naturally prone to slipping up and down the various levels of perception, especially when it was off being carried around for this and that. That included self-perception. Or, as tended to be the case with Luwin, perception of his own homicidal daydreams. Marwyn once called them his inner barbarian. Luwin had given up on pretending to disagree.
Luwin guided his familiar out of the tubes to look at them from outside. They still looked somewhat studded, if not quite as much as a year before. He was past the point where he could draw any hope from healing mere superficial damage though, so he left it alone and resumed his examination, following the ducts towards the womb proper. There was slightly less inflammation – his prior work on them had proven lasting at least – but the scarring remained, and the passage of the eggs was still obstructed in several places by ugly lumps. Too large to dissipate with his paltry power, especially since he could barely manage destroying the cells one at a time. Too many, small and soft to just cut out. Marwyn and Lord Brandon were considering a magical solution to brute force their disintegration, Luwin knew, but that would just leave gaps in the duct wall, making things worse. More painful as well. Lady Lyarra may be getting by relatively well despite her harsh and irregular moon times, but Luwin doubted she would appreciate that ordeal becoming a daily companion.
Luwin willed his familiar up and out of the Lady, back to its proper place behind his brow. When he finally opened his flesh and blood eyes, he had to wait for them to adjust, though in truth it was his mind that needed the time more. It was always jarring to change back to normal sight after so long seeing the small and unseen. Looking around, he found that Lord Rickard had at some point joined the Lady and him.
"More of the same, hmm?" The Lady sounded far less bothered than Luwin felt.
"I am sorry My Lady." Luwin pulled her slipover back down over her bare womb. "At this rate, even if we figure out how to heal enough of the damage, you'll be well past your fecund years."
"It's a good thing I've already borne all the children I planned for then."
Just not the one she didn't plan for but was still looking forward to up until fate decided to intervene. And any that might have followed since.
Fortunately, Lord Rickard's exemplary ability to cut through awkwardness had only grown with age. "If there is nothing else, I would have some time alone with my wife."
Lady Lyarra's mood took a blatant turn towards that strange, familial sort of outrage she had been showing on and off since that time she barged into Lord Stark's solar and slammed a bunch of papers on his desk. Luwin still hadn't been told what lay so prickly on her mind, but the past week had steadily given him reason to believe it had something to do with her eldest son (of course). Never mind he hadn't even been home for half a year and had only returned last week.
"I hope you'll still attend our meeting after lunch?" Lord Rickard asked.
And it really was just a question. Lord Stark had adopted a very particular approach to Luwin ever since his investment as Maester of Winterfell. He commanded when it was within Luwin's duty to serve – as Lord Rickard viewed it – but when it was something beyond that, he left it up to Luwin to agree or refuse. It was a very unsubtle way to convey that he considered Maesters inherently untrustworthy despite the new oaths of service and loyalty (to the Lord and House, not keep) he had imposed throughout the North. But Luwin quite appreciated knowing that he had managed to overcome that prejudice. Doubly so now that his confidence was being actively sought, unlike the early days when the request to look inside the Lady had garnered him hostile glares from flinty-eyed guards itching to split him open at the slightest issue during his examinations.
"I'll be there, My Lord," Luwin promised.
"Very good."
Luwin had the Lady check her weight on the new scales while he collected her jar of urine, though he was hopeful the microscope and chemical tests would soon make urine tasting unnecessary. Then he nodded to them both and got up to wash his hands and tools in the Lady's privy. His own quarters had long since been renovated with all the newest facilities, but the hot water actually ran hot here, whereas it was at best lukewarm by the time it reached him in the Maester's Turret. The builders were already planning new facilities to solve that problem everywhere, but it would take some time.
He gave his goodbyes to the Lord and Lady and saw himself out. His feet led him easily through Winterfell's inner nooks, cutting the shortest path to the covered bridge. Passing through, he stopped at the window to look outside. He spied Brandon Stark practicing his spear throws on launched platters. They were proper spears this time too, rather than javelins. Magic notwithstanding, Lord Brandon was not an exceptionally gifted swordsman – his rate of improvement could at best be termed 'middling' these days despite putting in twice the average practice time – but he seemed quite at home with a polearm in hand, on foot and horse alike. It had served him well, Luwin knew, while training with the soldiers under Hornwood over the past six moons. Luwin was only surprised Lord Brandon wasn't using those Ghiscari pilums he'd brought back into fashion, but then he had fairly perfected his aim with them last he saw.
