13 Chapter 13: SI POV VIII

Mid 154 AC

Word of the birth reached Stormhall days after it had occurred. Lady Corenna Craggner had given birth to a healthy baby boy, his dark brown eyes matching her own, whilst his lighter hair matched that of her late lord husband. Only, obviously, the baby wasn't his, but only the two of us knew that, and likely her brother as well. I also knew the boy wasn't mine. No truly black hair? No trace of Valyrian eyes? Of course, the fact that I'd not done the deed had been the real indicator to me.

I'd almost done it, though.

Gods, I'd been tempted. I'd been so tempted, high off my victory, secure with my future with my main enemy slain, and a great deal of resources and wealth adding to the sudden prestige to my family name. She'd come to me, asking me to father her child, and I'd thought, hell, why not? Fucking Lord Craggner's admittedly attractive wife in his own bed and passing off our child as his own? I could have hooked up a cable to his grave and brought to Westeros the wonder of the lightbulb with the sheer energy he'd have been generating from his spinning.

Yet as I'd emerged from the bath, the shock of the cool air made me stop, and in that moment, I saw something. Not a prophetic vision, as I don't think that came down the line from Orys Baratheon's Valyrian ancestry, but I suddenly saw a series of possible futures were I to go through with this line of thinking.

The boy looking exactly like me, and my lord paramount turning his fury upon me for my decidedly un-Stormlordly deceit. My betrothed hating me for my indiscretion and us failing to conceive children, or her grandfather breaking our betrothal and shaming my house. The disappointment of my mother and sisters at my antics, or the potential threat to my own future children from their half sibling masqueraded as a neighbor. Gods, even a future child of mine falling in love with them, and wishing to be married, only to suffer from inbred or deformed children and not know the reason. Lady Craggner having a falling out with me and whispering to the boy that I was his rightful heir, much as the future Ramsay Snow's smallfolk mother possibly did. Or maybe she didn't, I'm not sure, it's getting hard to remember things like that, and my presence may have somehow shifted things so that those people may come to never exist. I mean, that's nearly a hundred and thirty years into the future.

Still, in that moment, I'd denied her request. When asked why, I'd dared not mention the whole "hey, I'm not even four and ten yet" without seeming like a hypocrite, as other lords and ladies had had children at that age, and boys were almost expected to sow wild oats in some regions of Westeros to prove their virility. The Stormlands was notorious for this, given not only Bobby B's future proclivities, but in the past, Ronard Storm had pulled a Genghis Khan and fathered so many people that a least half the Stormlands, noble or smallfolk alike, were likely descended from him in some way. Instead of the age issue, I'd cited the likelihood that my looks, like those of my father and grandfather, would likely be passed to any child I'd father, and that the risk was simply too great.

Seeing as Lord Craggner, according to her brother, had not looked like me in his younger years, instead sporting pale brown hair and light brown eyes, there was no way with the odd almost-always inherited looks of my likely Durrandon ancestors that she'd be able to pass of a child as her late husband's. That wasn't even counting my bastard Valyrian ancestry from my mother's side. I'd told her this, and she'd eventually conceded, though not before attempting to convince me that trying couldn't hurt.

Again, more firmly this time, I'd cited that it was a bad idea, not because I didn't want to, which I still somewhat did, but because I knew it would backfire horribly on me in some way. This was Westeros, I'd lost my father technically before I'd reached my teens to the plot of my now-dead neighbor. People were maimed or killed for the slightest of slights, entire families erased for the deeds of a few, lands pillaged and burned by some for fun… this was not a place to fall to potential vices. I had to stand strong and cling to the values I'd retained, as well as those I'd picked up along the way in Westeros that didn't clash with what I already knew and held dear.

Gods help me, this was going to be tough.

So I'd told her I'd not father her a child to pass as her legitimate heir. I near drank myself into a stupor that night, awakening the next morning with the worst hangover I'd ever experienced, and my bed in shambles. I must have had a horrible nightmare, given how trashed it looked, but I'd remembered no such dreams and eventually recovered well enough to clean it a little before the maids showed up to take care of my morning needs.

