The refugee camp had been cleared into a wide open space. Several thousand figures pressed together, the noise of the crowd rising and falling in waves.
Brin and Lushen moved through the mass with their soldiers, maintaining the lines.
Olivier stood on a hastily constructed platform above the crowd.
His voice had gone rough from hours of use.
"As per the arrangement!!"
"Those with a trade — take your place in the Cross Town column!!"
"Former fishermen — fall into the Riverbend Town queue!!"
The crowd was separated by invisible hands and reassembled into new shapes.
The families assigned to Cross Town and Riverbend Town received what Solomon had promised — the tools confiscated from the Lege lands, divided equally among them. They closed their rough hands around cold iron and wood, and the knowledge that no poll tax and no levy awaited them made something kindle in their eyes — the look of people who can already see the roofline of a place they can call home.
The hundred and seventy families assigned to charcoal production, and the sixty-seven families assigned to rabbit farming, were also in a state of unusual excitement — despite having received no land, and knowing nothing whatsoever about burning charcoal or raising rabbits.
But they had learned something remarkable: Lord Solomon would pay each family a monthly wage. It couldn't match the income from owning land, but it carried no taxes — meaning every copper they earned was entirely their own.
The moment of departure arrived. Soldiers called out in loud voices, and all across the crowd the scenes of parting played out simultaneously.
Villagers who had been deliberately separated pulled each other into tight embraces, making promises — once settled in the new home, they would send letters. They would find each other again.
Column by column, these new streams of life moved out, carrying the tools Solomon had distributed, carrying hope, heading in different directions, beginning the long work of building something from nothing.
Solomon and Olivier stood on the platform and looked out at it.
Olivier's gaze drifted to a figure some distance away — Hebbard, hands on hips, bellowing at servants who were moving cargo, even stepping in personally to shove a stubborn cart that wasn't cooperating.
Olivier's brow drew together.
"Lord Solomon — this man." He kept his voice low. "Hebbard. At his core, he is simply a greedy merchant. He has a degree of cleverness, I'll grant him that."
The concern in his voice was genuine.
"Entrusting something as critical as the lord's monopoly system to a man like this... I fear the consequences will be severe. He will find every possible way to line his own pockets."
He studied Solomon's profile, then continued.
"You should find someone more honest, more loyal, more reliable to carry this responsibility. Placing real trust in a man like him is not wise."
Solomon watched the fat man — now drenched in sweat from the exertion of directing his servants, now grabbing the front of the cart himself and pushing with his whole body.
The person he had originally intended for this role was Barna. But Barna had gone out on his mission and simply vanished. No word, no sign. In Westeros, finding someone who could read, write, and calculate was like panning for gold in the open sea. You took what the current brought you.
He smiled, without denying Olivier's assessment.
"You are entirely right. He is greedy. Openly, unashamedly greedy."
His tone was completely level — the tone of someone describing a feature of the landscape.
"But Olivier. In the Reekfort, my ancestors always said: water too clear bears no fish."
He turned to look at the man beside him — neatly dressed, rather handsome, middle-aged, precise in every habit — and his expression carried a depth that Olivier couldn't quite read.
"As long as he builds the lord's monopoly system completely, and keeps it running efficiently—"
"I don't mind if his hand dips in and comes out with a few gold dragons."
Each word landed clearly in Olivier, and each one made him feel that the person speaking was not sixteen years old — was not even remotely someone his own age — but something closer to a man of fifty who had watched systems fail and succeed for decades.
"Specialized work goes to specialized people. And his greed will drive him harder than anything else could."
"Because the larger and smoother the system runs, the more he can take from it."
"His interests and mine move in the same direction."
Olivier opened his mouth and found he had nothing to say. He was shaken again — by the complete disregard for conventional virtue, by the absolute focus on outcomes, by the fact that Solomon could look at a man's appetite and see it as an engine rather than a flaw.
In Olivier's understanding, a noble lord's first requirement of any subordinate was loyalty. Always loyalty first. But Solomon seemed to weigh ability and loyalty as equal considerations — and beyond that, knew how to harness a person's desires and put them to work.
Solomon looked at Hebbard raising a whip across the back of one of his own servants and felt something between amusement and reflection.
He laughed softly and turned to Olivier.
