Chapter 58

Dear Diary,

I'm writing this entry from a guest room in Winterfell.

House Bolton was one of the last ones to arrive in Winterfell and Robb Stark's 10th name day.

We came to Winterfell with only 20 men along with Aunt Barbrey Dustin. I didn't brought any Direwolf with me as riding a direwolf (which was Stark's symbol) in the Stark house might be taken as an insult by the other lords. I didn't brought any wargs or giants with me either.

Despite the fact that no one has said anything to me just yet, the fact remains that the people are nervous of me. Of the power that I've accumulated over the past few years. And they're even nervous of Baka who is easily the largest person they've seen in the whole North.

I wonder how they would have reacted if I had brought the giants and the wargs with me. Good thing I didn't.

But I understand their fear to an extent.

The Boltons have a bad history. And reading the mind of the other lords made it very clear that even if some of them smiled at me and tried to act confident, they were slightly nervous about the whole thing.

Even Lord Wyman Manderly who acted like a kind grandfather to me held a slight resentment because of the amount of business that is being taken away from his lands after I opened the new port at the Weeping Water.

They shouldn't have worried as I wouldn't take any action against them as long as they don't act with any hostility toward my people.

And they likely won't act directly against me as long as Lord Stark has control over the situation.

And after looking at Lord Starks' mind, I easily understood his game plan to control my growing power.

And that game plan was to marry me to his oldest daughter. The young girl named Sansa Stark.

Just as my aunt has guessed.

But I could also see the hesitation in Lord Stark's mind when he thought about this topic as he didn't want to promise his daughter's hand to anyone just yet.

At evening, the feast started and I despaired at having to drink piss like ale in order to wet my throat.

People in this world don't know about germ theory. Which means that they don't know that boiled water is just as safe to drink than ale if not safer.

Well, the rest of the food was slightly better even if it paled in comparison to the food that we ate on an everyday basis in Dreadfort.

After all, I have set aside a good amount of wealth to import the wine and cheese from Arbor, different quality of fruits from the different houses of Reach and vegetables from Braavos as well as a renowned chef from Pantos so it is understandable that the food I ate on an everyday basis would be better than the feast prepared here.

Not that I was looking down on the Starks. I had no doubt that Lady Catelyn Stark had done the best she could with the resources she had in hand and she had my respect for that.

During the feast, the Karstarks, the Umbers and Manderlys sat on one table to show the support for Lord Stark while I sat on another table along with the head of House Ryswell, House Dustin and House Whitehill who showed their support to me by sitting on my right and left side.

The feast was a bit tense because of the clear divide between the houses and even Lord Stark was a little worried about it even though his stoic expression didn't show much of anything.

Thankfully, the hour long feast ended without any hostility and as the Stark children were taken to their beds, I got bored of the whole thing and left the great hall as well with the head of House Ryswell, House Dustin and House Whitehill following behind me to show the unity between our alliance even though I didn't particularly cared about any such thing.

But if they want to show their support to me, then I must show my support to them as well. Which was why I plan to give them a discount on the Frost steel as well as any food that they might want to buy from me.

The day ended without much fanfare even though I knew that tomorrow, I'll have to talk with Lord Stark about the betrothal of his daughter.