"-. 274 AC .-"
Winterfell was an absolutely massive mountain of a castle. That much Luwin recalled despite the age he'd been when he was sent to become a maester. Any memory blanks had long since been filled via reading and hearsay as well. The ancient seat of House Stark was by all accounts a city unto itself, with an outer wall eighty feet high, an inner wall one hundred feet high, and a wide moat between them. The complex was a rugged, solid thing with square crenellations all along its rims, great octagonal towers with hanging turrets, and high-angled roofs covered in ironwood shingles that stabbed the sky like black icicles. Inside, beyond the two walls and the first of six wards, was the Great Keep, a monolithic castle complex all on its own, with off-shoots and walls and gatehouses. It was connected by a covered bridge to the armory, a keep in its own right, while on the other side was the Great Hall, which was said to hold eight long rows of trestle tables with room for five hundred people on the ground floor alone. The inner castle also played host to the Library Tower, where Luwin may end up making his home if Marwyn's predictions proved true. He wondered what it would be like. He only knew it had an outer staircase and a hanging bridge connecting it to the Great Keep like only the armory boasted.
That all wasn't even touching on the many other walls, towers, turrets and bridges hanging in the air, to say nothing of the Godswood, or the ancient shell keep where the Kings of Winter once resided, with its shapeless, rain-worn gargoyles and inner ward and the Broken Tower looming tall and forbidding.
Calling Wintertown a 'town' was a own misnomer also, being instead a full city bigger than all others in the North save White Harbor, which it more than matched in winter and fall. Winterfell and Wintertown didn't come close to the scale of Oldtown even together, in size or population, but Luwin recalled enough of to know it beat King's Landing in most everything else. Far from being a den of filth and mud with slums and shanty towns every other alley, Wintertown instead had rows of small and neat houses built of log and undressed stone. Its streets could be muddy when there was no cold to freeze the ground as solid as the bone in your body, but they were fairly level and done in packed gravel here and there, where there would otherwise be particular risk of getting bogged or slipping. Finally, near Winterfell's main gatehouse was the main market square, full of wooden stalls for produce and goods and a well at its center, near the local inn and alehouse. From what Luwin remembered, it was called The Smoking Log.
All told, Luwin thought he knew what to expect of the place. He was even ready for Lord Stark to take the circuitous route that would see them avoid Wintertown entirely, to enter Winterfell from the Hunter's Gate instead of the main one.
That assumption didn't survive past the kingsroad.
The first thing they saw was the smoke. It rose in great pillars all along the southern edge of Wintertown, which seemed to have grown a whole extra circle of roads, stalls and workshops. It looked like construction on a whole new city ward had been started, one that surrounded half the town and curled eastward around the great hill. Its purpose was obvious from the edifices and craftworks already there. A fresh wall made of some strange, fused grey stone was being raised in place of the wooden one already there, to separate it from the rest of the surprisingly active city. Great furnaces as tall as houses ate coal by the shovel load and billowed smoke into the sky. Large shingled barns sheltered great boiling vats of something or other. Long arched canopies ate wood one whole trunk at a time, only to disgorge perfectly square beams or planks finer than anything he'd ever seen. As they got closer, Luwin could see mules tied in groups to spinning pillars. Whatever they did wasn't turning grindstones though. He could hear a long, sharp keen coming from within. The making of charcoal seemed to have at some point become its own industry also.
There was a lot of extra land marked for further expansion as well, by a wooden palisade that bordered an area big enough to be called a ward on its own. Even that space wasn't empty, having amassed a truly staggering supply of fresh timber that was even now added to by long-suffering aurochs and their loudly bellowing lumberjacks. And surrounding even that, all around the outskirts, were piles and piles of limestone and granite and many other types of stone, gravel and sand carted in from far-off places.
They stopped and took off their skis the moment they were within the outer perimeter. The roads had been cleared of snow almost completely just by foot traffic, and any ice had long since been sprinkled with sand. The sled houses were also emptied and sent on ahead, after which they proceeded on foot, watched and saluted respectfully by people wearing thick gloves and strange, hard hats of iron or ironwood. They were all eager to pay their respects and even more eager to get back to work the moment Lord Stark acknowledged them.
