Chapter 8: SI POV V

Late 153 AC

It was a clear day, the first in near a week. Not a cloud was yet in the sky when I'd l emerged from my bedroom, dressed for the day, moved up to the vert upper portions of my keep, one of which was my personal observation tower, complete with a reinforced balcony and a wide view of most of my lands. As a light eastern breeze flitted past, I gazed out over the large paddock holding my herds of cattle. There was something to be said of farming being passed down through the generations almost taking on a life of its own. While my parents in my old life had not been farmers, they had helped on farms, belonging to their parents or grandparents, who had been farmers, and before them, much the same. I had known of nothing from my old life's family tree indicating anything other than farmers or the occasional tavern owner going back through the years. Then again, such details were sparse now, growing more so as time went on. As the vast majority of humans throughout recorded history were farmers or tended to animals, it's not a surprise that I found little else to support any notions of odd ancestry.

I did know I loved growing things, if not for the fact that I loved the growing season and seeing the cycle of nature, then for the fact that my guiding hands could bring about a direct result before my very eyes. Building things also brought me some sort of similar pleasure, but truly, bringing about a change through growth and tending to something until it produced something of use stirred something in me I just couldn't quite explain. I could entirely sympathize with the Gardeners and their Tyrell stewards, all on growing stronger and growing green things in Highgarden and all that. I also loved building things, I blame growing up with Legos for that, but all my tasks of building up my lands was taking care of the latter love, not the first. Perhaps if not for Bran the Burner and the setback of losing your entire means of producing ships, the North too might be a far more prosperous place, filled with greater monuments that allowed for prosperity from the trade allowed with such a bounty of ships.

Case in point for building up my lands, my cattle breeding project. I'd taken it upon myself to begin trying to create a breed of cattle specifically for the production of beef, both for my own cravings and for the added opportunity to introduce a greater amount of protein into the diet of my smallfolk and soldiers alike. I'd found that most beef in the Stormlands came from animals slaughtered that could no longer produce milk, or in the case of bulls, extras that were not to be used for breeding. So, not exactly top notch stuff, but more than passable for having no beef at all. I had no idea if this was the same across Westeros, as surely true beef cattle had been developed somewhere or sometime in the Westerlands or Reach, right? They had the greenery and grasslands to do so, and their huge size meant they could move herds for ages on the same ranges without running into other herds in other parcels of land or stripping the grasses bare. With how bizarrely underpopulated Westeros was, perhaps most lords never felt the need to try and maximize food production in such fields? Loggers back on Earth, in such times, tended to not worry about deforestation, and if farmland went bad in places that had miles upon miles of it, why worry? Just move onto the next field, or hill, or forest, and be done with it.

However, given that many cattle breeds that I had seen here were smaller than what I remembered from Earth, the process of active selective breeding, rather than by chance, had not occurred yet, or at least not intensely in the Stormlands. Or I was entirely wrong and this would all just be one long and expensive hobby, all because I wanted some good brisket and dammit I was going to get some one way or another. Regardless, the fruit of my labors had not been panning out for some time, seeing as I'd started this project years ago, under my father's supervision. It'd been a curiosity to him, to see if I could "strike gold again" as he put it. I'd made little headway in increasing animal size until now.

I had an aurochs. Specifically, a bull just entering his prime, wild and more than willing to breed any female I put him in a pasture with. We'd found him just weaned, and managed to lasso and drag his stubborn ass back from the forested hillock he'd been calling home. A 'randy' bastard as most of my up-and-coming cowboys put it. Getting him back in his own pen, however, was the tricky part. Unlike the rest of my cattle, he wasn't the result of thousands of years of relatively imprecise genetic selection, which eventually led to far, far more docile and easily-led animals. No, even though we'd been feeding and moving around in his presence enough to grow accustomed to a few of us, he was still wild at heart, and did not like anyone entering his paddock, even to feed him. I was incredibly lucky he hadn't gored anyone yet, but more than a few of my smallfolk ranch hands had suffered broken bones or bruised bodies from him thrashing them about when the mood struck him. The reinforced fences were definitely a help in keeping him contained.

