Out of Money

Night. Clegane Keep. Dining Hall.

Gregor set down his and let out a small burp.

Amidst the clatter of cutlery and dinnerware in the large hall filled with dozens of diners, Gregor alone ate using chopsticks alongside the usual cutlery.

At the main table sat Gregor, Raff the Sweetling, Dunsen the Executioner, Polliver the Fanatic, Scribe Mark, Julie, Thomasson, Maester Harry, and a middle-aged woman.

Sixty mounted soldiers sat at the side tables.

Outside the dining hall, the workers building the Sept and various servants sat at another long table.

Much has changed at Clegane Keep over the past twenty days.

The first major change was the recruitment of mine-soldiers, Gregor's unique take on cavalry. He insisted on calling them "mine-soldiers" because while they rode as cavalry in battle, they were also expected to dismount and dig in the mines.

Besides the eleven local peasant-miners, the remaining forty-nine were recruited from Lannisport's freefolk and the mountain miners from the Silverhill range.

Though they had yet to begin mining, Gregor had been training them intensively in combat.

Mounted, they were soldiers; dismounted, they were workers. That was the dual role of the Clegane mine-soldiers.

With this team in place, Gregor had managed, through a mixture of persuasion, bribery, and threats, to bring over a hundred more free laborers from Lannisport.

He split them into two groups: one was sent into the nearby Silverhills to quarry stone, fell trees, and fire bricks for the construction of Clegane's Keep. The other group remained at the keep's western side, working to build the Sept.

The new Sept was modest in size, not remotely comparable to the grand structures in Casterly Rock or Lannisport, but it had the complete form of a proper place of worship.

In a few days, the roof would be finished and the building would be complete.

Gregor valued the Faith of the Seven.

It offered hope to the hopeless, a place for the voiceless to confess, courage to the fearful, and loyalty to the disloyal.

Having both subjects and soldiers swear allegiance before the Seven was a ritual Gregor favored deeply.

Across both Earth and this fantasy world, rituals held great meaning. Whether it be weddings, graduations, or the issuance of official documents, humans have always needed ceremonies to anchor their spiritual lives.

The Sept served as a place for such rites of the soul.

Once construction of the Sept was done, the laborers quarrying stone, chopping wood, and making tiles would soon finish their jobs.

Gregor had not sent overseers to monitor them in the mountains.

First, he had paid them generously.

Second, he had made them swear before the statues of the Seven to work diligently.

Third, he had warned the foremen: if the materials weren't delivered by the set deadline, he'd personally break their arms and legs.

If any dared flee, he'd hunt them down and kill their families.

The thousand gold dragons Gregor had taken from House Serrett was his first pot of gold.

Constructing a clean, spacious village for eleven families and a mid-sized Sept had already cost more than two hundred gold dragons.

Outfitting his sixty-man mine-soldier force with top-quality armor, swords, spears, lances, shields, bows, horses, daggers, and steel spikes, most of it bought in Lannisport, had cost another six hundred gold dragons.

He had purchased only the very best.

Now, all that remained in his coffers was a pitiful twenty-some gold dragon.

A mine-soldier's monthly pay was one gold dragon, a high wage, triple that of a regular soldier.

In ten days, Gregor would owe at least sixty gold dragons in wages.

And that didn't even include daily food, lodging, and supplies.

In just twenty days, the pressure of raising a military force, building a Sept, and gathering building materials was already mounting day by day.

Gregor now understood the old saying: You never know how expensive life is until you manage a household yourself.

A thousand gold dragons had disappeared like a stone tossed into a lake, just a few ripples, then silence.

Once the quarrying at the designated stone pit was complete, Gregor planned to take his mine-soldiers and start digging at an angle from that spot, tunneling straight into the gold mine owned by the Serrett family.

Most of the Silverhills belonged to House Serrett.

That was... damn infuriating.

With ten days to go before payday, Gregor was already broke.

But he still had ten days.

And for a consummate rogue like him, if there's no road ahead, he'd just scale the damn mountain.

For now, he needed to deal with the family of Allen Serrett, whom Ser Ado had delivered to earlier.

Allen's widow was sitting at the main table with them.

As a knight's wife, she was entitled to dine with the nobility.

Her seven-year-old son, however, sat with his grandparents at the workers' table outside.

"Lady Serrett." Gregor said casually, "do you know how your husband Allen died?"

Everyone at the table turned to look at the woman.

She kept her head down and said nothing.

"The poison your husband used to try to kill my Choker was mixed into golden grape wine. That poison costs more than gold, diamonds, emeralds, or rubies. Only the Serrett of Silverhill could afford such a thing. Your husband couldn't."

Slowly, the woman raised her head.

She was a young widow, fairly beautiful, with large eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"Allen's assassination attempt failed. The Serretts of Silverhill, needing a scapegoat to appease Lord Tywin of Casterly Rock, decided to hand over your entire family as compensation.

Tell me, my lady, are you afraid to die?"

She shook her head firmly.

"And your son?"

The tears finally fell from her eyes, her face etched with despair.

"My lord, please spare my son. I'll do anything you ask. I'll test your food for poison, bathe you, make your bed, clean your chambers, I'll be your personal servant."

The tears streamed silently down her cheeks.

Though she tried to hold herself together, her body trembled ever so slightly.

Gregor's reputation as a rapist and murderer of women was infamous enough to silence even crying children.

"Very well. I won't kill your son. I'll take your whole family in, restore your status as freefolk, and welcome you all to Clegane's Keep."

"Thank you, my lord!"

She stood, knelt, and knocked her head against the ground.

The sound was sharp and loud, thud thud thud, and by the third bow, her forehead was bleeding.

That was the power of a devil.

A mere crumb of kindness from a monster could earn a mountain of gratitude.

"Lady, I do have one task for you tonight." Gregor said.

"Yes, my lord!"

A flash of fear crossed her eyes, but was quickly replaced by grim resolve.

Gregor could tell she assumed he would use her that night.

But for the sake of her family's survival, she had made peace with it.

The brutes around the table, Raff, Dunsen, Polliver, all snickered lecherously.

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