The new ward proved to be a fair bit farther away from Wintertown proper than it seemed at first glance. Luwin approved of the precaution but decided it was probably unnecessary, noise aside. The pattern of the winds was almost ideal for dispersing the smog away from the rest of the settlement, and Winterfell itself was higher up than the cloud of smoke and ash could actually lift. Eight thousand years later and Bran the Builder's choice of construction site was still proving lucrative in new ways.
Once they were in the town proper, Luwin decided to go and ask his sudden bevy of questions since no one else seemed inclined to. Fortunately, his escorts proved quite willing to answer. Guardsmen Tom and Bors in particular were very eager to boast about their home.
Luwin tried not to feel too staggered at their answers.
House Stark now made paper. And glass. And had established something called mass production, where they made iron at such absurd rates that there weren't enough blacksmitsh to keep up with. Arms, armor, iron tools at prices so low that commonners might be able to afford them without having to pool their coin, all were being made at increasing rates even as the standing orders grew and grew in number. Winterfell had even let word get out about all-new farming ways and machines that would be available come spring. And because that all wasn't enough, some no-name lumberjack was no longer a non-name at all because he'd stumbled over whatever Bran the Builder had used to make the Wall. Winterstone. But that apparently wasn't enough for one year, because someone, somehow managed to come up with summerstone to go with it. A fused grey stone made from sand, gravel and baked lime mixed in a slurry and poured into all sorts of shapes and sizes. Walls, foundations, sewers, aqueducts and even the road Luwin found himself traveling up right now. One of two, the other being in the Kyln itself, as the ward was called.
"They'll be ruined when spring comes and the ground softens, or so it's said," Bors told him. "But the Steward figured summerstone needed testing, and meanwhile the other work would go quicker. When the ground's not frozen enough to break your back digging it, they'll redo it properly, we're told. New sewers too. Underground ones."
"Nobody's been able to quicken steel making yet though, least not like the blast furnace," Tom said, winking at him. "That's a job for you lot, I figure."
"How is all of this funded?" Luwin couldn't help but wonder. "Domestic savings are one thing, but some hefty starting funds would have been needed for all of this."
"I figured it was all the coin saved off stuff we used to buy from the southrons?" Bors said uncertainly. Luwin had forgotten for a moment who he was talking to. The man wasn't even literate.
"Might be the ice trade too," Tom shrugged.
"Ice trade?" Hother pounced before he could.
"Methinks, at least. Turns out it's already damn warm down in Dorne and Lys, and they'll pay through the nose for a cool drink. Keeps food from spoiling too."
"Not to mention what ice cubes can get up to between the sheets," Bors muttered.
"Selling ice," Hother muttered. "What a crazy idea. Pa oughta love it."
"And not one whiff of magic in sight," Marwyn murmured low enough that only Luwin heard.
Traversing Wintertown was its own experience, with its sturdy homes, the street bereft of the mud of its past, and full houses everywhere Luwin looked. He counted many more buildings with business signs over their windows compared to what he remembered too. They each had notice boards next to the doors, instead of there just being one large one in the town square. Paper sheets with various drawings and writings were nailed to them most everywhere he looked. It gave a sense of permanency to Wintertown that wasn't there before. One sign in particular made him stare, above the door to a building twice as long as it used to be. It had been partly rebuilt to merge with the neighbor's house. Luwys & Hus. His father had built up their business? Even had a partner? One that wasn't even a smith! Thank the gods this wasn't the south or the guilds would have killed them both.
How many people were planning to stay when spring came? How much work was there to be had in winter that they could afford it? Weren't four fifths of the winter population farmers? Something must have already changed in the North for such a major shift in smallfolk prospects. Many of them were out and about even as they passed, especially the children. They were out in droves, loitering, running, gawking and playing some kind of game with paper cards. All of which might have been borne if not for the flying kites and paper 'airplanes' that brought half of them acolytes to a stop and threatened to send the other half into the sort of inventor's fugue mentioned only in myth.
