Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 110: The Ink Stains of the Red Fortress and the Flesh and Blood on the Gears

On the long oak table in the royal meeting room were several glasses of summer red wine that had long since gone cold.

King Robert Baratheon, as usual, was absent; he was probably drunk in the arms of one of the newly arrived maids.

Prime Minister Jon Arryn rubbed his aching temples, listening to the grating sound of rusty metal scraping against the table.

That was Stannis Baratheon, the Secretary of the Navy.

The duke, known for his uprightness and strictness, slammed several customs cargo manifests copied from Seagull Town and Lannes Harbor onto the table.

"Two years. A full two years."

Stannis's jaw was taut, and his masseter muscles bulged slightly from the effort.

"After the Greyjoy Rebellion ended, the Iron Throne's tariffs should have gradually stabilized. But since last fall, there has been a sudden surge in transactions of white salt and high-purity raw silver ingots in the accounts of Gulltown and Lannisport."

Stannis's deep blue eyes were fixed on the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was sitting at the other end of the table.

"I sent people to check the shipping routes of those merchant ships. All of them pointed to the Blue Fork River, a remote tributary of the Trident River in the northern part of the Riverlands."

Stannis tapped his thin fingers on the parchment.

"A baronial territory without even proper city walls has, in the past two years, emptied out goods worth more than half the throughput of Seagull Town!"

"Lord Petyr, as the treasurer, don't you think this involves a capital offense: unauthorized mining of the royal mines?"

Faced with Stannis's aggressive questioning, Petyr Baelish leaned back comfortably in his velvet high-backed chair.

His dark red silk robe gleamed luxuriously in the candlelight, and the mockingbird brooch on his chest seemed to be silently mocking something.

"Lord Stannis, your meticulousness is always admired by the entire Seven Kingdoms."

He interlaced his little fingers with his whole body, and wore that same gentle smile that never changed on his face.

"But you may not be familiar with the mudslinging in the Riverlands these past few years. That little baron Hohenzollern was lucky enough to be caught in the middle of the two long-time rivals, Blackwood and Brecken."

"He simply engaged in the business of buying low and selling high, exchanging those bloody spoils for silver."

"Can selling stolen goods really generate tens of thousands of yuan in revenue?"

Stannis abruptly stood up, his brows furrowed into a deep knot.

"The figures on the books are always exaggerated by those stupid tax officials in order to cover up their own corruption."

With a casual flick of his little finger, he changed the subject, picked up his wine glass, and took a sip.

"Is the Iron Throne really going to send a large army to seize the vassals of Duke Horst Tully just because of a few cartloads of smuggled goods from some country bumpkin?"

"That would only make the lords of the Riverlands think that His Majesty the King even checks their crotches. What do you think, Lord Jon?"

Jon Arryn sighed.

His mind was now filled with Robert's ever-growing debt and the Lannisters' infiltration, and he had no intention of angering the Tullys for the sake of an obscure baron in the Riverlands.

"Stannis, this matter ends here."

Jon Arryn waved his hand.

"As long as the customs duties of Seagull Town and Lannisport are paid on time, we don't need to worry about how the pigs in the Riverlands are scrambling for food in the mud."

Stannis's chest heaved, but looking at the Prime Minister's tired face, he could only snort and sit back down in his chair.

These big shots in King's Landing are so arrogant it's laughable.

They thought Blue Fork River was just a pig scrambling for food in the mud, and that as long as they controlled the sales channels in Seagull Town, they could take meat from this pig at any time.

But only a very few people, like Littlefinger, who had seen the core ledger, vaguely sensed that the things in that patch of mud seemed to be growing a little too fast.

If Stannis could see this scene with his own eyes, he would probably immediately mobilize the royal fleet to blockade the Red Fork River.

Early winter frost covered the endless gray-yellow wheat stubble field.

In the past two years, the ten-mile-long fiefdoms north and south of the Blue Fork River, which were originally barren beaches covered with shrubs and poisonous miasma, have been completely leveled.

Instead, vast fields of winter wheat have sprung up.

At the end of the wheat field, two massive semi-underground stone granaries, like two lurking giants, lie quietly on the inner side of the flood control canal.

Otto Hohenzollern, wearing a heavy black wool coat, stood atop the granary.

The wind ruffled his short hair, and his twenty-one-year-old face had completely shed its youthful thinness, leaving only a granite-like, cold and dignified appearance.

Supervisor Polliff stood beside him.

Two years had made the accountant's back even more hunched, but the internal affairs ledger he held in his hands was thicker than ever before.

"grown ups."

Pollifer pushed up his newly replaced brass-rimmed glasses, his voice filled with absolute rationality and coldness.