"At least in Westeros, no one has ever stood up to criticize their lord for 'competing with the people for profit.' And no one ever will."
In this world, smallfolk were a lord's property — inscribed into the bones of society as something natural and right. With each lord running whatever arbitrary laws their imagination could produce, no one would ever think to call it unreasonable that a lord profited from his land. This was the soil of Westeros.
"Competing with the people for profit?" Olivier rubbed the back of his head, not quite sure what the phrase meant. Smallfolk were the lord's property — weren't they?
He turned the unfamiliar phrase over in his mind, guessed approximately at its meaning, and produced an awkward smile and a nod.
Then, from a distance, came the sound of fast hoofbeats.
A rider from the Lion's Den came flying in at full gallop, the urgency in his shout arriving before he did.
"Lord Solomon!! Urgent military intelligence!!"
The horse was hauled to a stop below the platform, crying out in protest. The rider swung down, took the steps at a run, and pulled a letter sealed in hard wax from inside his coat.
"A raven from Dadin City!! Housekeeper Evelyn sent me to bring it to you immediately!!"
Solomon took the letter. His thumb pressed against the wax seal and cracked it cleanly. He drew out the paper and scanned it.
His expression did not change by a single line. He had been waiting for something like this — the surface of him as undisturbed as deep water. Everything was moving in sequence, as expected.
He held the paper out to Olivier.
"Read it."
The contents were brief to the point of brutality. Brief enough, and heavy enough, to shake all Seven Kingdoms.
The Westerlands fleet had been burned at Lannisport. The Ironborn had left nothing.
Olivier took the paper. He read one line and his face went white.
"By the Seven—"
His voice shook. The thin sheet of paper felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in his hands.
"Tywin Lannister's fleet... just... gone?!"
He looked up at Solomon, his eyes wide.
"With the Westerlands fleet destroyed, the Ironborn can raid wherever they please — nothing standing in their way!! Lord Solomon!!"
"The Riverlands border the Westerlands directly — the Ironborn will have a free hand, and I fear it won't be long before Riverrun calls for another mobilization—"
Solomon looked at the panicking Olivier, and the corner of his mouth pulled into the faintest smile.
"Mobilization? No. That won't happen."
No one understood the logic of feudal systems better than he did.
He extended his arm toward the horizon — where the last columns of refugees were slowly disappearing beyond the edge of the domain's territory.
"Olivier, it seems you don't entirely understand the land you live on."
"When allies face disaster — preserve your strength. Be still as a mountain. Wait to place your bet."
"Every lord in Westeros does exactly this. They sweep their own doorstep and never tend to their neighbor's fire."
"As long as the flames haven't reached their own gate, every one of them will be hiding in their castles — pleased with themselves — and privately complaining that the Ironborn didn't burn a few more of their neighbor's ships."
Olivier stared at him.
He's not wrong. The words had cut through everything — the pageantry of chivalry, the language of honor and loyalty — and named what was actually underneath. When allies face disaster, preserve your strength, be still as a mountain, wait to place your bet. It was a precise description of how Westerosi nobility actually behaved, stripped of the decorative layer.
"So — the burning of the Westerlands fleet will not produce a major mobilization in the Riverlands."
"House Tully will wait. And everyone else will wait with them. They'll wait for the King's response. They'll wait for the Lannister retaliation."
"When the outcome is almost decided — when it becomes clear which side is winning — only then will they come swooping in like vultures who smelled blood, to claim their share of the spoils and loudly proclaim their loyalty."
Solomon's smile was cold.
There was no question about it — Balon Greyjoy had launched this rebellion believing exactly this: that the Baratheon hold was insecure and the great houses would not rally with full commitment. He was right about the feudal logic. He was wrong about his own strength. He would suffer catastrophic defeats on land, and his fleet would be broken at sea by the Royal Navy.
"This war will not draw anyone in — not until the King himself takes the field, and not until victory and defeat are already effectively decided and the Greyjoy failure is inevitable. Only then will anyone commit."
Solomon looked out in the direction of Seagard, and something changed in his expression — something that went deeper than the surface he usually showed.
There were things he had not told Olivier.
The Riverlands fighting really is coming soon. I need to prepare early.
I still don't understand why the Ironborn keep hammering at it.
Seagard.
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