"Don't you all stop and stare," Marwyn nudged Luwin forward. "There'll be time for that later."
It didn't help.
They reached the market soon after, right at the mouth of Winterfell's main gate. It was full of people peddling arms, armor, tools, trinkets, toys, jewels, backscratchers, hair combs, hair brushes, soaps, scented soaps (not to be confused with hair soaps, the woman insisted) and something called toothpaste which Marwyn broke ranks to go and buy three different jars of on the spot (along with a toothbrush the carver didn't even have to insist he get with it). Tools and parts for all sorts of work were on sale as well. Accessories that both looked pretty and had a practical purpose. There were clasps and buckles Luwin had never seen, treaded nails that made him think of Marwyn's glass candle, those safety pins were mighty clever too. And the paper. Paper was everywhere. Sheets, stacks books and journals, figurines and toys folded in many shapes and patterns, and garlands painted in bright colors for children to run with and tie to their kites to flutter in the wind.
The throng of people parted before them, but the sights didn't. Neither did the smells. Not of sweat or smoke or metal, but of food. So much of it that it made Luwin wonder how packed the Smoking Log had to be for there to still be so much business out in the cold. There were stalls and hawkers and wheeled carts stocking up on meals to go. For the workers, they said. Some of the dishes, Luwin had never seen before. Triangular slices of flatbread called wedge pies, baked with cheese and sauce and topped with steamed greens and meat cuts. Apples and raisins candied in maple syrup, an all-new type of sugar made from sap. And then there were the 'little brans' or "brannies." Meat, cheese or some other filling stuffed between two slices of bread. They apparently got their name from their inventor, who happened to be Lord Stark's son of all people. Maybe not a lackwit after all.
"All that's missing is some good new drink," Marwyn pondered, looking mighty thoughtful. "I'm going to be rich!"
Finally, far off on the highest point of the hill still outside Winterfell, half-way between Wintertown and the Hunter's Gate, was the Water Titan.
This time, guardsman Rys gave the story. About a year past, the wintering youth of Wintertown had banded together in an attempt to make the biggest snowman in history. The effort grew increasingly ambitious and convoluted until it was more wood than snow and hollow on the inside. It ended up collapsing in a storm at some point into the second month of the year. But it only galvanized the youth to make a new one but better. So much so that they ended up asking their parents for guidance and advice. Combine that with winter-induced idleness, plus news from the keep that Lady Lyarra had fallen ill and House Stark could use a mood lift, and the effort snowballed rapidly into a serious building project. Then it somehow mixed with incipient plans for a water tower meant to deliver water directly to businesses and homes. Now, the skeleton of what would one day be a grand construction stood almost as tall as the outer wall itself. Craft masters had started using it as Wintertown's own journeyman challenge for everyone who studied any sort of trade under them.
Water piping. Yet another one of Bran the Builder's crafts at play. Luwin wouldn't be surprised if the water tower plans included hot pipes as a buffer around the main tank, to prevent it from freezing in winter. He voiced the idea to Marwyn, who seemed to approve of his line of thought, if not the thought itself.
"We'll strap some black steel to you yet. Not around the tank itself, that would be structurally unsound and redundant. Around the riser though, yes, perhaps pipes of hot springs water in a spiral, though digging under the moat and the walls to tap it might be impractical. Still, a boiler can serve in a pinch, and I know how to make some decent heat insulators," the Mage mused. "If they build the titan to look lifelike, that'll make for plenty of room to hide the workings. Won't work as is though. I can spot four weak joints in the framework even from here. Next big blizzard will crash it. Which they seem to expect, seeing as there's nothing but scaffolding within falling distance. We'll have to redesign it from the ground up. Still, not a bad way to kill time for a bunch of tradesmen and their brood. I bet Lord Stark indulged it for the lessons learnt. He'll be commissioning one inside Winterfell proper if he hasn't already, mark my words. That'll be our job too, I reckon."