That next morning, in private, I'd offered one of my guards, but she'd declined, stating that she'd already come up with another choice, one she'd go to only if I hadn't agreed with her. A smart lady, I'll give her that, making a backup plan in case this one fell through, but she felt no need to say just who she had picked. Over the course of the next week, right before Lord Baratheon arrived to straighten things out, I'd been approached by her several more times, though these suggestions had not seemed serious, and were almost playful to a degree.

Still denied them though, politely of course.

Gods, I hate my hormones now. You'd think having gone through them once would have been enough to become controllable, but no! This was a second time around, and while thanks to a variety of sources I was far more prepared for the advent of sex with Mylenda come our wedding night, this was entirely different society from the one I'd grown up in, with an entirely different set of rules, mores and expectations of a man of my standing. The fact I hadn't succumbed to her doe-eyes and enticing words shocked me, hells it still shocks me now how well I'd resisted her!

Returning to Stormhall had been a blessing, even with the men I'd lost in the battle. After a few days of managing the affairs I'd missed while gone, and bidding a now richer Lord Windhill safe travels, I'd sequestered myself in the family chapel and prayed to the Seven as best I could. I'd even prayed in secret to the god I'd believed in, and rather still did, from my old life, if only because how else could you explain my life? I'd fallen asleep a man on Earth an awoken a child in Westeros, without so much as a warning, some disembodied voice telling me of what I was to do, or any smatterings of any kind of destiny. I'd not died and been cast into an established character from a fantasy novel series, I'd not been transplanted at random with my old body, I'd literally been cast anew, and now I was making decisions and actions that could change the face of history in ways my old life just couldn't compare.

If it wasn't some sort of magic or divine intervention, then I didn't know what to think of it, and frankly by now didn't want to.

Yet prayed I did, more than I'd ever done in my previous life, simply because I had to vent somehow that didn't involve bashing my men at arms to smithereens in the training yard or start drinking like it was going out of style. So prayed I did, somehow doing little else but pray, eat, sleep, and manage my daily affairs.

The mutterings at my court stopped as soon as I'd finished, having managed to gain some sort of refreshment from my praying, or meditating, or whatever you wanted to call it. Point was, I was this pious young noble, clearly grieving for lost men and lost lives in a pointless conflict caused by the evils of a lord listening to his no doubt evil bastard! I'd taken to prayer to soothe my young soul and help find guidance for the coming years of my life and rule.

While some of that was indeed true, I'd been using my time sequestered alone to rethink some of the plans I'd been putting off for so long. Namely, the upcoming deeds of Daeron the Young. Should I attempt to save him from his fate at the hands of the Dornish? Could I even save him? Since I wasn't touching gunpowder with a forty foot pike, it wasn't like I was going to give him the means of conquering and retaining control over the last kingdom with an overwhelming advantage. Warning him might see me painted as mad or paranoid, and then suspicious if it does come to pass, as if I'd arranged it to make my warnings seem prophetic. Stupid lords will believe anything that suits them, just like the smallfolk.

What about Baelor? Should I try and befriend him? He was king for much longer than most give him credit for, even if his desire to be as holy as possible saw him die of self-inflicted starvation. Or maybe Viserys did poison him, who knows? As for his sisters, gah! Don't even think of them, that road leads to bad things all around. With my luck, one would try the same shit as Corenna Craggner did, and this time, with their stupid aetherial Valyrian beauty, I'd be unable to say no to them and mess things up horribly! It'd be the Dance all over again, with me playing the part of giving one of Baelor's sisters a child that clearly wasn't Valyrian. The entire realm would be divided, only this time I'd be the unlucky schmuck caught in the middle, rather than watching from the sidelines as the Blackfyre Rebellions took on entirely new possibilities.

