Chapter 26

A few minutes later, another haggard and dirty looking man covered in soot from head to toe entered the room and bowed to him.

"Lord Bolton"

"Master Tobho Mott. Have you started the construction of the Blast Furnace?" he asked while looking at the men working in the Paper mill.

"Yes my lord. Though I've never seen something like this and am not sure if this will work or not."

"It will. Believe me." He said and was about to remind the man to hurry in it's construction when his aunt arrived beside him.

"Auntie." He said with a warm smile which she returned in kind before looking pointedly at the blacksmith standing behind him.

"Keep up the good work Master Tobho Mott. You may leave now." He said and the man gave a deep bow before leaving.

"I still don't believe the fact that you managed to snatch the best Blacksmith from Kings Landing." She said with some amusement. "There was a time where there were only two Blacksmiths in Dreadfort. Now, I've lost count.

"Thirteen." He replied "There are thirteen Blacksmiths in the Castle. And 26 Apprentice. Two for each master blacksmith, though some of the apprentices are good enough to be called masters in their own right."

"And even they are not able to exhaust the supply of iron that we now have." She lamented and he raised an eyebrow at her.

"You're not here to complain about the pig iron once again are you?" he asked with some amusement and she frowned before turning to face him.

"And what's wrong with complaining about it. We have 19 operating mines in our lands. 19!! And 14 of those mines produce iron. The Blacksmiths do what they can to produce Armour, weapons as well as the steel plough and the other things that you want them to produce for the small folk. But even they're only capable of using a small amount of the iron that we produce. The rest of it is gathering dust in our werehouses. What do you plan to do what all the pig iron Dom. Why don't you just sell it to the other houses. I for one know that the Manderlys and Karstarks would definitely buy as much of it as you could throw at them."

"I won't throw anything at the Karstarks." He said with a hint of warning in his voice. Ever since the end of the last war, the relationship between his house and the Karstarks have continued to deteriorate to the point that they have even started sending some of their soldiers masked as bandits to harass his peasants.

They may irritate him for now but once he creates his army, he would destroy any bandits that they send in his lands.

"And I told you that we'll have use of the iron in the future."

"You keep saying that. But when."

"When we are able to construct the Blast Furnace." He explained "We'll have no more discussion about this auntie. Plus, it's not like we are lacking gold at the moment. And if my idea fails" which it won't "then I'll simply follow your words and sell all the iron to other houses in North or some houses even in the Vale and Riverlands."

"Very well then. Still. Just because we have gold right now doesn't mean that we should take it for granted. The sooner we start making an earning from our businesses, the better."

He gave a nod to her but he already knew that if he started selling the excess food, iron, weapons, armors and silver (from the mines) and the books that the Printing press is producing then he would easily be able to get a good amount of gold each month.

But he was in no hurry. Especially as he had his mind focused on something else these days.

"How is the work in the Port going auntie?" he asked.

"Slowly as ever." She replied "Because of all the things that you continue to import from the other kingdoms and Essos, there is already a huge village forming near the port which would soon turn into a town. We'll have to make a plan for the town that's about to form near the Port or it's turn into a huge disaster like Kings Landing."

"I know." He replied "I've already sent Maester Devan and 500 men with a plan for the new town. He'll take care of it. And if he can't then you'll go and deal with the situation."

"You know, you can go to the Port and take a look at the situation yourself." She commented "With your powers, it won't even take you a single second to do so."

"I know that. Of course I do. But I am too preoccupied with something else these days and don't want to divert my focus too much."

"Preoccupied with what. You spend all your time these days with the Weirwood trees." She japed and started laughing on her own before she realized that he was not laughing along with her.

"Dom. Why do you spend all your time in the godswood these days?" she asked with slight concern in her voice.

He wondered if he should evade her question but the decided that if he couldn't be honest to his only family member then who else could he trust.

"The Heartwood tree." He begin. "I told you that it released ambient magic in the air which allows me to use magic, didn't I?"

"You did."

"Well, normal Weirwood trees are not capable of doing it. I want to understand how the children carved the faces in Weirwood tree which turned them into Heartwood trees but I've not been able to figure out the trick so far."

They both remained silent for a long moment before she finally asked "And what do you plan to do about it?"

"I could try to understand how the whole face carving thing works and spend an unknown amount of time failing at it." He said in a sarcastic voice "Or I could go North of the Wall in order to find the 'Children of the Forest' if they have not already gone extinct."