nyslfriends Chapter 48: The Greenish Cowhide
Chapter 48: The Greenish Cowhide
The sultry rain of late summer lasted all night. The pale gray of the sky resembled a faded, tattered felt cloth soaked in dirty water.
The air in the Blue Fork Valley was thick with humidity and heat. After the fire at the South Timber Shed last night was extinguished by mud and water, the charred alfalfa and scalding quicklime mixed together, fermenting to produce a pungent, sour smell.
Pollifer's linen robe was stained with yellow mud at the hem. He stood under the eaves of the base of the stone tower, the walnut wood slate in his hand damp with rain, the writing on the charcoal stick somewhat blurred.
"The fire has burned through the barn." Pollifer didn't look up, only staring at the billboards. "Nine hundred pounds of winter-proof down, three thousand pounds of hay. And the three barrels of moisture-proof lacquer we just got from the Piper family, all burned to ashes."
Otto sat on a rough wooden stool. He didn't look at the pile of rubble; his right hand slowly scraped the blood groove of his short sword on a flattened piece of wood.
"Tethos Blackwood's messengers are faster than this rain." Pollifer's fingers tightened on the edge of the plank. "The fur traders and oil merchants of the South have cut off all our supplies. Raventree has made it clear that anyone who brings a foot of tarpaulin or a piece of coal across the river bend boundary marker is provoking the Blackwood family."
No merchant dared risk being hanged by the powerful lords to earn these few bloodstained silver deer. If the autumn winds truly brought ice shards within half a month, these four hundred and fifty people wouldn't even get a share of the thick cloth needed to plug the leaky wall.
Otto's sword rested on the edge of the whetstone, emitting a low, dull scraping sound.
"Brightwood can shut out passing merchants. But he can't shut out the nobles of the Riverlands who are greater than him." Otto shoved his short sword into its leather sheath. "Take my baron's seal. Send a marriage proposal to the Twins."
Pollifer froze, the plank nearly slipping from his grasp. In this deadlock where even firewood had to be weighed, his lord was going to have a wedding.
"Tell Marquis Walder that I do not seek any of his noble-blooded daughters, not even those from disgraced collateral branches." Otto picked up the cast-iron goblet on the table, took a swig of bitter, cold water, and said, "The dowry is twenty percent of the profits from the white salt mine next spring. But the wedding procession cannot travel in light carriages; it must be pulled by ten strong mules."
Otto turned his pale face to the side, his deep pupils devoid of any thoughts of lust.
"The dowry list only has one item. I want two hundred winter hides from the Twins Armory and four thousand pounds of wrought iron for forging weapons. As long as this convoy flying the Twin Towers flag can swagger through the Blackwood blockade, Hohenzollern will accept the marriage."
Five days later, in the main hall of the Twins' fortress.
Marquis Walder Frey sat in a high-backed chair covered with fox fur. After listening to the steward read the parchment, his sunken face, covered with age spots, forced out a cold, bellows-like laugh.
"That nouveau riche who used to dig salt in the mud got his piss ripped off by Tethos's soft knife. He's now begging me for his own bed and a rag to wrap oil." Marquis Walder picked up a shriveled plum from the silver plate and chewed it in his mouth with only a few rotten teeth left.
Raymond, standing beside him, bowed his head and respectfully offered him a handkerchief.
"He wants hundreds of old cowhides; he's driven him to the brink. Grandfather, should we refuse this marriage proposal?" Raymond asked tentatively.
"Why refuse?" Old Walder's bulging eyes gleamed with a calculating and wary light. "Since he said he doesn't mind the loss of his reputation, go and drag out that doorman Ami from behind the stable, the one who always spreads his legs and makes the whole Frey family laugh."
Old Wade spat the chewed fruit pit onto his handkerchief.
"Tell him to go to the armory's bottom shelf and dig out that pile of green-spotted hides that's been there for three years. Then sweep those rusty, crumpled iron armors into wooden crates. I want that arrogant, peasant baron to spend his whole life feeding this pile of junk that the Twins don't want."
Marquis Walder's cold laugh silenced his retainers. "Take thirty more scoundrels and ruffians from the dungeon who are condemned to death, spare their nooses, and add them to the wedding procession. When they get to that wretched stone fortress, let them eat his wheat and sleep with his peasant women. If he dares to draw his sword and kill even one of the guards with the Frey border, I'll send troops to take over that salt-sucking earthen kiln the very next day."
Three days later, the autumn rains stopped.
A long caravan, adorned with a blue banner with twin towers, rolled along the muddy trade route. A dozen miles away, several concealed archers in Blackwood, chewing on dry grass roots, watched as the wooden wheels carved deep furrows into the road. No matter how severe the blockade imposed by Tethos, no one dared to fire a barbed arrow at the carriage of a nobleman from a marriage alliance.
The convoy stopped in front of the log barricades in the Hohenzollern territory.
The burly soldiers accompanying the vehicle did not lay down their weapons. They sat on horseback, whistling loudly into the tightly closed wooden door. Some even took out cheap liquor from their leather bags and urinated at the base of the lime wall. The stench of mud and arrogance permeated the area outside the boundary marker.
The heavy doors slowly pushed open to both sides.
Maria Frey lifted the rain cover. She stepped off the carriage, wearing a dark red winter velvet robe and lifting the hem of her skirt. One foot landed in an old mud puddle mixed with bits of hemp rope and lime water, the mud submerging half of her deerskin boots.
