Brother John came from the Riverlands, eldest son of a simple carpenter's family.
At seventeen his father brought him to work on a local sept.
His skilled hands were seen as a blessing from the Smith—one of the Seven—and on an old brother's recommendation he entered the monastery as a novice sworn to the Smith.
When the Andals first invaded Westeros centuries ago they carried the Faith of the Seven with them from Essos.
The Seven are: the Father the Mother the Smith the Warrior the Maiden the Crone and the Stranger.
In the teachings of the Faith these are not seven separate gods but seven aspects of a single divine being called "the Seven Who Are One."
The Father stands for justice and judgment.
The Mother for mercy nurturing and maternal love.
The Smith for creation craftsmanship and honest labor.
The Warrior for courage strength and victory in battle.
The Maiden for innocence beauty and purity.
The Crone for wisdom and the guidance of the elderly.
The Stranger for death the unknown and the face of fear.
Together these seven aspects embrace nearly every part of human life—birth death love war work justice mercy and the mystery beyond.
Because the Faith is so tightly woven into Andal social order law marriage inheritance and kingship it became the dominant religion south of the Neck—supplanting older beliefs and earning the name "New Gods" among the First Men's descendants.
Yet in Ethan's private view the Faith still hovered somewhere between polytheism and true monotheism—with plenty of room left to evolve.
During his years in the sept John learned to read and write basic healing and—building on his father's trade—advanced carpentry stonemasonry and blacksmithing.
Monastic life changed his path forever… but it also showed him things he preferred not to speak of: brothers who strayed far from the path brothers whose vows became hollow.
Those quiet scandals shook his faith.
So he chose to leave the cloister and—like his own teacher Master Greller in his youth—embark on a barefoot pilgrimage along the continent's western and eastern coasts.
Through hardship good works and constant prayer he hoped to rebuild what had been damaged.
Four years had passed.
Winterfell was his next destination.
Though most Northerners—descendants of the First Men—still kept to the Old Gods a small community of southern-born folk lived in Winterfell the North's chief seat.
Since Aegon the Conqueror united the Seven Kingdoms three centuries earlier noble houses had intermarried exchanged wards and hostages and sent retainers across regions.
Wherever a lord's son went he brought guards servants and septons.
Thus even in the North pockets of Seven-worship endured.
Few though they were they remained children of the Seven.
They needed guidance back to the Faith's warm embrace.
That was John's purpose now.
"But with so few believers how will you even survive?" Ethan asked.
John lifted the small iron hammer pendant at his throat and smiled.
"It's all right. Don't forget—besides being a brother I'm a very good carpenter."
During the few days they spent in that nameless little village John didn't devote all his time to nursing the wounded.
Kevin checked on Ethan twice daily—morning and evening—making sure no wound had worsened.
The rest of the chores—bringing water tea tending the fire—fell to him.
John meanwhile used his hands to help the villagers: repairing roofs fixing plows forging tools sharpening blades.
In exchange he received food copper coins and occasionally a place by the hearth.
Everywhere he went he quietly spoke of the Seven's mercy—spreading the Faith one small kindness at a time.
Once Brother John agreed to travel north to Winterfell with them Ethan—worried the monk's walking pace would slow the journey—bought him a sturdy donkey for five silver stags.
The price was fair the gift practical.
John accepted without hesitation.
With a mount John's daily travel distance increased dramatically… but a new problem quickly appeared.
When he traveled alone he could pause in a village every few days pray for the smallfolk do carpentry or smithing work and earn enough food and shelter to continue.
Now traveling with Ethan he could no longer support himself that way.
Ethan's goal was fixed: Winterfell.
He rarely stopped except when necessary and never for long.
He refused to sleep in the open at night.
Whenever they passed a decent-sized village he found the best available inn ordered a hearty meal took a private room and slept comfortably.
Even in the poorest hamlets with no proper inn he had Brother John locate the wealthiest farmer and rent the best spare room—refusing any compromise on comfort.
Most importantly while Ethan lived well he never let John go hungry.
Whether eating at a tavern or lodging with a farmer he always insisted John share the table insisting:
"It's not scarcity that's the problem—it's inequality."
Once or twice was fine.
Three or four times John could accept.
But after the fifth or sixth occasion a deep guilt settled in the brother's heart.
He had set out on a pilgrimage of hardship and devotion.
How had he ended up living so easily so comfortably?
If he ever parted from Ethan could he return to a life of poverty and begging?
Would he end up like those pampered pigs kept in the royal septs of King's Landing?
The worry gnawed at him.
One evening in a crowded tavern after finishing a good meal and wiping grease from his mouth Brother John quietly suggested they part ways.
At that moment Ethan was sipping wine listening to a bard croon a bawdy ballad about a servant seducing his lady and unexpectedly inheriting a fortune.
Hearing John's proposal Ethan found it almost comical.
"Huh? That's all?"
With a short laugh he raised his cup toward the monk.
"Asceticism is one kind of test… but can't a comfortable life be a test too?
Brother John—are you so easily tempted?"
John flushed slightly annoyed.
"Enduring hardship is the test the Seven have set for me.
You—a foreign warrior—what do you understand of trials?"
Since learning John was only a year older than himself Ethan had begun treating him with easy familiarity.
John was the first true peer he had found in this world—someone close in age someone he could speak to without pretense—so his tone had grown far more casual.
After nearly dying from infected wounds Ethan had quietly realized something:
He was no longer just passing through this world.
He lived here.
He could die here.
The invisible wall between him and this place had shattered the moment fever nearly claimed him.
Right now the bard finished the first part of his song and sat down to rest.
The tavern's patrons talked loudly over their cups.
