The King's Road cut straight across the plains of the Vikane Valley. Two hundred families came to a stop along its edge.
Laurence, Brin, Lushen, and Heck had each been assigned to lead and oversee a different refugee column. The commander designated to build Cross Town was Laurence.
The refugees had been escorted here under military guard. Beneath their feet was the cold, hard surface of the King's Road. Before them stretched an open plain that contained nothing — not a single acre that belonged to them.
Some had light in their eyes. The expectation of a new life. Others looked around in plain confusion, studying a place that offered nothing but wind.
Orders came down quickly. People moved. Temporary tents rose along both sides of the King's Road like mushrooms after rain. Women started fires, and threads of cook-smoke rose into the air.
Laurence was working his voice raw among the men, rounding up the able-bodied and directing them toward the distant Moonstone Mountains to fell trees and quarry stone.
Solomon's command tent had been pitched on high ground overlooking the whole site — the full picture of the camp in motion visible from where he stood. Construction would be expensive, but every building material he needed was right there in the mountain range beside them. Everything could be sourced in place.
Laurence was summoned. He came in fidgeting, rubbing his hands together. He knew Lord Solomon regarded Cross Town as the priority of all his projects — since the columns separated, Solomon had stayed with his group specifically. He had no idea what he might have done wrong, no idea why he was being called in alone.
Solomon's finger rested on the center of the map — the point where two major roads intersected.
The Riverlands had excellent waterways, a network of rivers connecting every region — as natural a place for large towns to grow as existed in Westeros. Yet because of the feudal structure, the endless scrambling over borders and tolls, the great houses building their own bridges and checkpoints on every river within their territory, no large settlement had ever taken root. Hag's Mire. Fairmarket. Harrowtown. Every one of them a tiny village under some great family's thumb.
What a waste.
Solomon's voice gave nothing away.
"Laurence."
"For Cross Town, I will not be appointing three administrative officers. I will appoint one mayor with full authority over all matters."
"From today, that mayor is you."
The air seemed to stop moving.
Laurence's head snapped up. His eyes went wide as a man who has misheard something important. He started waving both hands — his thick palms cutting panicked arcs through the air.
"No!! I can't!! Lord Solomon!!"
"Give me a sword and I'll use it!! Give me a shovel and I'll use it!! But I don't know the first thing about running a town!!"
His face had gone completely red — pure, undiluted panic.
"Send me in at the front of a charge and I won't blink. But this... this I genuinely cannot do!!"
The words came out in a jumble, one denial colliding with the next.
"I can't read!! I can't keep accounts!! I can't settle disputes!! Give me three days as mayor and I will destroy everything!! Everything!!"
Solomon watched him without anger. He let out a slow breath.
"I didn't say forever."
No one to use. Truly, no one to use. A basic education system had to be built — a school, a resident scholar, a stable pipeline for producing capable people. This was a problem with no short-term solution.
"You are acting in the role temporarily."
"And I will assign you a deputy to assist."
Solomon's gaze moved to the tent entrance. Olivier was standing there quietly.
"For the time being, Olivier will remain here and teach you personally."
"He will teach you to read. To keep accounts. To read this planning map. To manage administrative affairs."
He paused. His expression became serious.
"But Laurence — you do not have much time."
Solomon's gaze came back to Laurence's face. Like two points pressing in.
"Olivier has a more important task. He will be leaving soon — to purchase the grain and breeding animals we urgently need."
"So you must use this short window and learn everything, flat out, without rest. You must learn how to be a mayor before he goes."
Three fingers.
"Right now, you have three things that matter above everything else."
"First: supervise the construction of the town. Implement the Three-Elder System. Our wartime mobilization will end soon — the soldiers need to return to their fields. Before that happens, Cross Town must have a functioning skeleton that can house and settle the refugees."
"Second: collect road tolls from passing merchant caravans, and maintain the safety of this section of the King's Road. This is the foundation of Cross Town's future income."
He folded two fingers down. One remained.
"Third — and hardest — you need to learn how to make money."
"You want me to make money?" Laurence repeated the phrase blankly. It was more bewildering to him than being told to slay a dragon.
Solomon read the confusion.
"The King's Road is our gold mine. We cannot watch gold flow past our front door and not take a single coin of it."
He gestured for Laurence to move closer to the map.
"I will give you the method. Listen carefully. This method is called: pluck every feather from every chicken that passes."
"From today, within a ten-league radius of Cross Town in both directions, all traveling merchant caravans are forbidden to camp in the open. The dry rations and water they carry themselves are forbidden to be consumed on our land."
Olivier blinked. He had never heard a rule like this. Aggressive beyond measure — but undeniably effective.
"The town's inn — all caravans must lodge there. We provide safe shelter. They pay."
Solomon's finger drew a circle on the map, enclosing the future town.
"The town's tavern — their food and their ale must be purchased from our establishment."
"The town's stable — their horses need fodder and water. Their horseshoes may need replacing. Their cart wheels may break and need repair. All of this, we charge for."
"Even using the town's warehouse — they must use our warehouse. Storage fees."
Olivier stood with his mouth open. No wonder it's called plucking feathers...He really is something else, this lord.
Laurence — with every item Solomon named, his eyes grew slightly wider. He had the sensation of his entire modest understanding of the world being dismantled and rebuilt by force.
"In the future, we can add bathhouses, brothels, gambling dens — we will ensure that every person who passes through this town, whether merchant or traveler, leaves something behind."
"Plucked clean."
"And what they leave behind comes to me."
The tent went silent. Only Laurence's heavy breathing remained.
Olivier looked at Solomon — this lord who was so much younger than him — and felt something in his internal image of the man shift. Solomon had always seemed like someone who spent without counting. Now that image cracked open and what showed through was something more complete: a man who spent strategically and earned relentlessly.
That's more like it.
Solomon placed a hand on Laurence's shoulder. The weight of it pushed him slightly down.
"Do you understand?"
"You may not be a perfect mayor. But you are absolutely a mayor who will execute my instructions without deviation."
"Go and do it."
"You have my backing."
Laurence drew in a long breath of cold air. The chill pushed into his lungs and cleared some of the noise from his head.
He had no way back. A charge this important — he could not fail the lord. He stepped back, dropped to one knee, and pressed his right fist against his chest.
"By your command, Lord Solomon. I, Laurence, will not betray your trust."
Solomon rolled up the parchment map — the one that held the planned future of Cross Town — and pressed it into Laurence's hands.
The map was light. A single rolled scroll.
But in Laurence's grip, it felt like the weight of mountains.
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