landbeastnovel Chapter 106: The Bloodsucking in the Deep Winter and the Poisonous Roots of the Blackwater Network
Chapter 106: The Bloodsucking in the Deep Winter and the Poisonous Roots of the Blackwater Network
In the dead silence of the snow-covered rivers and the dormant life of all things, fifty uninvited guests, trudging through knee-deep snow, knocked on the gates of the Hohenzollern territory.
In front of the inner fortress gate, a hundred Iron Oath soldiers, clad in half-new plate armor, formed a black iron wall in the wind and snow.
John Mudd stood like a frozen stone statue, his hands gripping his longsword, coldly blocking the barricades.
Standing opposite him were fifty well-equipped, heavily armored mercenaries from Seagull Town with menacing faces.
The team leader was named Hawke. He had a hideous scar on his left cheek, and his fur coat, half-exposed, gave off a fierce and ruthless air, as if he had been licking blood from the docks for many years.
"Get out of the way, you peasant. We've come with official documents from Seagull Town."
Hawke arrogantly exhaled a puff of white breath that smelled of cheap ale, and without even glancing at Mudd, shouted directly at the towering gray stone wall.
"Baron Hohenzollern! Lord Petyr, out of consideration for your hardship in defending against bandits in this freezing weather, has specially dispatched fifty of our battle-hardened brothers to provide long-term assistance in the defense of your inner fortress!"
Hawke's eyes revealed undisguised greed.
They were not merely there to provide defense; they carried a secret order from the Chancellor of the Exchequer of King's Landing, preparing to forcibly occupy Stone Tower and completely take over the silver mines of this mysterious territory.
Otto stood atop the wall, letting the cold snowflakes fall on his expressionless face.
His right hand, gripping the battlement, was as steady as a rock.
"The inner fortress is crammed with furnaces for forging iron, and there are simply no extra barracks for our distinguished guests to rest in."
Otto's voice remained calm and emotionless amidst the wind and snow.
"To show my respect for my allies, I have allocated the most spacious refugee camp on the southern slope for you to set up camp. Knight Gareth will personally deliver your daily supplies."
Hawke was taken aback, seemingly not expecting that this country baron would dare to use such a high-sounding reason to turn them away.
But he immediately let out a cold laugh.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter stamped with a Mockingbird wax seal, and read it aloud in front of everyone.
"Since Your Excellency is so kind, we will not be picky. However, Lord Petyr has given orders."
"In order not to increase the burden on Seagull Town, the two meat meals a day for these fifty brothers, the finest ale, the unlimited dry firewood, and the monthly garrison allowance of two silver deer for each person will all be deducted directly from the white salt payment for Blue Fork River that month."
"Furthermore, we need the warmest barracks on the south slope."
This is the ultimate humiliation, and also the most insidious bloodsucking clause.
The Grand Treasurer who schemed everything in King's Landing not only didn't spend a single penny, but also forced Otto to use his own hard-earned money to support this group of people who were like knives hanging over his neck.
On the city wall, Chief Steward Pollifer listened to the arrogant terms with a blank expression.
He didn't get angry like a naive little schemer; there wasn't even a twitch of a muscle on his thin, long face.
He simply calmly opened a new income and expenditure statement in his mind, then turned his head and gave Otto the most ruthless report in a low voice.
"My lord, fifty idlers who eat fine meat and top-quality ale, plus two silver deer for each of them as military pay. This expense will deplete one and a half percent of our grain reserves before spring."
Pollifer's voice was as cold as ice water.
"But this debt can be settled in another way. Just halve the daily basic rations for the refugee camp on the south slope and stop providing firewood for the elderly and weak to keep warm."
"If two hundred useless refugees freeze or starve to death within a month, the saved resources will be just enough to feed these fifty pigs. Our core profits will not be affected."
Otto glanced at Pollifer.
With Otto's compromise, these fifty plagues of Seagull Town swaggered past the barricades and into the refugee camp on the south slope.
However, for the nearly one thousand refugees on the south slope who had been enduring the winter, the arrival of these fifty people was nothing short of a catastrophe.
Gareth stood in the mud on the south slope, his eyes bloodshot with extreme rage.
He watched as Hawke, along with his mercenaries, roughly kicked open the makeshift shacks made of broken planks and dry straw that barely provided shelter from the wind.
Those refugees who had been huddled inside for warmth were driven out into the freezing cold by the mercenaries, who kicked and beat them like pigs.
"These largest wooden cabins are now ours."
