Hereditary Customs

Queenscrown was a single tower before House Towers rose as a land-ruling noble house again, this amused Tyrion, that the Towers started over in an old and abandoned tower. That was until the tower was demolished, the lake around it was drained, and the Towers house built Kingscrown, a circular castle with eight towers at its ends and a keep in the center. It was a colossus in the middle of a small lake, almost like an island castle, Tyrion realized that it would be almost impossible to invade this place, the waters of the lake were deep, freezing and the eight towers were like a butcher's table for any archer with good aim and the bricks of the outer walls were too slippery for any climber.

Tyrion arrived on the eighth day of his departure from Winterfell. The three hundred men became five hundred, called upon by their lords to defend lands that will feed their families next winter. He expected the journey to last more than twelve days, as was expected with five hundred men marching on foot through a freezing land with inconvenient blizzards along the way, but Tyrion saw those men walk for hours without complaining, without stumbling or frowning. He thought that the infants of the Lannister house were disciplined, obviously due to their fear of the lion of the west and their cruelty towards insubordination, but these men talked and laughed with Saul and consequently with Robb Stark who accompanied them at his own request.

As they passed the long bridge connecting the edge of the lake to Kingscrown, Tyrion noticed a boundary and consequently some retractable mechanisms that, in his opinion, made the bridge lift, cutting off any land access other than swimming in that stream, which was not inviting due to the strong wind that had hit them since they left Last Hearth. Robb, Saul and Tyrion entered the courtyard expecting to see Lord Cayle Towers but they only received the Steward, an old man with a thick mustache and sparse beard and a look as if he hadn't found rest in days, but that old man's body was hard and padded. With tough muscles, this man was once a warrior.

"Saul, it's great to see you"

He greeted and Saloman gave him a big hug, as was customary, Tyrion noted, that Saul seemed scary and stoic but always welcomed friends with big, heavy hugs.

"Old Trevor, I wouldn't leave you alone, you know how I like that ugly face of yours."

Saul replied, earning a laugh from Trevor. Tyrion and Robb approached the two and Saul introduced them.

"This handsome boy is young Robb Stark, son of Lord Eddard, take good care of him during battles, he is yet to become a man but he is as smart as a Redfox"

Robb waved and Trevor bowed to Ned's son. But his hard, gray gaze focused on Tyrion and his abnormal appearance.

"This Halfman is Tyrion Lannister, from Casterly Rock not Lannisport, his destiny is the wall"

"No wonder you're going there, Tywin Lannister has finally decided to get rid of the feces stain on his perfect story?"

Trevor asked Saul, who held back a laugh. Tyrion clenched his fists, angry at the steward's words but waited for a response from Saul.

"My father wouldn't spend so much, steward, in fact it would be a painful blow to all the whores from Dorne to Tentown, I'll just walk around the largest man-made structure and maybe piss on a wildling's head from above or a ranger on patrol"

Tyrion responded but there was no laughter, only cold eyes, he didn't understand at first but when he realized that he had dishonored the respected Watchers with his mockery, he understood his mistake and blamed his lack of control.

"Hold your tongue, Lord Imp, your brothers are very far away and your death will at most be contested by the lack of a corpse"

Saul responded and headed towards Kingscrown's audience hall to parley with Lord Cayle Towers alongside the steward. Tyrion swallowed hard and looked at the Lannister men who accompanied him there, there were ten men dressed in steel from head to toe, but they all had a runny nose and showed signs of a powerful fever, making Tyrion curse his luck.

"I suggest you stay in the nearest village, Halfman, this castle will know in a few hours how you wished to piss on a ranger's head."

Robb recommended with a dry-lipped smile.

"But I didn't say I was going to piss, don't you northerners have a sense of humor?"

Tyrion protested, indignation in his hoarse voice.

"We do, but even a Westerlander loses his humor when he makes fun of Tywin Lannister."

Robb said and headed towards the castle's canteen, where soldiers rested next to ovens and ate hot soup with soft bread, while talking about the battles to come.

Tyrion sighed, got on his horse, tied himself to his custom-made saddle and ordered his infantry to follow him to Towercreek, a village built at the time that House Towers was laying the foundations of their castle. They arrived at a reasonably full inn, warm and with the good smell of soup cooking in the air. The owner of the inn approached him, he was a short, bald man with a large beard, he introduced himself as Darren and offered his services to the Halfman wearing leather and cotton.

"A warm room for me and others for my soldier's, the hottest food I have and wine, beer or any other drink to keep the ice from my bones"

Tyrion ate, drank and paid for a round of men who pleased him with words or jokes about life below the Neck. He went to sleep in a room on the second floor, on a bed lined with furs and padded with a layer of wool to rest his head. In the middle of the night, a girl entered the rooms, she was beautiful and had medium breasts, almost silver eyes and long oak-colored locks, Tyrion took advantage of her arrival and rested in her warm arms.