Okay, okay, breathe, let's see. Ensuring Aegon the Unworthy, or the Horny Bastard, if you're looking at it like that, does not become king and legitimizes his illborn children, would be a major priority for me if I were reborn as Baelor or even Daeron. Yet I'm not, and short of somehow assassinating him before he starts trying to pump out more children than Jahaerys I did with Alyssane, I'm not sure what to do.

The simplest will be one of two things: befriend or somehow save Daeron, at least until he has a son that can take over, or befriend Baelor and do nothing to rock the boat too much until that point. I mean, Baelor could be turned, he's still a child at this point and younger than me, I'm sure if we became friends I could convince him of not being so Jesus proxy-like, right? Then again, his entire family had failed in attempting that…

Yet even after all this contemplation, one thing remained true for me.

I was young.

I had not yet secured my dynasty with an heir other than my sisters.

I would need to spend time with Mylenda Windhill so that we weren't total strangers by the time our marriage came to be. I'd asked Maester Gorman about the shakes I'd seen Windhill try and hide, and he'd said palsy was a temperamental beast. Lord Windhill could die tomorrow from an onset of shakes, or not for years yet. I would need to, well, not woo her per se, but to show that we were a compatible match and that our lives together would not become full of disappointment and mere toleration of the other.

So, I'd need to start courting her at some point, though it felt truly odd to consider that. I was now nearing the equivalent of a forty-ish year old in the body of a fourteen year old boy, to be courting a girl my same age. It made me feel sick, to be honest, this was in no way a desired outcome but it was one I had to deal with. I was somewhat sure her and I could grow to care deeply for one another, as Ned and Catelyn had done, but by the Gods, I couldn't afford to mess this up.

Maybe I could invite her for a feast? Or should I go with her to her grandfather's lands, make a long weekend of it? How exactly did one court a medieval-ish girl these days? My Earthly memories held no such wisdom for this matter, so asking my mother will likely be the best, if also most mortifying, option.

Yet even before I could think of marrying Mylenda and us having children, I needed to look to our lands. There was so much to do, so much to prepare for, and even as one project or another was finished, another three would appear to take their place. Case in point, the development of Lowhill. In under a year, thanks to the increasing population from migrants within my lands, a steadily increasing amount of farmland to support it, and an influx of workers had seen the formerly sleepy town completely transformed. The portions of the old town had finally been torn down or moved to the outer rims of the city, where the finally finished walls stood strong, nearing twenty five feet tall. I mean, it's a town, it's not a fortified castle, but it would serve its purpose to keep out hostile raiders and even protect against wind to an extent.

With the shipments of marble, limestone and coal flowing in from my neighbor's lands, my production of Wytch-stone has already increased dramatically. One of the first things I'd done was meet with Maester Gorman and my engineers to determine the suitability of the stone to build homes for the smallfolk of the town, rather than having them try and build their own. The equivalent of a two-story home for most smallfolk would have been an impossible dream, but I'd come to realize something.

Smallfolk in prosperous places will not hesitate to dwell in cramped conditions, and if they're fed, entertained and paid, many will see no problem living like this. Many have been conditioned to see this as being no problem in this world. Well, I wasn't having any of that. Cramped conditions bred pests and carriers of disease, and if my town was as prosperous as I was hoping it would become, I could be looking at a serious outbreak if I didn't nip the slums in the bud.

So, for the portions of the town both developed and dwelt in, I'd developed a system of building homes designed for a certain number of residents, be it singular families or several sharing the same building. I could never build apartment-style buildings as large as I'd like, given the limitations of the materials I had to work with, even with Westeros having its magical engineering expertise, but I could definitely build several stories up and be confident they wouldn't topple in a storm.

Even with the town's population only being at about four thousand by this point, with enough development I could see the town holding a population nearing ten thousand in total. With that in mind, I'd very early on began a system of proper and planned expansion. No vast swaths of explosive growth like in Kings Landing, no sir.