Luwin looked over the rest of the yard briefly. It was much emptier than it had been for years – it was past morning training, and most of the heirs and lords who'd fostered at Winterfell had finally dispersed to their various homes as well. Very reluctantly though – not one morning passed without Luwin finding half a dozen or more new ravens for Lord Brandon from all over the North. Earnest well wishes, prompt birth and death announcements, heartfelt invites to name days or weddings, and always, always updates on their activities. Very thorough and detailed ones too, even when single sentences might have sufficed. 'Reconnected with the family, caught up on House affairs, begun recruiting for the army (the coin's helping lots, even if Pa insists we could've handled it ourselves, allotment or not), wildlings getting bold (Giantsbane's again, we got'em though!), the quicksilver's finally snuffing out proper (your Pet Wizard's still nuts), found that spy, flatrods finally up and running, built a new furnace, sent a courier with our new Inventory pages, and just so we're clear I'm going to keelhaul every Ironborn I see from now on if your father finds it in him not to take my head (Greyjoy got away with a compass, I'm coming to Winterfell to give account).'
Hundreds of missives already, and they all read like loyal soldiers reporting to their commanding officer. Luwin wasn't entirely surprised – almost all of them had joined Lord Brandon in his soldiering tour, and Hornwood's training was the sort of hell that brought people together in any case. Luwin didn't need to have been there to believe it.
What Luwin didn't believe was that lord Rickard was sanguine about so many of his vassals reporting to his son rather than him. It wasn't just heirs acting on their bonds of friendship anymore either – Wyman Manderly had recently ascended as Lord of White Harbor, and Torghen Flint had been Chieftain of his clan from the start. But they still did their reports to Brandon Stark as part of their private letters, and they weren't the only ones. They sent updates to Lord Rickard as well of course, but the 'as well' was what stuck out to Luwin. Their ravens to Lord Rickard often assumed prior knowledge of things they'd conveyed to Lord Brandon previously too.
Perhaps this was the subject of the meeting that Lord and Lady Stark had invited Luwin to later?
Deciding there was no point in wondering about something he'd soon know one way or another, Luwin continued to his room, where he was pleased to find his laundry done, as usual. He changed to thicker garments and pulled on his coat, fingering the silver loop cast in a direwolf's bite that sat at the very top end of his strip of 'Scales.' He decided to leave his flap hat behind – It wasn't particularly windy today – then exchanged his slippers for his boots and climbed to the Rookery to see if any new letters had flown in. There was one from Last Hearth addressed to Lord Brandon (of course). Luwin checked the seal's authenticity but took it unopened – Lord Stark still hadn't given him leave to break the seals on correspondence and probably never would – then he left once more, by way of the library tower this time. The outside staircase was far less dangerous now that it had a railing – Lady Lyarra had almost fainted when her daughter ran up and down several times in the same hour just to prove she could – and even without it, he'd have chosen it for the view it gave.
The first thing he noticed once outside was the smoke from the smoke sauna down at the edge of the city – the column was half again as thick as usual and reached very high today indeed. It had to be filled to capacity with people getting de-liced. Likely a new influx of comonborn student hopefuls. Most newcomers would be rejected, but the rest would no doubt be snatched up by foremen, craftsmen and traders looking for laborers and apprentices. Winterfell was still a long way from getting its fill of manpower and would be for years, but at least the stream was relatively steady. The promise of hearty meals and housing continued to lure them, especially from the former Bolton lands where the tensions long suppressed by Bolton tyranny were only now finishing their squirming. Luwin didn't envy the newcomers, the one time he'd had to go through that place was enough – the scalding hot temperatures almost made him pass out, never mind the steam mixed in with herbs thrown on glowing rocks. It had been so bad that he actually let Rhodry rope him into an afternoon of 'snowboarding,' as if Luwin hadn't spent the whole morning explaining to the lad why it was a terrible idea to indulge in a 'sport' that only existed because poor peasant boys never had enough skis to share between them (never again).
Luwin descended the stairs quickly. The steps were cut high and narrow, but his legs were spry and his pace steady thanks to years of familiarity. Once on the ground, he set off for the Institute. He passed by the training yard on the way. He bowed and handed the letter to Lord Brandon, who was wiping the sweat off his face with a towel while Martyn Cassel and Hallis Mollen went around collecting the spears scattered everywhere.
The Young Lord opened it and read it quickly before speaking. "Congratulations, Hother. You're a granduncle now. It's a boy. That Jon named Jon because of course he did."
