Solomon smiled, gesturing for Evelyn to note down his words.
"I am not only going to dictate how they drink water, I am going to dictate how they eat meat. All meat must be cooked thoroughly before consumption."
Evelyn was utterly speechless, her thoughts spinning in a chaotic whirl.
"But rules alone are useless," Solomon said, cutting through her silence. "There must be rewards and punishments. Only then will these laws take root in their very bones."
He paced two steps, as if weighing the mechanism in real time. "I will have the neighborhood leaders enforce this. If a single household violates my decree—say, by dumping nightsoil in the street—not only will that household be fined one copper coin, but the 'neighborhood leader' who oversees them will also be punished."
"If the violation is severe, or if they refuse to correct it, then the entire five-household block tied to that leader will bear collective responsibility. They will all be fined together. Or they will all be sent to haul the fortress's waste out of the township."
Evelyn understood instantly. Her breath caught in her throat. A sudden, biting chill crawled up her spine.
She had almost forgotten Solomon's neighborhood-block system. Unlike every other lord in Westeros, whose authority barely reached past their tax collectors and sworn swords, Solomon's tentacles of power extended down to the very roots of the grassroots level.
This is ruthless.
It was more effective than any whip. It weaponized the pressure of the community and the mutual surveillance of neighbors, transforming the lord's decree into a self-enforcing code of conduct.
To avoid dragging their neighbors down, and to avoid being ostracized and isolated by those same neighbors, every single person would actively force themselves to obey these bizarre new rules about boiling water and dumping waste.
She looked at Solomon. For the first time, she felt a genuine, creeping sense of dread. The methods of this young man were terrifying in their absolute control, yet they manifested as pure benevolence for the health of the people.
"I want you to compile these sanitation regulations, along with the household division, the military pensions, and the Notice Board system. Put them all in writing," Solomon said, his voice dropping an octave, heavy with command. "Bind them into booklets."
He stopped pacing and looked directly at Evelyn. He raised a single finger toward the stone ceiling.
"Call it: The Laws of the Domain."
"We now hold the Lion's Den and four military townships. The administrative officers of those four townships will take this book, The Laws of the Domain, and they will use it to govern the people."
"Hurry, Evelyn! You may add the necessary administrative details yourself. Draft the first copy for my review!"
With that, Solomon turned and strode out of the council hall, leaving Evelyn alone in a room of flickering candlelight.
Evelyn stood motionless in the empty hall for a long time.
Her gaze drifted down to the lavish, soft Dornish rug she had purchased for the chamber. Solomon's words still rang like struck iron in her ears.
"Only a handful of people will ever feel the softness of this rug. But the weight of that pension coin can hold up a shattered family."
Slowly, Evelyn walked over and sat at the heavy oak desk. A fresh roll of parchment and a bottle of ink sat waiting. She picked up the quill, dipped the nib into the black ink, and paused.
The tip of the feather hovered above the parchment, refusing to drop.
What am I doing? she thought. Am I recording the mad ravings of a lord who wants to control how peasants swallow water? Or... am I helping to build the framework of an entirely new society with my own hands?
This society might lack the gilded pageantry of King's Landing. It might lack the honor and majesty that the high lords loved to boast about over their Arbor wine.
But beneath that crude exterior, it might prove tougher, healthier, and infused with a savage, explosive vitality greater than any domain she had ever seen.
The fog in Evelyn's mind was cleaved apart by a sharp, sudden clarity. Her sapphire eyes grew fiercely bright.
She hesitated no longer. The quill struck the parchment, the scratching sound loud in the quiet room.
At the very top of the page, in a hand more solemn and deliberate than she had ever used, she wrote the words:
The Laws of the Domain.
Outside the lord's hall of the Lion's Den, the air tasted of sawdust and stone dust from the endless excavation.
Lushen and Lauchlan stood flanking the heavy, closed oak doors. Both men wore bizarre expressions—a twitchy mixture of deep anxiety and eager anticipation.
Behind them stood a line of women. About a dozen of them. They kept their heads bowed, hands clasped tightly in front of them, shifting their feet nervously on the stone.
"Stand up straight. Stop burying your necks like turtles," Lushen hissed over his shoulder.
He puffed out his chest and turned back to Lauchlan. "Lord Solomon is going to be thrilled when he sees the effort we put into this."
Lauchlan puffed out his own chest to match, his Adam's apple bobbing as he threw a nervous glance at the oak doors. "That's a certainty. Lord Solomon's name rings across the Riverlands as the Black Lion."
"And yet he only has one servant girl by his side. It's not proper."
Lushen let out a soft snort, his voice dripping with the profound wisdom of a man who had cracked the secrets of the universe. "You still don't get it, do you? The key is Evelyn."
He leaned close and nudged Lauchlan with an elbow.
"Think about it. Look at what Evelyn looks like."
The two men exchanged a look of deep, unspoken understanding. This was their duty. Lord Solomon needed to spread his seed and establish his lineage.
To these rough men—former peasant farmers who nonetheless had eyes to judge beauty—Evelyn was undoubtedly clever. She had a fine figure, tall and clearly healthy enough to bear children. But that massive birthmark covering half her face was, to their minds, undeniably ugly.
Lauchlan lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, sharing an earth-shattering secret. "Our Lord Solomon... he doesn't like those flashy, delicate, pretty women."
"Lord Solomon's tastes are... unique!" Lushen nodded heavily, immensely proud of this psychological deduction.
Based on this profound insight, the two commanders had put in grueling work. They had scoured all four military townships to handpick the lineup standing behind them.
One woman was as thick and broad as a mother bear, her arms roped with muscle—clearly a spectacular hand in the fields.
Another woman's face was so densely packed with dark freckles you could hardly guess the original color of her skin.
A third offered a wide, crooked grin, revealing a missing front tooth that looked like a black cavern.
Their faces were a gallery of the bizarre, but they all shared the exact same physical traits: wide hips, sturdy frames, clear, simple eyes, and thick, clean hands.
"Lord Solomon is definitely going to be happy with this," Lushen said, admiring his masterpiece.
"Exactly. He's going to be overjoyed," Lauchlan agreed.
They were just about to trade another round of mutual praise when a figure covered in soot and ash came striding aggressively around the corner of the corridor.
Bolin had just come up from the new blast furnaces. His face was streaked with black grime, sweat cutting pale rivers through the dirt. He spotted the bizarre assembly at a glance and his rapid strides ground to a halt.
He walked up, his eyes sweeping over the line of thick, sturdy, peculiar-looking women. His brow knotted into a heavy scowl.
"Lushen? Lauchlan?" Bolin asked. "What in the Seven Hells are you doing? Are you recruiting female laborers to haul stone for the fortress?"
Seeing Bolin, Lauchlan immediately puffed up like a man showing off a prized hog. He grabbed the blacksmith by the arm and pulled him aside.
"Shh. Keep your voice down, Brother Bolin."
He patted his chest smugly and leaned in close. "This is a surprise we prepared for Lord Solomon! Well? Impressive lineup, isn't it?"
Bolin's confusion only deepened. He couldn't see a single thing worth surprising anyone over. If they had told him these women were about to be sent out to break hard soil in the mountains, he would have believed it instantly.
Lauchlan leaned closer, adopting the tone of a master educating a novice. "Bolin, you're new here. You don't understand the situation."
He jerked his chin toward the heavy doors of the lord's hall.
"Our Lord Solomon... he doesn't like those pretty women who look like fragile vases. Nice to look at, but useless."
"You've seen Evelyn."
"He likes them like this... you know, with character!"
Bolin stood frozen in place, staring at them as if he had just been struck by lightning.
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