Rather dangerous, Luwin thought, but who was he to judge anyone when it came to that? He'd risk danger too, if it led to something even half as inspiring as all this.
The Gatehouse of Winterfell was quite possibly the most defensible man-made fortification in the Seven Kingdoms, with many layers of battlements, especially ramparts and arrow loops overlooking the main entrance. Since Winterfell had two walls with a moat in between, that meant a secondary gatehouse behind the first, connected by two draw bridges, each able to be raised. Looking up, Luwin saw no secondary line of battlements facing the inside anywhere on the walls. He approved. It would ensure invaders would not find their position defensible even if they did make it to the top. The people on the inner towers would be able to shoot them dead with impunity, and the collapsible bridges would enable defenders to fall back and regroup. Each section of wall was protected by towers too, making it all but impossible to conquer the castle without capturing every consecutive wall section. Bloody business, to say the least.
It was near noon when they entered the inner castle. Luwin looked ahead, searching with his eyes for their mysterious sorcerer. The way Marwyn spoke of Benjen the Elder, he'd be a man full grown bearing Stark looks, possibly with a son or two in tow. He supposed it wasn't impossible that they were going to find someone else. A hedge witch, a Warlock of Qarth, a Red Priest even, considering the red sun Luwin kept dreaming about. Maybe it was Child of the Forest straight from the Age of Heroes like he initially thought too, but what were the odds of that?
Not good, it turned out. None of his assumptions proved accurate.
"Welcome home, father. Winterfell is yours. I've prepared bread and salt for our guests to bide under, until the issue of policy and charters is settled. Also, mother is with child, so there's that."
Brandon Stark was Rickard Stark in miniature, out to do his duty in the cold even though he was tired, grumpy and looking for all the world like he had better places to be.
"Thank you, son," Lord Stark said, putting a hand on his son's shoulder briefly but showing no more affection that that. "We'll talk inside."
How cold. The man had been so gladsome with his other two children.
They ate the bread and salt and then were shown by the castle steward – one Annard Poole – to the upper floors of the Great Hall, where they'd be hosted until their permanent lodgings were ready. Very good quarters fit for nobles. Lord Stark really was treating them as investments.
To Luwin's surprise, he beat Qyburn and Marwyn both in asking after the Lady's health and how soon they could get to work. To their vast reassurance, their suspicions were proven correct that Lyarra Stark's condition had been overstated. Unfortunately, that was as far as it went. While the Lady wasn't dying right that moment, she was quite far along to being wholly bedridden due to her increasing pains and bouts of weakness.
The steward left them and returned after they'd chosen their respective chambers – they each got one of their own! – then led them back out onto the grounds and to the northernmost, oldest past of the keep.
"This will be your headquarters. Our builders have already gone over it, and ratters have been sent to clear it and the tower of most of the vermin. Nonetheless, Lord Stark expects you will prefer to do your own assessment and redesign. He will provide a considerable largesse for the renovations, but his ultimate wish is for you and whatever organisation you establish to become self-sufficient. He expects a preliminary plan by moon's end. Naturally, this will double as a test to prove your competence. My son Vayon will attend to you from here on, but I must return to my duties. Good luck."
Luwin was not the only one who boggled at that news. A long time ago, decades before Lord Rikard Stark had been born, a lightning strike had set the Broken Tower afire. The top third of the structure had collapsed inward, and the tower had never been rebuilt. Now they were being asked to rebuild it. And they were getting the First Keep all to themselves.
By the Gods, Lord Stark was really serious about this.
Luwin didn't know if he should be more excited or terrified.
Marwyn called on Hother to assist and quickly had the rest of them organised. From there, they set off to survey the grounds while the Mage and Mother Hen supervised and recorded their findings. They worked all through noon and past, snacking on little brans sent for by Vayon when they got hungry. They didn't even have to mention it, the young man seemed used to anticipating things like that. They were barely finished with the preliminary inspection of the grounds and the keep's ground floor when a runner came with the call for dinner. Before that, though, they were shown to the hot baths to clean and refresh themselves, unless there was anything else they needed?