The thing was, here in Westeros, aurochs were becoming rarer and rarer as the centuries went by, as according to both my mother and my maester. Wild cattle going by the same name had suffered the same fate in Europe and elsewhere on Earth, as I recalled, eventually being hunted into extinction and likely losing habitat to farmland and human habitation along the way. They needed forage and shelter, and with the increase of people combining with the loss of pasture and woodlands, there was no wonder in my mind as to why they were slowly but surely disappearing here as well. Their greatest numbers south of the Wall likely remained in the North and amidst the more forgotten or isolated vales of the, well, Vale. How they were vanishing in the Stormlands, with it being so damn sparsely populated, baffled me until I realized just how far some lords would travel to hunt one. Hunting from horseback was, after all, a bit cheating unless the animal was a whale or something.

The fact that we had managed to find a lone, wild aurochs in the Stormlands, and then in my lands specifically, was nothing short of a miracle for my breeding efforts. His size was significantly larger than any of the bulls I'd been using, and before this discovery I'd been tempted to start looking as far away as Essos for good breeding stock. Now, though, I had my chance for something big. The calves would be born sometime late this next year, staggered and in marked separate paddocks, as not all the females had been bred on the same day. It was a given that some of the calves might not make it, as I had no idea how screwy ASOIAF genetics were for animals, let alone people, so I was taking that into account as well. However, I was looking forward to seeing the first generation of this cross, come that time, and was already speculating what to do based on the results.

Size increases across the board? Keep breeding more 'baseline' with that same bull, and breed the bull's offspring with other 'baseline' cattle to see if the size is maintained across at least one other generation. If so, start spreading the breeders into beef cattle herds, male or female. Size increase partially? Same as before, only start breeding the next generation of bulls with their half-siblings, as I recalled some breeders did. Even with one original sire, having enough cattle with unrelated mothers should cut back on the chances of inbreeding deformities or issues. Then again, in animals, inbreeding is less of an issue than it is for people, barring Targaryens, but I have no idea if that's true for this world as well. No discernable increase in size? Either keep going and hope for a lucky break, or I'm back to square one, and figure out something else to do with all these cattle.

Turning away from the sight of the bull and the rest of my cattle pens, I moved along the top of my keep until I found my training yard. It was a great thing these days, many times the size of my father's inherited one. The walls around my keep, formerly close by, were being expanded and raised, the old ones being torn down only as the others were secured. No sense in building from scratch when I might be besieged in the middle of my construction.

Along with the training yard's expansion was that of my personal barracks, and the means of supplying it. Fletchers, carpenters, bowyers, I was investing slowly but surely in everything I'd need. There were even three smithies where only one had stood, dedicated almost entirely to weapons, armor, and the little bits and bobs of everything else my troops would need. My father had been looking into increasing the size of his personal retinue, about ten knights and maybe a hundred men at arms, to almost double that. However, after his death, I'd taken up the task, and decided twice as much was not going to be enough, given my likely future troubles with my neighbors and the Dornish war coming soon. Within a few years, I'd have perhaps thirty knights, if I could find some willing to pledge themselves to my house, and likely three hundred men in permanent service.

Yet even I didn't know if I was going to have enough equipment for all these men I'd be hosting by that time. I had land aplenty for landed knights of my own, hells I could colonize my northern regions with knights for days if I so desired. There was more than enough land for my yeomen to expand as much as possible, splitting their families to form new tracts under plow, but that could also dangerously spread my men when I needed to call them to arms. Similarly, my primitive industry was not yet capable of supporting them as I'd like to, meaning be they knights or yeomen of sorts, they would have to supply most of their own gear. Not an issue most of the time for more major lords, but dammit, I wanted some semblance of uniformity and cohesion amongst them, not fifty men dressed piecemeal or with some in chainmail while others had full plate.

The expansion of my men at arms, on the other hand, was going to be a far more successful endeavor. The mercantile investment in my lands, as well as the sheer increase in the amount of taxes that were rolling in, meant that I had the silver to pay far more men to serve under me, and more than a few former mercenaries like Arstan had come into my service, ready and willing to continue their line of work for steadier pay and a place to settle down. With an expanding castle, that meant more room for these men, and an increased need for them to perform patrols, act as guards, and fulfill various needs in my lands. I was training three separate styles of troops for this, based upon their primary weapons. First and foremost? My crossbowmen, courtesy of Arstan, were going to be a useful surprise against enemy troops. I wasn't going to give them some dirks or short swords for close quarters, no, I was going to imitate the Venetians and give them warhammers along with pavise shields. That way, if they found themselves in such combat, it'd be a nasty surprise for whoever had decided to get too close to them. I'm pretty sure the Braavosi do the same with their marines when it comes to their weapons, as I have no idea if they have standing armies or not, being in that weird pseudo-Renaissance stage of cultural development.