Hother Umber. Luwin hadn't seen him from upstairs because of the awning. Luwin bowed to Lord Brandon and approached the gymnasium as soon as he was waved off, sending the older man a pointed look which Hother either didn't notice or chose to completely ignore in favour of continuing his squats, huffing and puffing all the while. Bare-chested. While sweat dripped from his nose to his beard and poured in rivers down his hirsute frame as he went up and down under the massive bar of weights he held across his shoulders.
"Well," Luwin stopped outside the fence. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised to find you here." 'Where Lord Brandon can see you' he didn't say.
"No (huff) shit (puff) lad."
Luwin wondered if he'll ever stop being surprised at how long-suffering the huge man continued to be about his place in life, even at his most grumpy. Hother Umber was more of a dogsbody to Brandon Stark than Martyn Cassel, Hallis Mollen and Master Marwyn combined. For all the service that the Head Maester had pledged and promised, he wound up often as not doing Lord Brandon's will in far off places. Which didn't change the fact that Lord Brandon was the busiest and most demanding taskmaster that Luwin had ever known. Lord Rickard had thought to assign his son a squire at one point. Poor Ethan Glover didn't last a week before Lord Rickard took pity and took him on himself. Hardly surprising in hindsight – most grown men didn't have what it took to keep up with the Young Lord either. If it wasn't his overactive imagination leaving you feeling lost and stupid, it was the parts and parcels of Gods knew what you had to haul that did you in. It wasn't so bad when the heirs and lords were still at Winterfell – they were many, some were twice Lord Brandon's age or older and at least understood what he was talking about half the time, and their interests overlapped with the Young Lord's sufficiently for him to delegate. But even they'd ended up working in shifts by the end, and Luwin would never forget the glowers that Jon Umber got for 'volunteering' them not five months into their stay.
And then there was how the whole drama 'concluded' years later.
Luwin still remembered the day, not one year prior. It was some months after the Stark party returned from the funeral of Weyrman Manderly, after the new Lord Wyman – the most efficient of the Young Lord's court no matter what Jon Umber claimed – regretfully stayed behind at White Harbor. Brandon Stark went through the entire guard force and servant staff and was making noise about having his go at the Maesters next, being ever so certain he could 'provide his would-be assistant with the appropriate motivation to catch their body up to their mind.' When everyone up to Luwin's most seasoned fellows from Oldtown proved more than sane enough to react with the appropriate panic, Hother sneered at them for being 'spineless cunts' and 'reassured' them that he'd 'make the lad go easy on you lot.' Next thing they know, Brandon Stark walks in on them while breaking their fast and instructs them to rethink their schedules to account for the drop in their number, because Hother Umber would be serving under him from then on. All the while, the man himself stood behind him while glaring at them murderously from haggard, bloodshot eyes. A look he dropped immediately to turn all humble and dutiful upon Lord Brandon turning back in his direction.
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for that confrontation.
Luwin glanced between Hother and the servant girls peeking out of every door and window from the chicken coop to the kitchen and back. He supposed this wasn't the worst way to quell the rumors that kept popping back up the longer 'Whoresbane' went without marrying. "New routine?"
"On top (huff) of the old one (puff), aye." Hother groaned out one last squat and heaved the barbell back onto its frame with a pant. "Gotta fill out them cheeks. My Lord's orders."
Ben Umber should find better things to do than managing his brother's physical condition from the other end of the North, but it wasn't Luwin's place to question High Lords. "I'd say you've succeeded." And then some. Hother had always been a large man, tall and big-boned, but he'd never been particularly muscled, and his face, flinty-eyed and hard as winter frost as it might have been, could never have been described as anything but gaunt. Yet that had been last year. Now he was almost a different person, every bit as wide as his brothers, huge and powerful, with full ruddy cheeks, fists as big as hams, and forearms almost as thick as his upper arms. Luwin had once been sceptical about Umber claims of giant ancestry, but if a height of nearly seven feet didn't make him a believer before, he certainly was now. Hother Umber was packed with so much brawn these days that he was twice as wide in the waist as Luwin was around the shoulders. When Lord Ben Umber and his other brother had visited just two weeks before, Luwin hadn't been able to tell Hother and Mors apart from behind until he noticed the difference in their hair.
And to think that all three of them still fell short of Jon!
Hother paused in daubing his face with his shirt to look at Luwin in that way he usually reserved for young boys that had proven smart enough to become acolytes, but not smart enough to get by on their own now that they'd made it in.
