Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 53: The Broken Green Oak Branch and the Mud Bucket

In early winter at 288 AC, before the white crows of the City of Colleges had even arrived, a thin, pale yellow layer of ice had already formed on the Blue Fork River. Rotten grass roots froze at the edges.

The mud beneath the gray stone wall had frozen solid. A farmer from the labor camp swung his rusty pickaxe and brought it down hard. Sparks flew from the pickaxe against the black mud, and the force of the impact caused blood to seep from the farmer's hand. Outside the longhouse, the wind howled like a broken saw, cutting into one's bones.

There was no brazier in the storage room at the bottom of the stone tower.

Otto sat on a hardwood chair, wrapped in a tattered cloak. He rubbed his right hand back and forth between the knuckles of his left hand, his breath condensing into puffs of white mist in the air.

Two black earthenware jars, sealed with cowhide, sat on a rough wooden table. They contained white salt. Next to the jars was a bag of aged oats that had not yet become infested with insects.

Pollifer stood aside and wrote the last few words on the parchment.

"My lord, the letter is finished." Pollifer blew the ink off the paper.

"The wording is too polite," Polliff said, looking at the parchment. "Just say that the Lady of the House is concerned about the relatives in the Twins. Winter is coming, and she heard that the Charlton family, a vassal, is short of provisions, so she has prepared some simple things to send as a gift. Please ask Lord Raymond to convey this to the old Marquess."

Pollifer folded the parchment. Red wax dripped onto the paper, emitting a pine resin and grease smell.

"Give this to the lady." Otto didn't look at the letter, but simply tossed a blunt dagger into the wooden box at his feet. The metal struck the wooden board with a dull thud.

The thick wooden door was flung open by the wind. The hinges made a harsh, scraping sound.

Maria Frey entered. Beneath her short, coarse coat was a layer of raw sheepskin, still smelling of blood. A bunch of brass keys hung from her waist. With each step she moved, the keys clinked together.

"Go to the Charlton estate. No guards, just Jack driving."

Otto tossed the sealed sheepskin letter onto the white salt pot. His boots creaked on the dirt.

"Pass the ferry camp and give this letter to Raymond's guards." Otto looked at the snow falling outside the window. "Raymond is a smart man; he knows how to shut old Charlton up."

Maria's gaze swept over the two jars of white salt. Her fingers unconsciously tightened around the brass key.

"Even if old Charlton starves to death, he might not hand over his son."

"He may die, but his serfs will not." Otto turned and tucked his left hand deep into his cloak. "Raymond will put a knife to the throats of their entire families."

Three days later at noon, the wind swirled up snowflakes.

Outside the Charlton family's dilapidated stone courtyard, the paint on the wooden door had peeled off, leaving only patches of paint. There was no neighing of warhorses in the yard, only two gaunt old mules chewing on dry grass. Their ribs were clearly visible.

Maria sat on the front of the wooden cart. Jack tightened the reins and stopped the cart outside the stone steps.

Old Knight Horst Charlton stood in the wind. He wore a patched-up chainmail, and the old cloak embroidered with "Green Crossed Oak Branches" was torn by the cold wind. His face was sallow, and his eyes were sunken. Behind him stood several gaunt guards carrying sharpened wooden clubs.

The old knight stared intently at the two unsealed black pottery jars on the cart.

"A woman of Hohenzollern." The old knight's hand throbbed with veins. "This is the territory of the Twin Towers! You've stopped in my courtyard with two jars of salt; are you trying to strip me of my dignity as a knight with this filthy stuff?"

Maria did not back down. She jumped off the cart, her boots shattering a pool of frozen yellow ice. Icy water splashed onto the hem of her wool skirt.

She walked to the broken cart and gripped the rough edge of the pottery jar with both hands. The veins on the back of her hands bulged.

"Can your dignity help those starving, crying children inside survive next month's heavy snow?"

Maria suddenly exerted force with her arm.

"Bang!"

A dull thud. She pushed the heavy black pottery jar off the cart, slamming it heavily onto the frozen mud-covered stone slab. Shards of pottery flew everywhere.

The seal cracked. Large clumps of white salt poured out like fine sand. The snow-white salt grains covered the frozen mud that reeked of animal urine.

The old knight's rough face trembled slightly. The soldiers behind him stared at the white salt on the ground, suppressing gasps from their throats.

"You're insane!" Old Charlton drew his broken sword and stepped forward. His boots crunched on the shards of pottery.

"I am the granddaughter of the Marquis of Walder." Maria looked at him, her voice not trembling in the wind. "If you dare to put this piece of junk to my neck, tomorrow the Frey family's light cavalry will hang everyone in this yard from the dead locust tree outside."

Old Charlton froze. The broken sword hung in mid-air.

The rapid hoofbeats echoed from the dirt road they had come from.

A dozen or so Frey family scouts, carrying the Twin Towers banner, swept through the haystacks outside the courtyard. The warhorses snorted, exhaling large plumes of white vapor.

Raymond Frey, wrapped in a heavy mink cloak, dismounted, his whip still dripping with snow. He strode into the yard, not even glancing at the white salt on the ground, and approached old Charlton directly.

"Horst! The Baroness has given you a good winter's meal, and you still dare to draw your sword?"

Raymond spat on the old knight's face. "You want the Marquis to think that your dilapidated courtyard is plotting a rebellion?"