Next was my fighting foot, men with a mixture of polearms and whatever sidearms they wanted to carry, be it swords, axes or hammers. I'd not yet decided if I wanted them to be too specialized in either regard, as halberds, poleaxes and even spears had different functions depending upon the situation, just like their choices of sidearms. Where hammers were effective, swords were often not, yet a man without a sword was strangely looked down upon in Westeros, unless he were an absolute beast with some other weapon. Still, most of my levies would be crossbowmen or spearmen, yes, but I'd likely also turn them into direct pikemen as well. No sense in trying to undo thousands of years of martial culture, as merely adapting it to the situation would serve me far better.

Last, and the smallest of my forces, yet the ones that would receive the most training, were my counter-raiders. I'd not thought of a name yet, but it was either going to be 'rangers' or 'hounds' of some distinction. They were to be my blades in the dark, for when an army was asleep, my men would be hiding in the shadows of forests and creeping past patrols to seed chaos and destruction, or guard against such actions. They would counter Dornish raiders whenever possible, attack their patrols, raid passing supply trains, and just be a general devil to deal with. They would lack heavy armor, instead focusing on whatever made them light, agile, and far too fast to catch.

For them, I'd invested in two very different ideas. Bowmen were, by and large, fairly popular in the Stormlands, who were noted for having some great ones. However, an odd thing I'd found in Westeros was the startling lack of mounted archers outside of Dorne. Now, some of those raiders had Dornish yew bows, to be fair, or at least I think they did, but I'd yet to find evidence of professional mounted troops with them. Perhaps the closest were some lords with more open lands had those with smaller horse-mounted crossbows, but those were too slow firing for my plans. I needed speed, and units of men that could only fire and then retreat, rather than fire as they pursued, didn't match what I knew would be needed someday.

So, in essence, I was going to be trying to create a cross between Mongol and Byzantine mounted archers, perhaps with some Magyar thrown into the mix. I don't know, my memories are starting to get a little hazy on a lot of stuff I once took for granted on knowing. Thank gods I'd written my own small library worth of notebooks and journals over the years and stashed it away for personal reading whenever I could get to it. If my maester was as superstitious as smallfolk often were, he'd have likely thought I was eating them or something. Instead, he left me to my business of them, and even if he did find them, he has no idea what English was, and couldn't read them.

For weapons, these raiders would lack the kind of lances most knights had, instead focusing on far lighter ones, and they would not wield anything resembling a longsword, instead using far lighter swords meant for speed and cutting power, similar to sabers although technically not sabers. Given that swinging a heavy sword was a good way to get tired already, never mind in the scorching heat of a desert, I'd rather they use something far lighter and meant for lightly or unarmored opponents, like Dornish raiders and skirmishers. I'd never risk these men in a brawl with fully equipped knights or any kind of heavy infantry.

I would, however, use them to pursue fleeing infantry or mounted nobles, either to cut them down or to try and capture them. I was unsure exactly how the latter would work unless they were surrounded or cornered. Maybe use something like bolos or train them to use a lasso? I don't want them to try and shoot the horse out from under a fleeing noble, that's just as likely to kill or cripple someone I want taken in relatively good shape for the bargaining table.

Satisfied with the progress below, I returned to my solar, looking over the expanse of notes crowding out a good portion of the map detailing my lands. My maester was busy giving Ser Buckler a tour of the sept grounds currently under construction, and with my mother having taken my sisters out to see what the Lowhill market had today, I'd the time to really plan uninterrupted for once. No petitioners, no criminals to punish, no reports from my neighbors or letters from my liege. Now, perhaps, I could focus on my other love, that of building things.

Specifically, the three largest towns in my lands. I would undoubtedly be building more in the future, given the current projections between my maester and I, but for now, these three would consume near all my focus.