Wide and properly drained roads, clear markers indicating future building sites, a town guard dressed in the livery of my house, Lowhill has it all. I've appointed a mayor, some landed knight of my father's by now too old to fight, and his residence resides near the center of town, where the markets are cloistered. Across from it, courtesy of myself and with the great thanks of the smallfolk, lies the sept and all its additions, whose footprint will likely have no need to expand past its current low walls. Yet, even incomplete, the benefit of the sept is already making waves. The Wytch name is one said with good cheer and blessings by the smallfolk in my lands, not quite reverent but likely on its way.

The smallfolk are very religious, but then again medieval societies seemed to be very much so for the teeming masses. Once completed, it'll be the biggest sept in the area for them to worship within, nothing massive but large enough for congregations to seat at least two hundred if need be. I've no idea how to make clocks, but if I did, the sept would have a nice clock tower once finished, but I'll settle for the tower they have serving as an impromptu local library of sorts. It was the first portion of the sept proper finished, reaching around one hundred and twenty feet tall, and inlaid with interlacing bricks to form a spiraling pattern of seven different colors. A bit gaudy in my opinion, but the septons and smallfolk eat up that kind of stuff.

As a plus, the uppermost floor of this tower serves as a sort of lighthouse, a bright but controlled fire within a large brazier burning during the night or on dark days to help travelers or locals find their way back. I didn't even come up with that, one of the septons had the idea and came to me for my permission to do so. So long as it doesn't cause a fire for the town or the building itself, they've my blessing. I'd be more disposed to build a wall of glass around it, and while the Myrish are the best glassmakers in the world, they'd likely rather kill me than share some of their secrets, and I'm in no position to buy the stuff from them, even for the sept.

Thanks to the planned development of the town, Lowhill in general now almost looks like a bowl of partially eat gelatin, half-filled on one end and still rather open on the other, marking the way for future expansion. Given that I now have the room to expand industry and trade within the town's walls, even more careful planning will be needed. I've also enacted laws specifically to deal with the great diversity of people that have been setting up shop in its walls. Less restrictive than other larger settlements, to be sure, since I don't have to deal with port shenanigans and the various foreigners that would undoubtedly attract, but it's enough to keep the peace almost as well as the guards do. Some of it was just common sense, like no livestock in the town save for horses, keep the garbage piles away from the wells, and a system that, while not perfect, does allow for hired men to remove refuse rather than having people literally throw it into the streets from their doors.

Of the town's occupants, I'd wager nearly a third were farmers and the occasional shepherd, though the latter tended to live on the outskirts, often building their quaint brick homes nearest the pastures they used. Most farmers, if they lived in town, lived in the outermost ring, where the spacing between houses was great enough for large gardens to be planted and tended to. From what I'd seen passing through, the farmers would head out just as the sun began to rise, along with their children or other kin to tend to the fields, whilst many of the women or younger children would remain behind to tend to the gardens and small livestock pens. I'd made it a rule of no livestock above a certain size, so most kept animals like chickens, rabbits and even turkeys.

Craftsmen live within the next "ring", many of them living upstairs but tending to their businesses in the lower level of their homes. Of these, however, I have made special rules so that blacksmiths, charcoal makers, brick kilns and the like must be located away from other buildings, so that a sudden fire from these fire-using industries doesn't spread too easily. As such, most smiths live in their own small cluster, known by the smallfolk as Smith Row, near the outskirts of what is currently the emptier quarter. Eventually, they will be completely surrounded by other homes and industry, but the spacing will remain, just in case.

Lastly, the innermost circle of the town is the merchant's square, with small clusters of merchant manors near the mayor's residence serving as the "upper class" district, and I'm rather proud of how it turned out. Most stalls are selling something worthwhile, be it food, clothes or other items, and the merchants passing through will haggle for prices there, but move to the warehouse district to inspect and retrieve their goods. I was fairly surprised just how many merchants have started showing up from the lands of other lords to do business, but hey, I've got excess goods, and they're willing to take it off my hands.