"Young Master Raymond...she wants my twelve-year-old child!" The old knight's Adam's apple bobbed, his tiger-like eyes bloodshot, as he pointed at Maria. "I am a vassal of the Twin Towers!"

Raymond drew the steel dagger from his left side and pressed it against the old knight's throat.

There was no blood. But the cold metal pressed against the throbbing flesh.

"I heard you clearly." Raymond lowered his voice. "Either you take the salt and trade it for wheat to keep your family alive, or I'll read out your capital crime of colluding with the Ironborn right here today. Hang this twelve-year-old brat too."

Old Charlton no longer gripped his sword. His rough hands slammed against the old armor plates on his thighs, producing a dull, metallic sound. His spine collapsed.

Five days later at dusk, the first real snowflakes were swept up by the north wind and fell.

There were only four riders.

Raymond Frey's face was ashen with cold. Without even dismounting, he grabbed the thin figure on horseback by the collar and shoved him off. The boy landed on the frozen ground, rolling twice. Raymond whipped his horse's rump and galloped into the depths of the snowstorm.

The door opened with a muffled thud.

Otto stood at the end of the log path. There were no torches, and two old soldiers with spears stood on either side. Snowflakes fell on Otto's shoulders and hair.

Twelve-year-old William Charlton stood in the wind. His deerskin boots were covered in black mud.

The boy's tattered cloak was embroidered with two crossed green oak branches along its edge. He bit his pale lips, neither crying nor making a fuss.

He stared at Otto in front of him.

Otto didn't look him in the eye.

"Polliver. Someone's been added to the register."

Otto turned around, his boot shattering a piece of broken ice.

"Take off that shirt with the green branches embroidered on it."

William shuddered. He instinctively clutched his chest, but Coach Toren, who had walked up behind him, grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him up.

Torun's rough hands were like iron clamps. He grabbed the collar of the cloak and ripped it open with force. The sound of the tearing fabric was particularly jarring in the wind. Torun stripped off his outer robe and stuffed a tattered peasant's hemp jacket that smelled rancid into the boy's hand.

"My lord, since he is a servant, should we lay a wooden mat for him outside the stone chamber?" Pollifer asked, his breath steaming in the air.

"Hands that haven't developed calluses don't even deserve a piece of hay."

Otto walked deeper into the stone tower.

"Give him a wooden shovel and a bucket. Starting tomorrow, he'll be responsible for washing the bloodstained rags in the wounded soldiers' barracks and emptying the manure buckets in the farmers' houses. Tonight, he'll sleep in the basement with the charcoal burners."

The heavy wooden door slammed shut.

Night had fallen. A cold wind whistled through the cracks in the roof of the longhouse.

There were no windows in the underground cellar. Cold water droplets seeped from the cracks in the walls. The laborers snored heavily, and the air was thick with the stench of feet and stale sweat.

William Charlton huddled in a haystack. Linen fibers scraped against his frostbitten skin. Tears mingled with dirt, freezing into icicles on his cheeks.

"Click".

An oil lamp was lit at the entrance of the cave. A spark flew from the wick.

Pollifer, wrapped in a woolen fur coat, descended the earthen steps. He carried a rough earthenware bowl in his hand.

Pollifer walked up to William's haystack.

"clang."

The chipped bowl was placed on a flat, dusty stone.

The bowl was mostly filled with blackened bark and wheat paste, topped with a small piece of black cake.

William stared at the bowl, instinctively swallowing hard. But he turned his face away, biting his lower lip tightly.

Pollifer pulled out a handful of wooden tally sticks and sat cross-legged on the frozen ground. He fiddled with the sticks one by one, the wooden pieces making a slight clinking sound.

Pollifer flicked the piece of wood twice. "If I die, I'll take this half-bread to the Baron first thing tomorrow morning. The Baron will write another letter and have Raymond go to your father's yard again and take away the last few winter rabbits from your stove as your funeral expenses."

William was startled.

He abruptly stretched out his frozen hand, grabbed the bread, and shoved it into his mouth. It was as hard as a rock. William bit down, and blood seeped from his gums. The taste of blood mixed with bitterness spread in his mouth. He swallowed hard.

Pollifer watched the boy wolf down his food, rubbing the wooden tokens back and forth between his fingertips.

"Swallow slowly. Don't choke and make me dig a hole," Pollifer said. "Chew slowly."

"That fat accountant who lives at the west end of the Twin Towers, what's his name again?" Pollifer frowned, tapping a wooden token in his hand. "Last time we bought pig iron, his lame tax collector swindled us out of two silver deer. I still can't figure that out."

William was so choked that his eyes rolled back, and he pounded his chest with the back of his hand.

"The fat steward Lyman... cough... his tax collector doesn't limp on his right leg... the one with the limp on his left is a cousin of the deputy steward of the Seat Stables. They collect tolls but don't hand them over; they all end up in the yard of that spice-selling mistress across the street from young master Raymond..."

As soon as the words left his mouth, the only sound in the cellar was the boy swallowing wheat porridge.

Pollifer paused for a moment as he fiddled with the wooden tally.

He didn't press further. He took a small piece of dried, salted venison from his sleeve pocket and tossed it beside William's clay bowl.

"Eat more." Pollifer picked up the oil lamp and went up the steps.

"Tomorrow, fill four sheds with manure buckets. Then, tonight, give me a detailed breakdown of the spice trade's income and expenses."