Luwin cleared his throat. "Right." He hoped his face wasn't so pink that it couldn't be dismissed as the cold. "I should go."
He went.
The giggling gossip of servant girls followed him. Luwin walked faster. He already knew envy was his fatal flaw, thank you very much, he didn't need to start projecting on top of everything else. Alas, his mind betrayed him. Luwin could already imagine Ryben asking after Hother and making lewd comments about him having to run off handsy women if he bobbed his big, round arse at them one more time.
Gods, but he needed a wife. He'd dared hope, when they opened the Institute to women, that he'd find one that had more than stones and thread in her head. The number of Maester hopefuls among them had been on a steady rise ever since water-powered spools freed women from the tedious and time-consuming task of spinning thread by hand. Unfortunately, what few women did make it as acolytes all had something to prove, and very often grudge the size of the Water Titan because of all the (near) incidents with the men. Which had ceased quite thoroughly after the one and only gelding, but memories tended to linger. It was why Master Marwyn was grooming Arna Slate to establish an all-women's branch the moment she finished her Sleeve. Oh, would that the future got a move on, but chasing future boons was never much of a salve for the travails of the moment. If experience had taught him anything, it was the opposite. Luwin reluctantly glanced eastward, to the balloons he hadn't wanted to acknowledge -
Distracted, Luwin didn't notice Round Ralph in time and had to stop and wait for him and his herd of pigs to pass before moving on. It took a while. He'd seen herds of sheep that weren't half as large. One thing Luwin hadn't known before coming North was that pigs could be used to dispose of garbage on a large scale. Winterfell had been using them to keep Wintertown clean for generations, which incidentally allowed House Stark to keep a live sounder of considerable size through all but the longest of winters, rather than slaughter it like people did nine out of every ten livestock every autumn. The sounder would only grow larger now that the people of the North were steadily letting go of that habit. Luwin wouldn't have expected people to drop tradition so easily, especially one that dated back thousands of years, but it seemed people – or at least Northmen – were very particular about keeping the good traditions well apart from the sad ones. All the new farming methods had dramatically increased food yields without increasing the size of the fields or labour, and that turned out to be just half of it. The clover fields allowed for greater amount of cattle to be raised than before, and then there was the fact that the four-field crop rotation resulted in the production of a tremendous quantity of turnips. Livestock, it turned out, loved turnips. And there were a lot of turnips. Suddenly, farmers didn't have to lose nine out of ten heads from every herd at the start of each winter. If the North started next spring with more livestock than the Reach, Luwin wouldn't even be surprised.
He didn't want to think about how many people now lived through the winter where they'd once have perished. He didn't want to tempt the darker powers out there. Umber lineal claims weren't the only thing that had made a believer of him.
One of the pigs trundled over to nip at his robe. "Don't you dare – shoo, shoo!" The filthy beast ignored him. Luwin tried to push it away. It was like trying to move a cliff. "Shoo, damn you! I'll pull a knife on you, see if I don't!" Fortunately, Round Ralph the Second came and saved him before he lost anything more important than his dignity. What did this say about how the rest of his day would turn out? Wrestling with pigs, honestly.
Luwin resolved to buy a whole sack of salt at the soonest opportunity, just so he could properly threaten to cook and eat the next swine that tried to have a go at him. It wouldn't even be expensive, there was more salt to go around than people knew what to do with anymore, now that they didn't have as much meat in need of curing every fall. The flatrod system had dramatically increased output there as well. Luwin once thought Lord Stark would be displeased – even counting taxes, salt was House Stark's main source of coin. In fact, during fall season their salt mines accounted for almost three fourths of the North's total income. It definitely explained how House Stark had financed its many conquests. Salt was the backbone of House Stark's economic solvency, the same way the hot springs were the backbone of its survival. That wasn't even mentioning the symbolism – bread and salt indeed. How many could boast of being rooted half as deeply in the bedrock of civilisation? Even the Riverlands bought from them. Saltpans did well with their evaporation method, but that process was slow and stopped at the first sprinkle of rain, never mind winters that lasted years.
Lord Stark hadn't been displeased. In fact, he decided to close the oldest of the mines – never mind that it could cover the entire world's salt needs for the next six hundred years all by itself – and gave it to his son to play Bran the Builder (as if there wasn't already likeness enough). Lord Brandon was soon muttering about something called 'tourism' – there was never an end to his made-up words – and how the place would make one of his descendants filthy rich in some three hundred years. Without selling any of the salt. Or even digging it out. Somehow. From tolls. The Starks were mad.