In Kingscrown, a few hours ago.

"Give the Imp wine and take a prostitute to his quarters"

Saul ordered.

"It will be done, Lord Saloman"

Trevor nodded before Saloman opened the gates to the Towers house's audience room.

It was a modest hall lit by torches and with thin cloudy glass windows on the sides, it could not be compared to the First Keep of Winterfell but it could house a hundred people in excellent comfort. At the end of it was a carved stone throne from the Towers house and in front of it a large table with a map of the New Gift regions, with miniature farms in the open fields and bonfires in the dense forest areas.

Lord Cayle Towers sat on the lord's throne, wearing a blue quilted cotton doublet with a black tower embroidered on the doublet's breastplate with a blue velvet cape. His black eyes calculate each region, each new discovery and how to keep the plantations protected until the harvest or the arrival of winter. Cayle ran his right hand over his long, disheveled and oily black locks, dark pockets form heavy ears below his eyes and his body seemed to collapse in on itself.

Saul sighed discouraged at Lord Cayle's situation and arrived next to that man, still in his early thirties but with the haggard appearance of a man in his forties.

"Lord Cayle"

He called him.

"Lord Saloman"

Cayle answered him in a dry, haggard voice.

"Lord Stark has given us two hundred more good men for this war, the protection of his lands is the duty of the entire north, from Greywater's Watch to Last Hearth, men are being separated to defend the lands that once belonged to us, so Cayle, you need to sleep"

Saul touched his shoulder, he was weak and fallen.

"I can't, Saul, I need to take care of these lands, it's my duty as a lord blessed by the king..."

Cayle tried to get up from the throne but his legs shook, not supporting the weight of his body.

"Trevor, order the healer to make an extract of sleeping herbs, mix it in a glass of wine and order the soldiers not to allow entry to anyone other than the healer, Lord Towers' wife and children."

Saul said and took Cayle in his arms, leaving towards a room close to the courtroom, used when a defendant must remain isolated from the trial. Trevor returned after a few minutes with the glass of wine and Saul made the lord of Kingscrown drink all the liquid.

"Why did you allow him to get to this point? Didn't you tell me you had become closer in the letter?"

"I tried, Saul, I sincerely tried to bring reason to Cayle, but you know how the attacks go. Thousands have died since the beginning of this year, the captured wildlings and deserters describe the same story before they die by the executioner's blade: the dead return life and Others march from the lands of Everwinter to hunt men and lay the longest of nights"

Trevor seemed to grow older with the words spoken and his sad gaze rested on Cayle, his bastard and the reason for his greatest concern. He saw Cayle as another work of his long life as master engineer of the Wyce house, but seeing his masterpiece deteriorate like this caused him a pain he felt only when he saw one of his children get hurt.

"Do you believe these stories?"

Saul asked. The Steward looked around and scratched his head thinking about how to respond.

"I didn't believe it before, I always thought those savages always said the same thing about the death penalty, about how we would react when they said that death comes from the other side of the wall..."

Saul nodded but the steward's words didn't finish.

"But I began to have doubts, my skepticism is high, Saul, you know how I don't believe in tales and coincidences, whether good or bad. But I heard something from a wildling woman about the new king of the savages"

Trevor shook his hands, clenched his fists, and scratched his fingers.

"She said that a man named Mance Rayder united his people to march south, where death would not exterminate them."

"A dead woman's nonsense, old man, Mance Rayder is no danger to the Night's Watch since the shipment of warriors from Moat Cailin arrived at the wall. Until Nighfort can return to operation, the Watch can return to see times of glory again, Ever since Raymun Redbeard's war, the north has missed a battle between northmen and wildlings."

Saul said between smiles but Trevor didn't laugh along, he kept his face closed and grumpy.

"She's dead, isn't she?"

"I kept her alive because of her, I want you to understand my fear, Saul"

He replied and Saul sighed in annoyance but he knew the Steward too well to understand the fear of that old goat.

Trevor then walked with Saul through the inner fortress from the audience hall in the north and headed south. They passed to the area of the guest rooms and stopped when they saw a door guarded by three soldiers armed with shiny metal spears and dressed in chain mail from head to toe and had steel plate insignia, inscribed with the coat of arms of the Towers house. The men noticed Trevor and stood at attention. The Steward pulled an old bronze key from the cord tied around his neck to open the bedroom door. He unlocked it and they entered. It was lit with torches and a lit fireplace warmed the room.

In front of the fireplace stood a tall woman, broad shoulders and arms, well-combed and oiled brown hair, wearing linen pants, men's boots and a brown leather jerkin tied to a leather belt and a cape covering her back. Her face is hard and dry, without feminine beauty.

