The tent went dead quiet.
If the land was Jules's personal property, the old veterans would each get a slice. They'd jump straight from sellswords to landed knights, just like in Westeros—real lords with their own fields and people.
It meant the wandering life was over. But the easy brotherhood they shared with Jules would turn into a hard, unbreakable lord-and-vassal chain.
If it stayed company property… that was fine too. The brotherhood stayed alive. The estate belonged to all of them. Everyone just gained a stable base. Downside? Personal cuts would be small. Felt more like working for the company than owning anything real.
And the real gut-punch of the second choice: none of it was truly theirs. Company land. No title. No inheritance.
Red-Hair Garvin's question hit like a cold knife, straight into the fear every man had been pretending wasn't there.
The same bastards who'd been howling over women, ships, and soil a minute ago now held their breath. Every eye—hungry, worried, calculating—locked on Jules.
The second Garvin spoke, the clink of gold and the sway of hips suddenly felt a thousand miles away. What replaced them was something rawer, something about the future.
If Captain Jules Mord made the estate his private fief, they'd get land that could be passed down… but from that day on he'd be their true lord.
Still… where the fuck else were they going to find a captain like him?
Or would they keep licking blood off their blades, just with a little steady coin so they didn't have to hire out as caravan guards in the slow months?
Vito opened his mouth to tell Garvin to shut the fuck up, but the words died in his throat.
Because the second he tried, he realized he was waiting for the answer too.
He even glanced sideways at Tiberius and saw the kid staring at his uncle with burning eyes.
[Uncle… what are you going to choose?] Tiberius thought.
Turn the White Company's private soldiers into "the Honorable" Jules Mord's sworn knights?
Or keep the White Company as a true company—everyone just paid blades?
Jules's face showed zero offense. He'd known the question was coming. He rose slowly, walked to the center of the tent, and let his gaze sweep over every familiar face now tight with hope and fear.
His fingers tapped the scabbard of one longsword. He said nothing, just looked at the twenty-plus men in front of him—his inner circle, the hundred-captains and veteran leaders of the shock cavalry.
These were the spine of the White Company. Without them, "the Honorable" would collapse overnight.
The silence stretched long enough for unease to crawl across every man's skin.
"Fine, Captain. Since you won't say it, I will!" Garvin couldn't hold back any longer. He stepped forward like a man ready to die for the words.
Garvin looked around at his old comrades. Under the torchlight their eyes flicked away from his, but in the shadows they couldn't see, those same eyes burned with gratitude.
Gratitude that he was finally saying what everyone was thinking.
"In my opinion, the land is yours, Captain. The deed has your name on it. This whole Bloodwave Cape job was cracked by young Tiberius. Without this score, who knows how many years we'd have had to scrape together to buy something this big? No captain, no fat payday."
"The land is yours. Give it to whoever you want—it's written in your name!" Garvin said, dead earnest.
"As for the businesses… brothers, we don't want them. We know we're not cut out for that. And Captain, you've always eaten the same thin gruel with us dogs, wiped our asses, patched our holes. That golden goose? Anyone who dares reach for it—don't blame me for being heartless, I'll cut his head off and use it as my nightly piss-pot first!"
At that, Garvin rested his hand on his sword hilt and stared hard at the brothers.
Then his voice dropped, almost to a mumble.
"It's just… Captain… we old brothers have been licking blood off blades with you for so many years. We all dream of a piece of land we can pass down, a safe nest."
"Captain, this life looks glamorous from the outside, but we know the truth. Today you're in the Perfumed Garden with a girl on your lap, tomorrow you might be feeding stray dogs on the roadside. We… we want a piece of land."
"We sell our blood for half our lives and might not even get a hole to be buried in. If the land is yours, at least our worthless bones can have a pit, and the brothers will have something to remember us by. If it stays company property… one day the White Company name disappears or a new captain takes over, and our bones might get dug up and tossed in a ditch."
"I've got a clumsy mouth. I know I'm talking shit. It's just… brothers also want… can we… can we get a little piece of your light? Just a small plot so we have something to dream about?"
He finally couldn't hold it in anymore and spoke his heart.
"Red-Hair, you fucking idiot!" Old Tom exploded before Jules could answer.
"What the fuck are you yapping about? Huh?! Captain hasn't spoken and you're already running your mouth like a dog in heat? You been eating horse shit again?"
Old Tom spun around and glared at the twenty-odd veterans. His eyes were wolf-sharp, fists clenched so tight they shook, like he was one second from punching the next man who opened his mouth.
"You all know damn well how the captain treats us. Never paid us in clipped or lead-filled coins. Never shorted the death benefits or bonuses. When you bastards got captured, he borrowed at nine-out-thirteen rates from those bloodsuckers just to ransom you back!"
"Garvin, answer me this—you got snatched by those Tyroshi cunts. Who bought you back? The captain! Otherwise you'd be sucking the Stranger's dick in the afterlife right now!"
"Vito, why the fuck are you standing up there looking guilty? If the captain hadn't stepped in, those Ironborn would've chopped you into twenty pieces and fed you to the Drowned God!"
"'Silver Hammer' Harwin, what are you muttering about? Your mother's coffin money—where the fuck did that come from? The captain!"
"'Stable Boy' Leon, wipe that sour look off your face before I do it for you! Who taught you to ride? The captain! Who dragged your little brother out of that Meereen fighting pit? The captain! And now you lot are whining about 'dying as sellswords'—"
But even Old Tom's voice trailed off into a mutter.
Because deep down he knew Garvin was right.
A sellsword who dies a sellsword stays a sellsword. That was the ugly truth.
Most of them would be lucky to get wrapped in a horse blanket and buried under a rock. More often they rotted in a ditch or, if they lived, ended up crippled and begging until the pain made them wish they'd died.
A piece of land that could be passed down, a stable, halfway-respectable life—that was the secret dream every blood-soaked bastard in the room carried and almost never dared to speak out loud.
The tent stayed silent, every man waiting for Jules's answer.