Lowhill, the closest settlement to our holdfast, was primarily a farming community, with a small industry focusing on milling wheat and spinning wool from nearby villages with sheep herds. It had always been the most prosperous settlement in our lands, simply because it was so close to home, literally. Given that our keep was located on one of the hills overlooking the small town, I'd decided it would be my primary focus of increasing food production, trade and future expansion. I was in the initial phases of such an expansion, and it would be years before I could call such plans complete. If I had to wait for the smallfolk to 'naturally' fill in the space in the town, I'd be waiting a good while. However, the farmland around it was very, very good for the area, and I didn't want to lose those fields, even if I was able to make more money that way. All of the barren fields were in use by now, and the more distant lands were being put to till with small villages clustered around each newest expanse. Since I couldn't grow the town any larger than I was already planning for, I would have to focus on expanding the town within, making buildings taller and adding as many cellars and basements as I could. Storage in such a town would ease the need for too many granaries, hopefully bringing the living standard from somewhat-medieval into something closer to near or post industrial.

My next largest town was still Highmarsh, and like the name suggests, it's literally built on a small hill overlooking an expansive, if rather shallow, marsh that had a small outlet leading into another lord's lands. I don't know whose idea it was to build this close to where disease-carrying mosquitoes can cause a near pandemic, but hey, it's there. The small streams that flow into the area providing the water for the marsh are clean and provide fresh water, and the marsh itself is a source of some resources for the settlement, like clay and fish. The majority of the people there are shepherds, though, tending to flocks of sheep and dairy cattle on the grassy hills, and with people like Myles and his family arriving at times, I was going to need to redevelop the entire town as I had Lowhill to ensure it wouldn't become some crowded mess of animals, dung and people.

After that, Timberstone was my last true town, anything else being an unnamed village of some kind. Being in the more heavily forested portion of my lands to the east, the primarily focus of most of the smallfolk within, other than herding hogs in or near the forests, was centered on tree felling and wooded products and, surprisingly, amber. I didn't know I had that available, but I do know it's a precious commodity in places like Qarth or wherever people with too much money on their hands like to buy pretty baubles. I'll be needing much more wood for projects and development in the coming years, so putting some sawmills there will be a great investment. Thankfully, the small river that flows through the forest and near the town doesn't dry up like the smaller ones can during occasional dry spells. Well, dry for the Stormlands anyway, where they become naught but a trickle.

Not including the smaller villages, none of whom had names as far as either myself or my maester could tell, these three towns would be my main focus for trade and manufacturing. The more open lands were beginning to produce enough food that I likely would be experiencing a population increase within the next decade or so, perhaps significantly given just how many kids my smallfolk were intent on producing. Yes, many children did not make it to adulthood in this day and age, but with the improvements to food production and variety already spreading and becoming entrenched, there were definitely going to be fewer fatalities from starvation or disease. Eating enough food and eating good, nutritious food tended to have that effect in a world where inoculations were not a thing.

I wasn't even sure if I could invent such things, nor if I wanted to. Those had taken forever to show up on Earth, given mankind's known overall history. Practicing better hygiene, boiling water to drink or use, eating your vegetables and producing soap would likely be the best I could do in that department. The first would be an easy thing to talk with the septons and septas about spreading amongst the smallfolk, saying that a healthy body makes for a healthier mind and soul. The boiling water thing might take longer, as not as many smallfolk have access to pots big enough to boil that much water in. Eating vegetables? Easy, nobody wants to go hungry, and if your smallfolk mother gives you extra vegetables to eat, you damn well will eat them.

As for soap, that's going to be coming along real soon. As soon as my beef herds start producing, I can have the extra fat rendered down into soap. If I had really shitty coal I'd try and turn it into paraffin, but I'm both unsure of how to and don't have access to that. How I'll add in scents to my tallow-based soaps, I have no idea, but hey, soap is soap even if it doesn't smell the best. Having the septons and septas dish it out to the coming primary school will certainly help keep down the filth in my towns amongst at least some of the populace. If I produce enough of the stuff, maybe I'll have my merchants sell it abroad.

Back to my lands themselves, and the people within. Lowhill was a good start, but when I used up the land around it for expansion, I'd run into problems about further expansion. In an age like this, any town that was successful drew immigrants from nearby regions, sometimes even from overseas, and that could lead to some issues. Religious bickering, regional poverty, overcrowded slums, an inherent lack of a sizeable police force, the list went on. Thankfully the town itself was rather small right now, but I'd be damned if I let it grow haphazardly outwards from the center. Even with the aid of my Wytch-stone, planning the layout for buildings that would outlast their tenants would take time, especially depending on just how many people arrived at a time, and if some years were fairly low in immigrants, other years might see people arriving every few weeks.