Yes your dynasty didn't get to live for eight thousand years without planning ahead, but this was ridiculous.
Luwin tried to walk around the messy trail the pigs had left behind, gave up, stomped right through the fresh mud and finally reached the Northern Ward.
There, finally, was the Institute. The great structure of granite coated in gleaming limestone and watched over by a score of gargoyles, every last one a newcomer rejoicing at the restoration of each new section and floor. The Pharos stood proudly next to it, the once broken tower now restored and casting the light of its great beacon to all corners of the world. The beam spun and spun around its axis, focused by the largest array of mirrors Luwin had ever seen in the same place. White Ravens roosted on its turrets and the long grounding cord raised to prevent lightning from once again destroying his second home.
His very busy second home. It was positively teeming with people, young and old alike. They were streaming in and out the great ironwood doors. And the many side doors for that matter. Luwin stood there and basked in the sight for a few moments. He always felt like he could do that all day, but he didn't have that long before his next obligation.
Fortunately, people were as conscious of status no matter which side of the Neck they were from, so he had no trouble passing through. The novices and acolytes knew to get out of the way of Sleeves, and his direwolf scale put him even further up above everyone but the Head Maester. And since Master Marwyn was not currently in residence due to Lord Brandon's calls on his time – he didn't even live in the Institute like the rest of the Conclave – Luwin really only had the Deputy Head Maester to worry about. Except not really. The worst Colemon had ever done was lean on Luwin's status when student politics got particularly nasty. It didn't happen much anymore since the 'Nobody Policy' forced entrants to leave their status and last names at the door. The pretense of anonymity went a long way to make commoners and lordlings equally worthless within the walls. But novices with more bravery or entitlement than brains remained an unfortunate reality, and sometimes one even thought he could go over the Deputy's head.
Woes of love or not, Luwin was never going to complain about being able to take a wife and father children, let alone own his own things and, well, not have to foreswear his entire family. But he had definitely gained a new appreciation for the Oldtown vows of abnegation. Doubtless the twits unlucky enough to get Mullin instead of him felt the same. Those that didn't get the boot at least, like Luwin still thought should have happened to the first fool who'd looked at their Institute's initials and figured it was ever so brilliant to dub it the Cow Pen.
Luwin privately blamed Lord Brandon for that. It was a preposterous oversight for someone so partial to anagrams.
Fortune smiled on him today though. He came across nothing untoward.
Which was honestly surprising – Luwin was still waiting for something to happen with the alchemist. Not so long ago, an actual, fully licenced alchemist from King's Landing had walked up to Winterfell's gates and offered to trade knowledge for knowledge. Luwin hadn't been there, but he was introduced to the man later – Hallyne was his name, a pallid man with soft damp hands. Maybe it was worth checking up on the man, now that he was here.
He paid loose attention to his surroundings as he made a mental inventory of where the man might be found. For all that the Conclave had imposed the total anonymity policy, there was still tension in the halls. You could see it in the hurried gaits, the uneven levels of alertness among the acolytes, the way novices clustered in groups around the drinking fountains. Even if they looked largely the same in their grey robes, commoners and lordlings tended to instantly tell each other apart the moment they first spoke. By now the situation had mostly simmered down to a sort of clannish feud between common and noble, but it was far from perfect and would likely remain so as long as no one had to forswear their status and inheritance. Luwin wondered which side had more people working punishment shifts in the hypocausts at the moment. That he was unable to easily guess was probably a good sign.
The alchemist wasn't attending any of the ongoing lectures, nor was he at the caldarium despite how much use the facility saw (in fact, it was exceedingly popular, they'd have to create another sooner than planned if the attendance rose as Lomys projected). Luwin looked in the medical wing next, but the man wasn't there either, probably because Qyburn wasn't present to flatter knowledge out of – the man was down in the city according to Gulian. Cutting people open and sewing them back together no doubt, there was no shortage of difficult births that even birthing forceps couldn't solve, and fools with their wormguts set to burst from eating cherry pits against all sense.
