NOVEL NEXT Chapter 34: Gatekeeper
Mid 278 Summer
People probably thought I'd lost my mind by the time I finished laughing hysterically about Ulfric's antics back in Winterfell. How two cold blooded freaks like Alysa and I managed to create a true blue romantic I cannot fathom. I pegged him early as a problem child. He was always so cheerful and energetic. Doesn't mix well with my general apathy.
Despite this I found the boy rapidly transforming into a man to be a source of quality entertainment for me. I'll have to keep up with the green dreams of him to see how this all plays out. Poor kid probably thinks with Brandon Stark following me around like a puppy that the biggest cock block in Winterfell is out of his hair. Little does he know Brandon already dealt him the death blow with their brief stint of mead fueled whoremongering.
I doubt that the girl is even out of her 'boys are icky' stage, but when she gets there and finds Ulfric leading his score or so of bastards around he will immediately go into the scumbag death before dishonor category like Bobby B. Crazy little homewrecker. Good luck kid, but my money is on war.
I'm not obsessed with 'maintaining the timeline'. It's foolish to do so. Dramatic narrative requires the situation to be dire, so thrusting myself into a dire situation where everything is balanced on a knife's edge just so I can know what happens next is not only cowardly, it's ill conceived. Take my new squire and his band of merry men as an example.
There is significant utility in him getting choked out while his father gets cooked over an open fire, but am I supposed to encourage that kind of outcome now that the boy is following me around? How am I supposed to do that? As annoying as this situation is, there's no guarantee of anything in this life. But a guy can hope, awful as it may be for me to wish a sixteen year old to get strangled in four years time.
Brandon Stark entered a quasi-squire relationship with me, along with his tag along friends. As we are all Northmen there isn't a tradition of treating them like my servants in return for job training. Instead I made sure to wake up each morning on our trip through the Wolfswood and spar these kids till they are near the point where they won't be able to travel anymore. Keeps me from getting rusty, and keeps them quiet for the most part as we ride through the thick forest.
My former father in law could hang a wrack off the power stiffy he sprouted when we showed up at Deepwood Motte as we traveled to the coast. Gawen felt sure that the Stark heir's choice to travel with me is a further sign of the favor my house, and thus our alliance, enjoys. That our prestige is unfettered in its rise. I can't blame the man for his fantasies, but I am pretty sure this was all something spur of the moment and largely due to Rickard's inability to reign his children in.
Upon our exit of the Motte in the morning we made the three league trip to the coast where the Great Sea Bear and a few more of my trade ships awaited. The boys I picked up in Winterfell never traveled the western coast of our lands by ship, though I heard that Stark rode through the Rills extensively and had already taken Barbery Ryswell's maidenhead. Something the Ryswells felt assured them the role of Lady Stark in the future. Too bad for them Rickard's southern ambitions are nearing fruition.
The boys themselves were quick to pick up my lessons in jousting and melee combat and acquitted themselves well when we landed in Seaguard and participated in a small tourney hosted by the Mallisters. While some tourneys restrict participation in the joust to knights only, that is an impossible thing to guarantee as Westerosi knights are not required to carry identification with them, and not all knights are landed and thus capable of verification in case of challenge. As a visiting Lord, my sponsorship was enough that any requirements for the boys were thrown out completely. Of course their performance was now indicative of my prestige, much in the same way a knight's prestige is grown or tarnished by the performance of his former squire.
Galmar and Kodlack both joined me in the melee, and no one groused too much about me carrying my sons through the event. Especially not the ones actually defeated by the eleven and ten year olds, those were far too embarrassed to draw attention after that. This was the biggest loss for Ulfric spending the next two years in Winterfell. While I wouldn't take my boys with me to the Lands Beyond the Wall, there is a rich tradition of ten year olds crewing longships as reavers in Westeros, so I had no problem taking them with me at sea and entering them into tourneys. Ulfric would lose out on nearly a year of this experience, and will have trouble adjusting to the captaincy of the ship I intend to give him as his wedding present.
Northmen competing in tourney events in the Westerlands and Reach became more common over the last few years as many of my warrior sailors participated in events both major and minor. While I stuck to the big three: archery, melee, joust, many tourneys had lesser events like axe tossing, wrestling, and horseshoes. All events well loved in The North.
With the Stark boy in my orbit, every door opened to me. Before this, people in the south knew me usually by my tourney exploits and by my sale of Red Rain to the Lannisters. I didn't participate in as many events as the young Barristan Selmy and other great knightly warriors on the rise, but my performances always rippled out on waves of rumor like I tossed a boulder into the southern pond of a zeitgeist. Merchants knew me as a canny trade partner, and Nobles knew me as a peer, though lesser and stained with the stink of working man. My authority in the North only really mattered to the movers and shakers, but when I turned up with a Stark following me around people automatically understood. That name had meaning even in the south, a kind of begrudging respect.
The Starks had history, prestige, status. And with Brandon Stark following me around and handing on my every word I became the gatekeeper, the man everyone needed to come too for access. Anyone who wanted to rub elbows with one of the future shot callers of Westeros needed to first apply lip-grease to the hairy slabs of rough hewn granite I call asscheeks. The boy is very good for business and as a reward I commissioned sets of plate armor in Old Town for him and his posse of friends that we'd pick up on our way back from Dorne.
If the gaggle of youths following me around had hung on my every word on the trip south, they became devout disciples when we arrived in Dorne and were greeted at the Old Palace of Sunspear by Princess Elia and my new son, Darren Sand. This was after we encountered scores of my Sands on the ride over in both Planky Town and Sunspear. I sired a full company on my adventures along the desert coast, with a bastard Prince to lead them.
It was hilarious watching Elia run mental and social circles around the pack of half savages I brought with me. Almost as hilarious as Doran's passive aggressiveness. He was doing his whole hiding the snake within the grass thing with me. Elia explained that he felt I was unworthy to father Elia's children, something Oberyn also felt to some degree but I think I may have pounded it out of him with my lance when he rode against me in a Old Town tourney. The guy rode a mare in heat for the match, sacrificing strength and speed for an attempt to throw my horse off and get a free crack on me.
I pity the fool who tries to break the steely will of Jorah Mormont when he's riding in the skin of man and horse like a psychic centaur. Oberyn can attest that taking Jorah Mormont's full load to the chest is a life changing experience. Many a man has felt the way I bring the thunder and wondered if jousting is really for him as he hobbles off on legs he can only half feel.
While that story got a few laughs at the dinner table, retiring to Elia's apartment in the palace was a far more serious affair. The mix of patterns and textures in the apartment from the tiling, paintings, and rugs in the rooms might make others feel disjointed, but I felt the flow of the rooms and appreciated that the woman who lived within wanted to craft a visual experience for those visiting her.
Darren lived in an attached suite with a rotating team of wetnurses, leaving Elia and I alone for the first time since my arrival. She looked worn out, a good sign that even with a serving staff she is active enough in the boy's life to fatigue noticeably. We sat together on a creamy leather chesterfield sofa with a view of both a silk tapestry and a large west facing balcony that perfectly caught the sun setting over the city, the sea, and the desert.
"Marry me." I spoke, and the woman pressed against my chest laughed.
"This is Dorne." she announced as if that declaration was something that would assuage my anger at her laughing at my proposal, "We don't need to get married just because we have a child together."
I bit back any response after that. Any sudden declaration of love would just seem weak after that rejection. Weakness in Westeros is like dousing yourself in steak sauce and walking up to a hyena clan. Not recommended behavior.
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I hope everyone had a great Holy Week. Now back to the exploits of a man who is basically an incarnate demon in a setting many feel is quite hellish.
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