Chapter 80

As their procession of 50 men trudged through the small amount of snow collected on the dirt road thanks to the Summer Snow, Ned Stark realized that it has been a long time since a Stark visited the Dreadfort.

After all, the Boltons might have been his subjects but they were never truly loyal to the Starks. Only subservient until they could once again get a chance to stab the Starks in the back.

Or so he thought. But it has been 5 years since Roose Bolton died and despite how uncomfortable he felt about young Lord Domeric Bolton, it was a well known fact that the boy did not follow in the ways of the Boltons.

He even went as far as to totally change the sigil of his house from a Flayed man to a Weirwood tree to prove his point.

And then there were the rumors of how the smallfolk in Bolton lands lived in far better conditions than the smalfolk in other lands. Which led to the smallfolk from other lands migrating to the Bolton lands. Which was the reason why he was here in the first place.

Still, no matter how much trust that the Boltons had changed, his wife had not been happy with his decision to go and meet young Lord Bolton in Dreadfort. And then she had been outright angry when he declared that he would be taking both Robb and Jon with him as well along.

If this had been the domain of any other lord then he would have not thought about bringing his son (nephew) Jon Snow with him. After all, brining your bastard to someone else's home could be seen as an insult.

But when Domeric Bolton came to Winterfell last year with the tax, he had still be good friends with both Robb and Jon and had treated them both equally no matter their station.

Not only that but the boy had been in touch with both Robb and Jon since then. Telling them about the changes he's brining to his domain or the places he has travelled to in the letters brought to them by the giant eagle.

To say that the two boys admired the young lord for the changes he'd brought in his domain would be an understatement.

Which was why he had gambled and brought his two sons with him. So that even if he couldn't find a solution to this mess, the bonds between his sons and Domeric would grow and the boy lord won't think about rebelling in the future.

It took them 5 days of travel before they finally reached the Bolton lands. And the change was immediate as it was shocking.

The first thing he and his men noticed were the people working on the new agricultural canals being builts for the lands around the villages.

The second thing they noticed were the buffalos working around in the fields. Even in his own lands, a single village only had about a buffalo or two at most or none at all in most cases. But here, the first village they passed by easily had dozens of buffalos that were being worked in the fields.

The third thing they noticed were the steel ploughs and the other steel equipment being used by the farmers to work their fields.

Steel was after all, a very expensive and rare commodity. So to see simple farmers having so much steel and using it for simple farming pained his heart. After all, even since he was a child, he had learned that steel was a valuable commodity and was supposed to be used wisely.

It this had been any other lord who had given such good steel to his smallfolk, he would have though them to be fools. But then again, Lord Domeric Bolton had increased the food production within his lands by 10 times and was the main supplier of food to the other houses in the North and the main reason why they didn't have to buy the expensive food from Reach and Riverlands anymore. So he knew that Lord Bolton was no fool and he didn't have any place to complain.

The fourth thing they quickly noticed were the horsemen travelling down the roads at regular intervals. Upon asking, he found that they were a new army regiment called Police Force found Lord Bolton for the protection of his lands and smallfolk from bandits.

Understandable. Considering how expensive steel was, he had no doubt that the other lesser lords would have already tried to steal it from the smallfolk a few times. That was the main reason why he had allowed Lord Bolton to create the 1000 men army in his lands in the first place.

It was good to see that the men he had allowed Lord Bolton to raise were being put to such good use.

The fifth thing they noticed were the large store houses built in the villages to hold the excess grain that is harvested from their fields. The policeman who had joined them as an escort told them that Lord Bolton had been the one who had invested in the storehouses so that the harvest won't rot away by being left in the open to the elements.

The fact that Lord Bolton had enough wealth to construct multiple buildings in all of his villages came as a shock to him. Before this, he had known about the great amount of wealth being accumulated by Lord Bolton thanks to this silver, copper and iron mines along with his glass production, book production and ice cream business.

But to simply about someone's wealth and then actually see the wealth being used and finally understanding just how wealthy Lord Bolton truly was. He could see the difference in just 'knowing' and truly 'understanding'.

The sixth thing they noticed were the children in the villages sitting under a large tree with black slates and studying from another man whom the Policeman reported was called a Teacher.

In one of the letters that Lord Bolton sent to Robb, Lord Domeric Bolton proclaimed that he was doing his utmost best to educate his smallfolk and increase the literacy rate within his domain.

At that point, he had not even known the meaning of literacy rate. And after he found out what that meant, he had not truly seen the reason behind Lord Bolton trying to increase the literacy rate of his people.

He still didn't know what trying to teach the small folk would achieve. But to hear about Lord Bolton trying to increase the literacy rate of his people in a letter and then to actually see it happen in real life as the 'Teachers' sent by Lord Bolton sat down and educated the children of the villages, the difference between knowing and understanding was truly large.