He descended to the engineering level next. The alchemist wasn't there either, but Luwin lingered to speak with Mullin. It was fairly rare these days to see the man around the place. Winterfell's master-at-arms usually had other obligations, either to their lords or his wife and children, and he'd been the last of the Oldtown crowd to catch up on their cross-training as a result. Honestly, Luwin was surprised he'd powered through it all. But the current pet project of the engineers seemed to have drawn his attention. On the one hand, Luwin could see why – a repeating crossbow would certainly be useful, what with wildlings and Ironborn both insisting on becoming a nuisance. On the other hand, the arrow multi-loader had already turned the Snowdrifters into the most devastating skirmishers in history, so a repeating crossbow seemed a tad redundant even if it did require less training to use. Oblique inquiry into the matter led to a gaggle of fresh faces antsily informing him that the multi-loader was where they got the idea to begin with. Except their total 'progress' could be summed up as 'we have to start from scratch because it turns out the concept doesn't transfer well at all, and you wouldn't happen to know how to get a hold of the original inventor would you Lord Wolfscale?'
Luwin did of course, but that was one secret that wouldn't make it further than the Master Inventory for the foreseeable future. Not that secret-keeping weighed on him that much, what was he going to say? 'It's called the Instant Legolas after a character in one of Lord Brandon's fancies that he seems most reluctant to put to writing'? Even his credibility wasn't that impervious. "He's not actually the inventor I'm afraid. He only came upon of the concept second-hand and it fell to those like you to make it reality."
"So you do know him!"
Gods forbid they get the message he was actually sending.
Fortunately, Mullin's reputation was every bit as legendary here as out there, so he only had to glower at them to let him make his escape.
Since he was already nearby, Luwin decided to stop by the Craftsmen's Croft, where the Sleeves worked together with the more accomplished craftsmen in the city to design and improve on the many agricultural and industrial products and tools. Plows, wheels, transports, irrigation systems, fittings, all the spare parts and tools to mix and match them. Luwin didn't envy the task of the Standardisation Department, but theirs was a duty imposed by Lord Stark himself, and Luwin had already done his duty there and then some.
One of the first things that Lord Rickard had done after Luwin's investment as Maester of Winterfell had been to draft a Law that said simply 'In the North, The Winterfell Standard of Weights and Measures apply to all trade and barter.' Then he told them to come up with something worthy of being called the Winterfell Standard of Weights and Measures. With barely any guidance beyond 'make it revolve around the weight of water.' Which was barely any help, and none at all when it came to sizes and lengths. When they finally finished balking, arguing and cursing their way to the final system, Lord Stark promptly signed the draft into law and sent out exact sets of weights and measures to every High Lord in the North, while keeping a Master set in Winterfell under lock and key. To Luwin's absolute shock – even with everything else he'd already seen – none of the Lords had sent back even the slightest grumble. Merchants foreign and local had grumbled plenty, but eventually began buying measurement sets of their own. The 'Northern Standard' was steadily turning from a nuisance into a selling point, or so Wyman Manderly was very insistent on nowadays.
Luwin supremely doubted it would have ended well if not for all the things that did immediately benefit from this notion of sameness. Grain sacks, jars and tin cans had only been the start. Now it was everything from window frames to axles and even the fittings, nails, screws, wrenches and keys. Lord Brandon had once said he wanted it so you could break a wayn wheel and find a replacement spoke or axle in the next village without having to beg, pay and wait for the smith to do a custom job. The North wasn't there yet, but Luwin no longer doubted that it soon would be.
Not everything went smoothly of course – not one thresher design had gone by without being reworked at least four times. Speaking of which… "They're taking the rice thresher apart again?"
"Afraid so," said Frenken, then gestured to a completely different mess of bits and bobs. "The transplanter too."
Luwin watched a small crannogman talk and point out various parts to a man who looked as if the disassembled machine had personally offended him, his friends, family, and ancestors to the thirteenth generation. Nearby, Howland Reed quietly watched with keen and careful eyes. "Do the crannogmen finally think we hate them?"
"I have no idea anymore. When they look you in the eye, you're either a Stark or a cad, there's no middle ground with them."
Luwin decided he'd gone out of his way enough for something that ultimately wasn't his problem so he decided to retire to his rooms. He mostly lived out of the Maester's Turret, but he had his own quarters here as well, one of the suites that the Starks had once kept for their own when they still resided in the Old Keep. The apartments were austere and small compared to the family lodgings in the Great Keep, but they were on the next to last highest floor of the shell keep and also the most defensible. Distributed evenly all along the ring, they were separated from the outside by adjoining privies and offices, with the hallways encircling all of that and wrapped in turn by walls of granite ten feet thick. The quarters didn't share walls with the inner courtyard either – the innermost ring held instead various safe rooms, armories and foodstores. Other than the stairs and hallways, those were the only areas whose original purpose was reprised after renovations, albeit with the arms and armors being replaced by books and scrolls.