The warm noisy atmosphere—like strong barley ale—seeped into Ethan's heart making him feel expansive and talkative.
"You don't understand trials?
Fine—let me tell you one."
Intrigued Ethan took Kevin's cup drained it to wet his throat and began:
"Long ago in my homeland there lived a monk named Cherian River.
When he was very young bandits killed his father.
To save him his mother placed him in a cradle and set it adrift on the river.
By the grace of the gods the cradle floated three days before an old abbot of a monastery rescued him…"
"…The questions Brother Cherian asked were ones the abbot could not answer nor any brother in the monastery…"
"…The road to the Holy Land was long.
Along the way three mighty warriors—moved by his pure aspiration—volunteered to become his guards and disciples…"
"…One day Brother Cherian reached the bank of a vast river.
Only an old woman waited there poling a tiny boat ferrying passengers across…"
"…The Amazon queen was only twenty-three in the bloom of youth…"
"…The scorpion-elf was no less beautiful than the queen—and far wilder in nature…"
"Finally Brother Cherian packed his belongings turned his back on all worldly glory and—with his three disciples—set out for the Holy City once more.
He knew no earthly splendor could compare to the light of faith."
Ethan paused took another sip and continued:
"And that was only the least dangerous of the eighty-one trials Brother Cherian endured."
Brother John sat silent.
A bearded man at the next table laughed loudly.
"If it were me I couldn't do it.
A delicate queen who loves him so much—and so rich!
Who in their right mind would leave that to fetch some holy book?"
The man's friend joked:
"Does that monk even have anything down there worth using?"
The whole tavern roared with laughter.
"Hahahaha!"
Even the bard had dragged a stool close to listen.
Noticing Ethan's gaze the bard played a bright flourish on his harp in salute.
"What a marvelous tale sir."
"Thank you." Ethan nodded.
"May I sit and talk a while?"
"Of course."
With permission the bard returned to the small stage.
But he didn't resume his earlier song.
He knew the patrons were still captivated by Ethan's fresh exotic tale.
So he played a few lively common folk tunes instead—earning cheers and scattered coins.
"I think your question is meaningless."
No one interrupted.
After a long silence Brother John finally answered.
"I admit the story you told has great value as a test of faith… but in the end it's still just an entertaining legend.
It doesn't truly prove your point.
What river in the world could make a man pregnant simply by drinking its water?"
"Of course no such river exists on Earth" Ethan said seriously.
"But this Brother Cherian River was a real man in my homeland's history.
He set out alone from his monastery traveled west across deserts mountains and rivers passed through dozens of kingdoms endured countless dangers.
Even the royal escorts sent by kings along the way died several times over.
Seventeen years later he returned with cartloads of sacred texts and became one of the most revered archbishops of his age."
Brother John fell silent again.
For a pilgrim like him the idea of spending seventeen years journeying through foreign lands was not unimaginable.
He himself had already walked four.
Ethan didn't press him.
He let the monk sit quietly and wrestle with the true meaning of his own ascetic journey.
Night deepened.
Merchants and locals who had lingered for entertainment gradually drifted away.
The bard packed his harp approached Brother John and asked politely:
"Brother—you wouldn't mind a humble servant of the Seven sitting beside you would you?"
John startled from his thoughts smiled and gestured to the empty chair.
"Of course not—please."
The bard removed his blue pointed cap traced a small reverent sign across his chest pulled out the chair and sat.
He looked at Ethan.
"Sir—that tale you told was extraordinary and left a deep impression.
May I know its name?"
Ethan thought a moment.
"It's one section from Brother Cherian's long journey.
We call the whole work *Westward Journey*.
That part was the Amazon chapter."
"*Red Star Over China*… the Amazon Kingdom…"
The bard murmured the title repeating it softly lost in thought.
After a moment he looked up again.
"Let me introduce myself properly.
I am Lennar Worth from the Westerlands—a wandering bard who travels the Seven Kingdoms bringing stories and song to all who will listen."
Ethan couldn't help smiling.
"I can tell."
Wasn't it obvious?
Lennar shrugged and came straight to the point.
"I heard you say the Amazon chapter was only one of eighty-one trials Brother Cherian faced.
That means there are eighty other stories—each one a test?
To collect eighty-one such tales… they couldn't have been passed down orally.
You must have read this *Red Star Over China* somewhere.
Would you be willing to sell me the book?"
As a professional Lennar immediately recognized the mature narrative structure vivid characters and logical exalted tone of the Amazon tale.
He was certain *Red Star Over China* was a carefully crafted epic.
More than that—it was a treasury of gripping exotic stories no one in Westeros had ever heard.
If he could obtain the complete text—even if he had to adapt and localize it heavily—he would become the most celebrated bard of the age.
Even the maesters' dry histories would be forced to mention this golden era of song.
Ethan hesitated.
"Sell it to you? But… I don't actually have the book."
Lennar leaned forward urgently.
"Then could you write it down and sell me the manuscript?
I'm willing to pay a high price."
"A high price?" Ethan laughed softly.
"Even if I wrote it you probably couldn't read it.
I don't even know how to write in the Common Tongue."
The bard blinked—then grinned.
"Ah. Of course.
A foreign warrior after all."
He thought for a moment then asked:
"Would you be willing to tell me the stories—chapter by chapter—while I write them down?
I'll pay you by the tale… or we can agree on a fair daily rate.
What do you say?"
Ethan considered.
The idea wasn't bad.
He needed money.
He needed to solidify his identity as a wandering knight-scholar.
And he quite enjoyed telling stories—especially when the audience listened with real hunger.
After a moment he nodded.
"All right.
But let's settle terms first."
Lennar's face lit up.
"Name your price sir—and I'll do my best to meet it.
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