"This year's winter wheat has all been stored in the granaries. The grain stored in these two granaries is enough to feed our 1,500 core personnel in the territory for three whole years, even if we completely seal off the borders."

Otto gazed at the laborers clearing stubble in the cold wind in the distance and asked casually, "What is the total population of the territory now?"

Pollifer skillfully turned to the first page.

"As of last month's inventory, the total population of the territory was 3,672."

Pollifer didn't say the names, he only said the numbers.

"Among them, there were 610 blacksmiths, foremen and their families who had formal household registration and enjoyed legal protection; and 2,100 non-registered farm laborers who enjoyed basic food rations."

Pollifer paused, turned the page, and his tone became even more deathly still.

"Finally, there are the 720 displaced people who were responsible for mining raw silver in the deepest part of the mine and cleaning up the waste acid ponds."

"Last month, due to a mine collapse and acid poisoning, forty-five people were lost. I have already taken the same number of undocumented immigrants from the refugees who fled south to fill the gaps."

"Where is the dead tent in the secret room?" Otto's gaze remained fixed on the distance.

"Leaving aside the commission paid to Seagull Town, the expenses for acquiring warhorses from the Western Frontier, and the daily military supplies."

Pollifer swallowed hard.

"In the secret cellar, there are currently 12,400 gold dragons stacked up. There are also 600 high-purity silver bricks that have not yet been sold."

A cash flow of twelve thousand gold dragons. That would be enough to terrify any earl of the Riverlands.

Otto did not smile at the number.

He turned his head and looked down at the edge of the farmland where wheat stubble was being harvested.

There, hundreds of rough wooden crosses stood densely packed together.

"How many people were moved into the 800 acres of newly reclaimed land in the south this year?" Otto asked.

"Ninety-two farm workers died because of the rush to meet the deadline and the miasma during the land reclamation," Pollifer replied.

"Give each of the remaining farm laborers an extra half-piece of wheat cake as a winter ration."

Otto turned around and walked towards the stone tower.

"Let them know that as long as they don't die in the acidic mud pits and wastelands, they'll have food to eat here. Next spring, I'm going to expand by four more earthen kilns."

And on the Qing Shi drill ground, about a mile away from the granary.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

The three enormous cowhide war drums emitted a deep, booming sound.

One hundred and fifty fully armored Iron Oath soldiers formed an impenetrable steel square in ankle-deep, icy mud.

There were no slogans, no shouts.

To the rhythm of the war drums, the edges of the shields of the veterans in the rear rank slammed against the specific rivets on the back armor of the soldiers in the front rank.

Accompanied by a series of synchronized "click" sounds of metal clashing, 150 spears, like venomous snakes striking, thrust forward with precision in the same instant, tearing through the cold air.

On either side of the square formation, sixty lightly armored archers carrying Mil crossbows stood silently.

Behind the training ground, thirty mounted infantrymen on heavy draft horses from the Western Frontier were ready to dismount and engage in close combat at any time.

William Charlton, dressed in black adjutant plate armor, stood at the very front of the formation.

On his slightly pale face, there was no longer any trace of the weakness that belonged to a proton.

He has a faint scar on his chin, left from last year when he was annihilating a group of bandits who had crossed the border.

At this moment, he was holding a standard-issue longsword dripping with blood.

At William's feet knelt a garrison commander, bound hand and foot and covered in blood.

"They concealed the fact that the workers in the No. 2 mine were sick, which led to the spread of the disease in the sheds and the loss of three workers. They also attempted to hide half a pound of the deceased's rations."

William did not yell or shout.

He delivered his verdict to the hundreds of laborers who were watching, in a mechanical, cold tone, as if he were reading out a document.

"By the lord's ironclad law, execute him."

Without further ado, William gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands, and without the slightest hesitation or anger, swung the blade with practiced ease.

"Pfft—"

A head fell to the ground, and blood splattered onto the cold, muddy ground.

William flicked the blood off the blade.

In front of the medical tent on the outskirts of the crowd, Gareth stared blankly as the headless corpse was dragged away by soldiers like a dead dog.

The tall white knight's eyes were filled with deep weariness and pain.

Over the past two years, he has cooked countless pots of herbal porridge in this medical tent, and he has done his best to save one refugee after another from injury and illness.

The refugees privately called him the "White Knight," regarding him as the only god in this dark land.

Gareth looked down at his hands, roughened from years of washing herbs, and seemed to see them stained with the blood of laborers who had been squeezed dry.

"The Seven Gods..."

Gareth closed his eyes and let out a desperate murmur that only he could hear.

"Is this salvation or hell...?"

The north wind howled, and the war drums sounded again in a dull thud across the drill ground.