For Luwin, it had become a boon twice over because it meant that nothing reached his ears of what was taking place in the amphitheatre that had replaced the inner yard. Open lectures and debates tended to get loud, like he imagined the Citadel used to be in the old days. The parties were even louder. More recently, it meant he didn't need to picture the increasing disappointment and frustration of Lord Benjen as he once more failed to get his compositions put to sound. Someone would one day bite the blade and tell the boy that expecting harmony from a band of more than half a dozen people was folly, musical notation or not, but Luwin was not going to be that someone. He'd already tried that song and dance with a Stark and it had been more than enough.
Luwin broke the first two matches with nothing to show for it, took a deep steadying breath and managed to light his lamp on the third. The memory finished disappeared back into the dark, murky depths from whence it came by the time he finished going to the privy and back. Matches. One of the many things 'the Lore Thief stole from the gods for the sake of man.' Medger Cerwyn had entirely too much cheek.
Taking a seat, Luwin took the matchbox and spun it idly between his fingers. Matches were one of the things Lord Rickard had ordered expedited at the prompting of the new Lord Winterstone, whose input was much sought after by House Stark on account of his first-hand knowledge of not just what the common people needed soonest – and thus would sell fastest – but what they could afford – and thus would sell the most. Sticks dipped in phosphorous. Boons like this made for such an odd counterweight to the… darker solutions that oft sprung from Lord Brandon's aberrant mind. Solutions that he made no bones about applying no matter what anyone else said, his Maester included.
"I don't cuck loyal men, Luwin."
Luwin hurried to distract himself with some light reading. Of the sort wholly removed from the goings on in his life. Used to be he could escape into the tedium of finding unfindable books in the library, but the Decimal System had made it so easy to organise and retrieve books that he no longer had that option. Yet another impact by the 'Lore Thief' on his life. It wasn't enough that his masters commanded his honor and his duty, they also insisted on upending his personal life every other week, if only through some new change of far-reaching implications.
Luwin pinched his nose. That had been an ungrateful thought. He looked at the wall-sized mirror that showed the view of the outside. The balloons were still in the air, he noticed. One was a lot bigger than the ones there last week, perhaps just two models away from one that might finally lift men into the sky. They must have finally figured out a decent compound for treating the fabric. Luwin hadn't wanted to acknowledge them before, what with… but grand gifts could be a double-edged sword even when they weren't meant that way. The mirror was the last of a clever chain of mirrors facing each other at 45-degree angles, conveying the grand view that you would otherwise need to climb to the top of the Pharos for. Lord Brandon had commissioned it as a gift – though not apology – after 'rescuing' Luwin from the worst mistake of his life, so-called. Luwin sometimes wished the Young Lord hadn't bothered, just so he didn't have such a 'stark' reminder of what a fool Lord Brandon had made of him. What fool he'd made of himself. He'd thought he was smitten with that woman, so beautiful and passionate about the same things he was, because wasn't Lys overdue being taken down a peg? It happened to Myr, didn't it? It was about time someone came up with something for mapmaking, they were always on such short supply! Even the richest ship captains could only rent them, and the Lyseni never let anyone forget they were the best at making them.
Luwin had thought himself smitten, when in truth he'd been besotted. He never even noticed when she made him think it was his own idea to share his notions about star angles, course calculations and hot air balloons. How they could be useful in cartography, and so much else. He was too busy being outraged at the Young Lord for warning him away from her, what, did he expect Luwin to take advice on love from the same lad who'd taken to introducing 'underwear' and 'lingerie' piecemeal to celebrate his dalliances? Yes, he did know about that, choosing fake names for their themes was not at all clever, how dare he impugn her honor so?
Lord Brandon impugned her honor alright. He put on the glamour of the most pathetic Sleeve imaginable, infiltrated the institute, let her seduce 'great secrets' out of him, then left her waiting blindfolded and tied to her own bed before coming to Luwin to tell him where, how and why he would find her.
"I don't cuck loyal men, Luwin, what made you think I'd let someone else do it?"
The most humiliating thing was that she wasn't even a spy. She was just some Lyseni whore with no greater ambition than escaping into the only other path she had any hopes of doing well in. And she didn't care how many men she bedded to get there. Luwin would have laughed at the irony if it wasn't buried beneath so many mixed feelings. Chief among them the guilty relief that Lord Rickard had completely ignored his self-flagellating pleas and saw her shipped to White Harbor the next morning. She was still there, last he heard, where the on-hand threat of being shipped back to the city of sex slaves kept her on her best behaviour, even if the prospect of being given to the Silent Sisters didn't.