"Introduce yourself, Osha of the Free Folk, to Lord Saloman Wyce"

Moat Cailin is the ancestral seat of the Wolf Horde, the army united by great northern warriors, still formed in the wars of conquest of the Stark house of the winter kingdoms. Boasting twenty towers, the fortress that protects the north from raids by pirates and bandits from the south of the Neck, was a great warning to the southern kingdoms that the north has always remained undefeated over them all, since the arrival of the Greenhand by the arm of Dorne. The royal entourage arrived on a sunny afternoon, few were the days when the sun bathed the basalt walls of the fortress, the reception began.

Dyana traveled in her own carriage, a modest carriage compared to the King's Wheelhouse, which was four times larger than her own. Her Handmaid, Sanya, was with her, a beautiful girl with red hair and blue eyes with freckles dotting her face. She knew that Sanya was no ordinary maid, that she had training with knives and daggers, that her worried and innocent gaze could be cold with people at times, she knew that this Arnehild woman was a trained warrior. But Sanya was loyal, never leaving her alone since they left Winterfell and even pretending not to hear her orders when Dyana wanted to get some morning sun.

Ser Alvyn Wynfall also accompanied her, now she only wore a steel breastplate with the Stark coat of arms carved on the front, but underneath she wore chainmail and at her waist she carried a steel sword made in Sunhall and a dagger hidden in the side bottom of the sheath of his blade.

They got out of the carriages when the king and the royal family also got down from theirs, in the courtyard of the fortress, almost five thousand men knelt before King Robert, all of them warriors who fought with him at the Trident. He saw the Lord Commander of the Wolf Horde, Ser Ethon the Killhunt Graen and at his side Ser Jorah the Demonbear Mormont. These men were the heroes of the war, with Ser Ethon and his two thousand northerners holding off Lord Randyll Tarly's men of Hornhill so that messengers could be sent to Stannis Baratheon at Storm's End as they prepared to lay siege to the castle and Ser Jorah with the the defense of Frostport and Bear Island from the tentacles of the Greyjoy fleet and then the battle over the turbulent waters of the Iron Isles in the counterattack of the Northern kingdom. They were the senior authorities of the Wolf Horde and with Lord Eddard commanded the ancestral fortress. The king went to meet the knights, threw his arms over their shoulders and together with Ned Stark called them to get drunk in the great hall.

Dyana ignored almost everyone who started a conversation with her, most of them being Northern ladies who lived there with their husbands and the rest were childhood friends, from when she was a little girl and traveled through the swamps with the Cranogmans, she answered them quickly and frankly. However, it was a short girl, with green eyes and wearing a vest with bronze scales who caught his attention.

"Where's yours?"

She asked.

"Good afternoon, Meera"

Dyana greeted, looking down and smiling at her oldest friend. She was taller than Meera, who is no longer growing, not only in height but also in her gifts, the cranogmen was straight and Dyana was more curved and was no longer wearing the scaled vest she wore when sailing through the swamps, but a velvet dress and silk to cool the heat.

"Where's yours?"

She asked again. Dyana frowned, not understanding her words.

"You Direwolf"

She clarified.

"Lord Eddard had found a litter, containing puppies for each of the Stark heirs, the father told me a few days ago that he saw Arya with Nymeria in White Harbor"

Dyana lowered her eyes and slowly erased the smile that

"Not for everyone"

She answered.

"There were six puppies and only six. Everyone knows that I have Dayne blood stronger than the Starks, my eyes don't please the Old God's"

She walked to where she used to rest when she was younger, in the east keep which is where the ladies of more powerful houses are housed and she entered with Meera, Sanya and Alvyn.

"That's why I took the lion"

She said with a smile back.

"Are you really going to marry that golden boy?"

Meera looked uncomfortable.

"I don't like him, his smile reminds me of those pirates from Sisterton and that other man wearing a white cloak, they have the same smug smile"

"That's his uncle, Ser Jaime of the royal guard"

Dyana removed her cotton cloak, exposing a sweat-soaked silk dress.

"Run me a bath, Sanya"

The handmaid nodded silently and left the tower to fetch water.

"He is a prince, the next king, he has pride and contempt for his inferiors, I have tamed many men like him"

She alone took off her dress in front of Meera and Ser Alvyn, who swallowed hard when she saw Dyana like that.

"You will not go out?"

Meera asked Alvyn but Dyana answered her.

"No, he stays, he has thick hands, I need a massage after this trip"

Meera stared at Dyana with her mouth open.

"He's trustworthy, I spent a lot of time training him to please me, I won't stop using him because he's here"

"Are you and him going to fuck here? With your fiancé a few towers away?"

Meera looked terrified but her gaze never left Dyana's body, her milk-white skin and her perky breasts and firm buttocks.

"Why not? You can see, if you want to participate I'll allow you to lick my breasts, the left one because Alvyn loves the right one"

She approached the knight and touched the bulge in his pants and massaged it gently but with firm fingers.

"But this is mine, from the base to the head"

Dyana took the knight's lips.

"You Dornish people are very strange"

Meera replied but remained in the room with her friend.