She instinctively covered her nose with a silk handkerchief. There were no little girls scattering rose petals, no ceremonial officials blowing horns. The only smells in the air were the greasy smell of boiled horse meat and the pungent stench of rust.
Maria looked up. She saw the man standing on the three stone steps. Otto, wrapped in a worn linen cloak, leaned slightly forward, his eyes devoid of warmth as he swept over her, as if looking at an empty wooden box that came with a rusty iron ingot.
Pollifer, carrying the tent board, walked to the wagons laden with dowry and supplies. He lifted a corner of the tarpaulin.
A musty, greenish odor wafted through the air. Bundles of thick cowhides were covered in green spots, some even showing signs of insect and rodent damage. Behind them, several crates of scattered iron plates were encased in a layer of dark red rust that couldn't be removed even with stones.
This is not winter supplies at all. This is the most blatant humiliation.
The thirty ruffians accompanying the wagon made no attempt to hide their mockery. The leader, a scarred-faced man, jumped off his horse, planted his rusty spear in the mud, and shouted up at the stone steps.
"My lord, the Marquis's formalities have been delivered. The brothers have been drinking in the cold wind for five days on this godforsaken dirt road. Quickly open the city gate and go to the storeroom to fetch some ale and fatty mutton. We still need to stay here to watch over your wife for a few more days. If the beds in this city become hard, we'll all have trouble sleeping."
Instructor Toren stood on the east side of the gate, his hand resting on his sword sheath. Behind him, forty-five peasant militiamen gripped their blunted wooden rafts, their eyes gleaming with suppressed rage.
Otto stepped down the stone steps. His boot crushed a patch of half-dried, dirty mud.
He ignored Maria, whose face was stiff as she tried to explain. He walked straight to the cart loaded with green cowhides. He grabbed the edge of a heavy, dead hide with his right hand, and with a slight tug, several short stubbles broke off from the moldy fur, but the thick, hard leather sole remained untouched.
"Scrape off the green mold. Boil two pots of water, mix in hot lard and pine resin." Otto turned to Polyver, "Boil this skin twice. Once the moisture has evaporated, take it out and pat it firmly. Nail it to the leaky vent at the top of the North Tower. It should last five years."
Pollifer paused for a moment, then quickly carved marks on the wooden board.
Otto's gaze shifted to the three carts of rusty iron slag.
"Send it into the bottom kiln. Have Cole and the blacksmiths work overtime. Once it's melted through at high temperature, the rust can be dumped as slag, and the scrap cold steel can be hammered three times to make a thick base. Four thousand pounds of residue is enough to weld three hundred iron plates onto the front of the shield."
After dealing with the situation, Otto turned to face the thirty arrogant and domineering veterans of Twin Rivers who stood by the door.
"The elite warriors of the Twin Towers, clad in armor, have rendered meritorious service in escorting my lady," Otto said calmly. "But the laws of Riverrun are inviolable within these walls. As this is a wedding procession, no spears other than those from this territory may cross the wall. Remove your armor and dismount. Hand over your ironware to the storeroom for washing. Your food and drink may rest in the longhouse number three."
The thugs exchanged glances, and Scarface let out a short, cold snort. Clearly, they had no intention of surrendering their defensive weapons to this nouveau riche, impoverished man.
The men gripped the sword hilts with their backs.
Before they could utter a word of refusal, behind the mud-brick wall beside Oto, sixteen old soldiers clad in fish-scale armor stepped forward in unison, their movements cold and silent.
The crescent-shaped steel hook-and-sickle spear, held horizontally at waist level, its blood-grooved grooves and dark, black iron sheen locking down every gap in the doorway. There were no shouts or roars, only the oppressive feeling of stepping on a drumbeat, like a millstone being turned.
Scarface's hand, gripping the sword hilt, was sweaty. There were thirty of them, but the enemy's enclosed, tightly packed killing formation meant that if they pulled the hook, the first three or five men in the front row would instantly become sacrificial offerings, their entrails spilling onto the ground.
Thirty thugs cursed as they threw their spears and broadswords into the wheelbarrow that Pollifer had pushed over, and removed their back armor. They handed them over to the militia along with the tall horses.
As night fell, the cold wind from the stone tower blew along the edges of the rainproof wooden shed.
The drainage channels at the bottom of the inner fortress had been severely disrupted by last week's torrential rains, leaving the muddy and foul-smelling swamp.
Four Hohenzollern captains, without outer garments and holding short swords in wooden sheaths, stood above the deep canal.
At the bottom of the pit, the thirty ruffians from Twin Rivers City, stripped of their armor and shoveled with three buckets of cold water mixed with bran porridge, were struggling to push soil through the thigh-deep, rotten mud with broken shovels, their burlap sacks rolled up. They hadn't received the promised hot mutton and fire pit. Instead, they were forced to do nighttime labor that even farmers couldn't endure.
Anyone who dared to raise their head and shout or get angry would have their nose bone smashed by the squad leader standing on the pit.
If they endure another ten days or half a month, these useless people who don't even have the strength to lift a knife will be thrown into the desolate swamp they returned to, along with the arrogant clothes they carried when they came, as rotten meat.
On the third floor of the stone chamber, the only windproof copper lamp emitted a coarse yellow light.
Otto stood by the heavy, closed door. He looked at his new Baroness, who lay on the bed, her fingers tightly clenched, her back turned to him. Outside, the wind was bringing the first, coldest frost of winter to Westeros.