A substantial number of seasonal laborers both in and around the town are employed during the growing season just to help clear the trenches in which my Wytch-stone was laid as the base, with large bricks serving as the road surface material. As it turns out, based on a rather abysmal failure early on, though one we all were able to quickly learn from, concrete makes for a terrible road by itself. Easily broken by weather elements like ice and rather hard to replace once it is set, instead it is ideal for town buildings, as well as where a water source for mixing the stuff is readily available. The farther from water sources, the harder it is to make, so unless I start having barrels made just for transporting the water needed, I won't be using it very far outside of my towns.

In the future, cobblestone would likely remain the most common road outside of Lowhill and my other towns, with the better road indicating the distance to a settlement, a useful tool for farmers bringing their harvest to town who didn't know how to read signs. Eventually signs will be a thing, or at least ones that will last long enough to not be in need of replacement every few years. Maybe make large pillars, like obelisks, that denote the direction and distance for those who can read?

So, yeah, Lowhill was looking pretty nice. No real issues with it yet, but it's only a matter of time before something springs up, I'm sure of it.

As for the surrounding countryside of Lowhill and Stormhall, other than the smallfolk building their homes with brick and mortar rather than logs and stone slabs, most of it remains farmland or pasture. The crops are in far neater and more efficient rows, but the crops themselves have changed little until recently. Clover, barley, wheat and some kind of root vegetable are the norm, but lately some of my richer farmers, comparable to yeomen at this point, are beginning to grow a wider variety for sale or crafting. Corn is becoming a common sight in some fields, either as sweetcorn or field corn for our livestock, and some are growing patches of pumpkins and beans with their corn, likely thanks to my Earthly recollections. Or maybe someone discovered how well they grew together on their own, it's anyone's guess at this point.

One farming family have practically created a monopoly on the growing of cabbage, either as fodder for animals or for people. Given how short the growing season is for the plant, they're getting two or even three crops in per season. I've yet to see anything resembling a crock amongst the smallfolk, so I guess I'll have to make one and give the Stormlands their first taste of sauerkraut, as I've yet to hear of anything similar to it in these lands. All I need is some corned beef, some rye bread, some good cheese and maybe try to learn how to make mayo and I've got myself a lord's Reuben.

Come to think of it, I should start introducing new food styles to this place. They've got the ingredients for some of the comparatively specialty dishes I grew up with, no sense in not spreading that culinary love. My lands are good for a good variety of the herbs and spices I know of, yet they'll never be able to grow the spices that come from Essos, and frankly I'm fine with that. Should I survive the coming war for Dorne, and the problems that follow, I could see myself developing another town several miles away, one specializing in growing, processing and selling herbs, spices and other useful plants.

I think I'll call it… Flavortown.

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Stormlanders VIII

Lord Royce Baratheon looked over the messages, letting out a sigh of relief. Lady Craggner had given birth, to by all accounts a healthy little boy, and thus the line of Craggner had not ended. The extinction of houses was often a pain in the ass to deal with, given how maps would need to be redrawn and records updated. When an older house died out, it was even worse, as ancient claims and feuds often ignited in a scramble for lords to file petitions for the right to certain stretches of extinct house lands for some reason or another. It could get messy quite quickly, and become a major headache once lords began bickering over those lands both had a claim to.

He passed the note over to his newest companion, one whose incessant need to avoid the training yard was beginning to wear on him. Gods, did the boy enjoy anything besides reading, praying and the Faith?

"A new birth?" young Baelor asked politely. "Why would you receive such a message, my lord?"

"Since the circumstances surrounding House Craggner were important enough that I wished to be made known of this development, my prince," the Stormlord replied. "Had Lord Craggner not sired a child upon his lady wife just before his death, his house would have gone extinct, as he had no living kin to lay claim to the title of Lord of Cragghall."

"I see," the boy said. "Was this the Victory at the Village by House Wytch?"