Hawke kicked an old, blind refugee who was cooking medicinal porridge, knocking him into the muddy water, spilling the scalding hot porridge all over the ground.
Hawke pointed at the leftover food on the ground and spat viciously at Gareth.
"Knight, go and get some fresh roast meat for the grandfathers. If we don't see meat and spirits by tonight, we'll just have to get them from your barns ourselves tomorrow!"
Gareth's right hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly, his knuckles turning white from the excessive force.
He looked at the old refugee wailing in the mud, and at the hundreds of pairs of eyes around him filled with fear and despair.
He almost drew his longsword and cleaved the arrogant soldier in two.
But the fifty fully drawn crossbows behind Hawke, and Otto, who remained silent atop the stone tower, acted like heavy shackles, firmly binding Gareth's sense of justice.
He knew that if he drew his sword today, whether those fifty people lived or died was another matter, but the payment between Bluefork River and Seagull Town would immediately be cut off, and tomorrow the army of King's Landing would be at the city gates.
Otto, in order to protect the core of the inner fortress, had already tacitly agreed to treat the refugees on the southern slope as the price for suffering the ravages of these beasts.
"I will prepare supplies. Don't hurt them."
Gareth's voice was hoarse, like sandpaper being rubbed.
He turned around and, amidst the desperate cries of the displaced people, walked heavily toward the stone tower.
With each step he took, the statue of "chivalry" in his heart began to crack.
Meanwhile, in the warm study on the top floor of the stone tower.
Otto didn't pay attention to the arrogance of those thugs.
He was sitting with Maria Frey in front of a fireplace burning fruitwood charcoal.
"Petty Baelish was able to force me to support him with a single letter because he clearly saw my hand, while I knew nothing about the chessboard of King's Landing."
Otto's voice sounded cold amidst the crackling of the charcoal fire.
"A blind man at the card table is at the mercy of others. Maria, I need eyes. I need eyes that can see under the Red Keep's royal conference table."
Maria put down her wine glass, her brows furrowing slightly, her eyes revealing a hint of pragmatism and worry typical of a businesswoman.
"Sir, this is difficult."
Maria analyzed the objective predicament.
"We've established a smuggling route across the Riverlands, but King's Landing is too far away."
"There are spies of the great nobles and guards of the king everywhere there. For a baron from the north to try to reach into the study of those great men in the Red Keep is like trying to touch gold coins under the chin of a dragon. If you're not careful, you'll have your hand and arm chopped off."
"There's no need to go into the master's study."
Otto slammed a gold coin bearing the image of a Targaryen dragon onto the table.
"The merchant ships of Seagull Town not only transport goods, but are also our only channel for infiltrating the outside world."
"Use the Blackwater Net that your family left behind in the Riverlands to feed all the beggars who beg for food in King's Landing's flea den, the prostitutes who sell themselves in the Muddy Streets, and the servants who shuttle between the kitchens of various families year-round delivering food and firewood, with white salt and golden dragon."
Otto looked at Maria and proposed a brutal, but logically sound, plan for establishing an intelligence network.
"Those high and mighty courtiers wouldn't even glance at these vermin, but these vermin can burrow into the deepest sewers of the Red Keep."
"Even if they only found a scrap of parchment with numbers on it in the backyard of some finance official, or overheard half a drunken remark from some customs chief in a brothel."
"As long as that half-sentence is related to our raw silver, I will reward them with gold of equal weight."
This is a crude intelligence network, heavily tainted by the stench of money.
It lacks the dignity of a knight, but in the Middle Ages, where communication was extremely underdeveloped, the piecing together of countless fragments from the lower classes often revealed the most deadly truths.
"How long will it take?" Maria's eyes sharpened.
"Before the river ice melts in spring."
Otto glanced out the window at the southern slope camp, which was covered in snow and from which came the faint screams of refugees.
"I will never let these fifty plague gods, and the scheme behind them, live to see the next autumn."
"But I need to know exactly how many hands in King's Landing are eyeing my money."
Maria nodded and tucked the gold coin into her velvet cuff.
She knew that from this moment on, she would be completely immersed in the dirtiest and most dangerous information trade in Westeros.
The snowstorm continues to rage in the Blue Fork Valley.
In the refugee camp on the south slope, fifty mercenaries from Seagull Town were drinking meat soup that should have belonged to the refugees while mocking Gareth's incompetence.
Those refugees whose rations were withheld could only wait in despair to freeze to death in their drafty, dilapidated shacks.