So, yeah, Lowhill, with its proximity to good farmland, pasture and my holdfast notwithstanding, was to be my main target of development, at least at first. It'd be an ideal trade and manufacturing hub, the industry likely focused around spinning wool and whatever else would come from my ideas. Most of the resources of the surrounding area, or lack thereof, meant that if any larger industries were to emerge, either naturally or with my guidance, they would have to import the necessary materials to do so.

Highmarsh wasn't in an ideal location, but I could make it work. That would be my main production for not only sheep and dairy cattle, but I'd be likely starting my beef cattle rearing in the green hills around it once I start getting them to the size I want. The marsh I could see draining if needed, but given its importance as water for animals and people, as well as flood control, maybe damming its outlet slightly, to increase its depth, could work for the better. Adding more farms there won't be too hard if I leave it, given that the marsh offers irrigation possibilities. Water-based crops, like rice or cranberries, could also be a great boon to the local diets and trade, and maybe rearing crayfish in the marshes could work. I wonder, do the Neckmen in the North do any sort of aquaculture like that, or do they just hunt everything? I've no idea, and when I'd asked Maester Gorman, he hadn't the faintest idea either.

Still, a cattle town, straight out of the Old West sounded pretty cool, complete with cowboy hats aplenty. My lands are more than big enough to move cattle herds by smallfolk on horseback, and the green pasturelands towards the Reach could support some fairly large herds at that, even in winter. This far south and inland, it seemed that most winters were just dry and cool periods, where grasses grew slowly but little else did, save for the hardier plants. Sometimes there would be snow, but it would often melt soon after, only for the snow to reappear weeks later and repeat the process all winter.

Tmberstone, what to do about Timberstone? It's within spitting distance of a great number of forests, none near as large as the Rainwood or Kingswood, but still nothing to scoff at. Aside from the sawmills, increasing pork production could be a good idea, but that'll take time, as they'll need food that farmers will have to grow just for them, rather than just giving them scraps. Just as well, items that needed mainly wood to be built would find it an ideal spot, so whatever industry it had outside of logging would likely be centered on that. Maybe I'll get a huge influx of carpenters and whoever else focuses specifically on making wooden products, such as cartwrights, coopers, chairblers and the like? With that many craftsmen in one area, I'll need to improve the roads for importing and exporting their goods, though I'm pretty sure I'll be the one buying up most of that stuff for my other projects.

Other than wood and pigs, amber within the forests themselves would be one of its few potential exports outside of just timber. It is rather rare, all things considered, but it was found there, and the means of processing, cutting or using it in some sort of industry was sure to be a benefit to the region itself. Only thing was, I didn't need the town's residents cutting down all the trees to dig for amber or make chairs and wind up with nothing to show for it. Replanting the forests, perhaps even expanding them, would be a good thing, though only if they didn't use up good farmland in the process. It's much harder to establish good farmland than it is to regrow a forest from what my maester says, and although I'm no Earthly expert on the matter, I'm inclined to believe him. I've seen trees growing damn near out of singular boulders, but gods forbid if crops receive even just a little too much rain in a low lying field. Yes, I should implement ditches to ferry such excess water away in my lowland farms.

My solar door opened with a slam, interrupting my thoughts on polishing amber and drainage ditches.

"My lord, you must come quickly!" one of my guards said, the other behind him nodding fervently.

"What is it?" I asked. Normally I'd have been a tad peeved at the rude interruption, but the look on the guard's face struck that thought from me.

"Your family, they were in the market when he rode into Lowhill. We've them safe for now, but the manor they've taken shelter in, it's surrounded, though they've yet to make any move. The others, they bid me to ride to you as fast as possible."

"Summon the men at arms, and get them down to the town at once!" I said. Had the Dornish preemptively attacked for some reason? Was it a band of robber knights looking to extort from me some sort of protection fee? Had my presence changed that much already? "Who is in Lowhill?"

"Lord Craggner, his bastard, and a whole slew of men!"