What a stupid name for a battle. Yet that's what the septons and smallfolk were calling it, so he decided to not say otherwise. "Indeed, wherein young Lord Wytch laid a trap for the marauding Lord Craggner and his bastard, and once trapped in the village, were slaughtered or taken prisoner."

"Indeed, they say Lord Wytch is a giant of a man, wielding a great flail that smashes through armor and shield alike. Blessed by the Seven, he is currently constructing a sept, perhaps the largest in all the Stormlands, and the gods smile upon his family, giving them great wealth and prosperity."

"Well, he's not so much a man as still a boy, only a little older than you are, my prince," Royce replied. "Four and ten, but yes, he's rather big for his age. Only the third generation of his house, mind you, but already one of my wealthier and more productive bannermen, despite the smaller size of his lands."

"I should very much like to visit his sept in Lowhill, a most prosperous town according to the merchants passing through Kings Landing from the Stormlands," Prince Baelor said. "I had told father I wished to stay there, but he'd refused, stating that it would be a grave insult to foster with any less than a Lord Paramount for one of my stature."

"Indeed it would be," Royce replied, even if letting the prince and his rather humorless Kingsguard shadow stay in Stormhall would do wonders for the state of his mind. The boy would not read of war, cared not for any sort of arms, held no interest in commerce and only liked listening to the holiest stories of Andal conquerors and battles involving the Seven's divine intervention. When he'd agreed to take the boy on as his ward, he'd thought it'd be an easy thing to convince him to take up some sort of hobby that didn't involve reading the Seven or praying all the time. Most boys his age were rambunctious little shits, gods know he'd been one not too long ago, but little Baelor… he had never so much as played a prank on someone, or even made a friend. Of all the boys in Storms End, he was by far the loneliest, everyone giving him distance due to either his princely status or lack of common interests, and yet it didn't seem to bother the boy one bit.

Gods, he'd thought this would be a boon to the Stormlands as a whole, but sadly, it wasn't looking like that would be the case. If anything, they'd be a laughingstock for failing to do anything with the boy. Truly how foolish they would seem, they, the Stormlands, one of the most martially-inclined regions in Westeros, and famed for their bravery and proclivity for battle, unable to train a prince into a fighter of some kind?

The Gods must have surely been japing at his expense. What else could he do other than send the boy to visit Stormhall and Lowhill?

Well, perhaps kill two bird with a single stone. He'd not been to the Wytch lands in some time, and it would do good to make a journey to the west, stopping along the way to reaffirm loyalties and strengthen ties with his vassals. Some of the pages and squires in Storms End came from houses along the route, a visit home after a few years away would do them some good. Besides, he was curious as to what Lord Wytch had done in his lands. The Stormhall crop rotation had done wonders for his smallfolk's bellies, the fields fuller and more productive than ever before. Perhaps once there he could purchase some of these newfangled plows and 'seed drills' he heard talk of? Doing so in person would definitely reduce the risk of them being lost on his way back.

"My prince," he said. "What would you say of accompanying me on a progress of sorts through the Stormlands? I myself have not been to the area of the Wytch lands in some time, and I've a great number of squires and pages in Storms End that hail from the western Stormlands. Just as well, I too would like to see this sept being constructed."

"That would be wonderful," the young prince replied. "When would we leave?"

A/N: as some might have guessed, I originally did have the idea of cucking the dead Lord Craggner, but even as I wrote it, it just didn't feel... right. Not in a right or wrong sense, but in that it would be such a risky and potentially backfiring move that it bordered on Balon Greyjoy-levels of stupid. Add to the many of the very good points commenters pointed out, and I figured I'd best not do it. That's the god thing about having a general idea but listening to feedback, the general outline of the story has flexibility and can change with people's input, even if I already have the next, I don't know, 30-ish years planned out? As always, let me know if you've ideas, comments or concerns, I appreciate feedback and critiques. I can't become a better writer without them.