Give them status and the authority to govern — Evelyn's eyes lit with sudden clarity. She understood Solomon's full intent now.
"Your plan is—"
Solomon finished the thought for her.
"Exactly."
"And conveniently — they can find and court their wives from among the newly settled families."
Evelyn looked at him, and for a moment her heart skipped.
One move, multiple gains. What kind of calculation was this, from someone this young? Even the children of major noble houses rarely thought with this much depth.
First: the second sons who had nothing now had official positions, authority, and honor. They would become Solomon's most committed supporters.
Second: their most pressing personal problem was solved. With standing and rank, marriage followed naturally. And with a family, a man's heart finally put down roots.
Third: through these marriages, the old smallfolk's second sons and the new refugee families would be bound together — woven into one whole through blood and household, faster and more permanently than any administrative policy could achieve on its own.
Solomon had no idea what Evelyn was thinking. He kept talking, and even if he had known, he wouldn't have considered it remarkable. To anyone raised in an Eastern administrative tradition, this was simply how things were done.
Evelyn chose her words carefully.
"You have the authority to arrange their marriages directly, My Lord. That is within your rights."
In Westeros, a lord ordering marriages for his unmarried adult smallfolk was entirely unremarkable.
Solomon shook his head. He leaned back in his chair and dismissed the idea without hesitation.
"That isn't what I have in mind."
"My part is to create the opportunity. Whether they take it — that's their own business."
This strange, un-Westerosi way of thinking made Evelyn feel, once again, that the person she was serving had come from somewhere else entirely.
At that moment, the council hall door was knocked.
"Come in."
The door opened. Brin and Lushen came in one after the other, both carrying the particular smell of people who had been moving fast.
They bowed together.
"Lord Solomon."
"Lord Solomon."
Brin spoke first, his voice filling the room.
"My Lord — the captured plate armor has all been fully repaired and repainted in our black. More importantly — every family crest on every piece has been ground off. The Lege weeping willow, the knight's coats of arms, all of them — gone. In their place, we've painted your black lion."
"Every breastplate now has a black lion roaring on its chest."
Lushen stepped forward.
"My Lord — I've completed the accounting for the fifty-one full-time cavalry families."
"As per your instructions, their farmland has been transferred to the military town's collective management. Each family now holds eighty to one hundred Solomon mu of yield-land in their name."
Solomon nodded, signaling him to continue.
One Solomon mu is roughly a quarter of an English acre. A hundred mu is twenty-five acres. For a former common smallfolk in Westeros — barely a step above a serf — that was an almost unimaginable level of property.
Lushen continued.
"Under the terms you set:"
"Each year they pay one-tenth of the yield from that land to you as tax."
"The land is managed by the town administration. The officers hire other smallfolk to work it — those tenant farmers receive five-tenths of the yield as their payment."
"The remaining four-tenths goes directly to the cavalry family as their income."
Solomon nodded with real satisfaction.
Effectively a stipend. Everything within my control. Each family only collected four-tenths of a hundred acres of yield — but four-tenths of a hundred acres was enough for a family to live very well without ever doing physical labor again. They didn't need to farm. They didn't need to trade. They needed only to produce one strong soldier, ready for war.
This is the fubing system in Westeros. Land stipends paired with merit-based rank — the land is their pay. And I don't owe them a single coin of wages. My obligation is armor, weapons, warhorses, and food.
Brin's expression shifted then, and became serious.
"But, My Lord — I've found a significant problem."
"These soldiers fight with real courage. They've earned genuine merit and kills in your service. But their physical foundation is too poor."
"Years of malnutrition and heavy farm labor have left bodies that cannot sustain high-intensity combat under full plate armor."
"Half a day in that iron shell and every one of them is on the ground like a dead dog."
Solomon sat up straight.
A real problem. One I've been underprioritizing.
He didn't doubt his soldiers' courage or their willingness to spend their lives. But he couldn't honestly claim that a former farmer and a noble-born knight raised from childhood on training, meat, and milk were anywhere near equal in raw physical capacity. They weren't.
But he had always known this day would come.
He stood and walked around the table toward the two of them.
"I understand."
"So — from today, we change their training and their diet."
His gaze moved over Brin and Lushen.
"Four meals a day. Breakfast: eggs and milk. Lunch: bread and roast meat. Afternoon supplement: eggs and roast meat again. Dinner: large cuts of roast meat, and a thick stewed broth."
He paused for emphasis.
"The fattiest cuts available. Do not economize."
"Use every means necessary to get all our meat and dairy into them. Build them up."
This is my actual obligation as their lord. No wages — but the best armor, the best weapons, warhorses, and all the food they can eat.
Evelyn, Brin, and Lushen all stood very still.
Four meals a day? Large quantities of meat?
And — most significantly — this applied to them as well. Before Solomon, they had gone entire years without tasting these things. By the Seven, this was the life of kings.
Solomon's voice left no room for discussion.
"Their only daily task is one thing: wear the full plate armor."
"Wear it for sword drills, sprinting, sparring. Wear it on patrol. Wear it standing guard."
"Until that iron shell feels like their second skin."
Brin and Lushen looked at each other. They both swallowed. What they saw in each other's eyes was something between awe and disbelief.
The finest food to build the body. The most demanding training to fuse the man with the armor. This was how Solomon intended to forge his first true heavy cavalry — not noble-born knights, but common men turned professional soldiers.
As the meeting was drawing to a close, Brin seemed to remember something. He hesitated.
"Ah — Lord Solomon."
"There's a man who has been waiting at the Lion's Den gate since this morning."
"He says his name is Rosso Brun. He is a knight, witnessed by the Seven."
"He says—"
"He has come specifically to swear his loyalty to you."
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