Her name had been among those on the cork-sewn life vest that Manderly had sent over for entry into the Master Inventory. Luwin tried not to-
He was wrenched out of his downward spiral by a knock on the door.
"Come in!"
It was Ryben. Looking distinctly not wily. "Good. I managed to catch you."
Luwin glanced at the clock – getting a clocksmith mixed up in the exodus of the Kingdom in Exile would become another reason for the Essosi to hate them one of these years – and found that his appointment with Lord Stark was now less than an hour away. "Is something the matter?"
"Maybe." Ryben was never so cagey with him either. "You've got a meeting with the lord lined up, right? Mullin mentioned it."
"I do."
"Right. Tell him I need to see him as soon as possible. It's about that faction assessment he commissioned way back."
"I thought that was done years ago."
"So did I." Ryben turned to leave.
"Now hold on there, surely you can give me more than that?"
Ryben turned back towards him, tapping his fingers on his staff of office. "… We might have a problem."
"A problem."
"A big, Dorne-shaped problem."
Luwin glanced at Ryben's rod again. Ryben was certainly no slouch in history, but zinc was the metal of languages. Whatever he learned that was a 'problem' likely originated in some foreign text that had lacked translation previously. Perhaps the problem wasn't to do with current events, which was good. And perhaps that meant the problem was of the long-lasting, historical variety that had managed to endure the ages up to the present, otherwise it wouldn't be a problem anymore. Which was bad.
Luwin gave Ryben his most meaningful stare. "I'll let him know."
Ryben nodded and left the way he came with not one wisecrack to mark his passing.
Luwin left as well soon after, feeling disturbed.
He came across the alchemist near the inner gate. It was the last place he'd have thought to look. Members could go in and out the Outer Gate more or less freely, but nobody was allowed into the inner keep unless they had permission. That generally meant none besides Luwin, Marwyn, Mullin (and his squires), and the occasional Maester that managed to get permission for something or other. Even they were usually denied unless they were part of the conclave or on assignment from one of the Starks or their steward. Luwin was mollified to see the alchemist wasn't such an exception, but that only seemed the case because a Stark happened to have come down from the castle instead.
Lord Brandon dismissed the man before Luwin reached them. Hallyne passed by with a nod in a shuffle of striped black-and-scarlet robes trimmed with sable. The Young Lord lingered though. Luwin took the opportunity to study him. Brandon Stark had come into his own well, growing handsome, broad-shouldered and so tall that Luwin had to look up to face him. The time in the army had only chiselled him further. He was neither slender nor hulking – certainly not compared to Hother or Jon Umber – but he'd nonetheless required an entirely new wardrobe when he finally returned. The look now on his face, though, could most charitably be described as 'pinched.' "My lord? Is everything alright?"
"Did you know alchemists call each other Wisdom? Of course you do."
Yes he did, it was something Luwin found almost as annoying as their custom of hinting at the vast secret stores of knowledge that they wanted everyone to think they possessed. Once theirs had been a powerful guild, but in recent centuries the maesters of the Citadel had supplanted the alchemists almost everywhere. Of course, it was also true that their fortunes had drastically reversed since the Great Deratting, even if they no longer pretended to transmute metals. They no longer depended on just the Crown's patronage, though it had certainly increased as well, that was for certain. "Will he be a problem, my lord?"
"I'm not sure."
Luwin had the strange notion that he should have just experienced a shiver of dread. "My lord?"
"He claimed he could make a flaming hand burn in the sky above the city on the day of the Harvest Feast."
Well… they could make wildfire. "That doesn't sound like a very wise deployment of the substance."
"That's the thing – he claimed it's got nothing to do with wildfire at all."
"Something with phosphorous then?" It would explain the green at least.
"Maybe." Lord Brandon didn't sound like he believed it though. "Well. Guess I'll be dreaming for duty rather than pleasure tonight."
"Lord Eddard will be crushed, I'm sure."
"Hush, now, don't give away all of my secrets." Lord Brandon sauntered off.
A black raven crowed at Luwin from atop the gatehouse. Luwin glanced at it, wondering if it was alone inside its head. Back in Oldtown, the white ravens and the black ones quarreled like Dornishmen and Marchers, so they keep them apart. Not so here though. Not anymore at least. But he was just distracting himself again.
Back to work. Surely it wouldn't do any harm to arrive at Lord Rickard's meeting early.