"Actually, yes," Marwyn decided, using some contraption on the side of the stationery tray to drill holes into the papers they'd written. He then used one of the rings in the bottom drawer to clip them together and held them for Luwin to take. "Take these to Lord Stark, unless he only receives his own appointments?"
The question was directed at Vayon, who shrugged. "He can come with me and I can ask. Either he gets in or I get him back to you lot."
"That will work fine."
That was how Luwin ended up being the first Northern maester (to be) to see Lord Stark's solar from the inside. A large room that took up almost the entire top floor of the First Keep's summit. It was well lit from large windows on all four walls and furnished with solid furniture, cherry for the tables, oak for the bookshelves, ironwood for the desk and door. Luwin might have paid more interest to the interior if not for the effort he suddenly had to expend not to gawk like an imbecile.
"I understand you have something for me?" Lord Stark asked as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.
"… Yes, my Lord," Luwin approached and held out the papers, doing his best to ignore the curled up figure of Brandon Stark sleeping soundly in his father's lap. The great sword Ice was on the man's back, its strap keeping the lad securely in place. "Preliminary assessment of the grounds. The Archmaester would like to know if you have any particular preferences on record keeping."
"I see. You may sit while I go over this."
Luwin accepted the seat – not designed to make someone feel small or unimportant, he noted – and made his best bid at discretion. It was hard though. The child lord looked so different from earlier, the frown and tension gone even if the bags under his eyes hadn't quite started fading. He looked like a proper child rather than a short adult. Luwin decided to request the chance to check his health as soon as possible. For a lad of eleven, he seemed far too short. Hopefully he was just a late bloomer, but better not to risk it in case his diet needed changing.
The boy stirred half-way through his father's reading, yawned, slipped off his father and went to the privy, acting like he didn't even notice Luwin was there. When he came back, though, he wandered over and stared at him.
Luwin quickly felt awkwardness set in. "… Hello."
"You're not here to murder me too, are you?"
Luwin gaped. "What? No!" He didn't know if he should be more worried or affronted.
Brandon Stark looked at him for a while longer. "… I thought you'd be older." Then he walked back behind the desk, climbed up his father, nestled his head next to the man's heart and promptly went back to sleep.
Lord Rickard only paid his son as much mind as it took to secure Ice's strap under the boy's elbow so that he had a comfortable grip on his beard. To Luwin he didn't spare any glance at all, instead using a pen to make annotations.
Finally, Rickard Stark put the pen down and slid the stack of papers for Luwin to take. "It all seems in order, save for the accounting. I will have Annard instruct you in the use of double-entry bookkeeping. Otherwise, I expect to be consulted before you settle on any policy or vows. Especially celibacy, I want none of that."
That was a strange thing to go out of your way to mention. "May I ask why?"
"Because the vows clearly didn't work to curtail the Citadel's ambition and I believe that genius seed of yours should spread as far as possible."
Lord Stark had designs on his sex life. Luwin had no idea what to feel about that.
"Vayon will lead you to back to your fellows. If you hurry, there should still be enough time to bathe and refresh yourself before the feast."
There was indeed, and the water was pleasantly hot and abundant after so much time on the road. But the feast could barely be called a feast, being so quiet. The Lord and his wife were absent, the arrival of so many different healers seemed to cast a heretofore unseen light upon the seriousness of the Lady's sickness, and there were no young Starks to cause laughter and mischief.
When morning came, they gathered in the common room to wait. Soon, a servant came to fetch them for the morning meal, which they shared in the Great Hall with the steward and the rest of Winterfell's upper staff, though the Starks were noticeably absent once again. Finally, though, they were led to meet the man they'd work with on medicine at long last.
The room was large, with individual desks, work tables covered in various devices and sketches along three of the walls, and a large ironwood blackboard on the fourth, on which an entire process was written, half distillation, half alchemy from what Luwin could tell at a glance.
Then a small flock of ravens flew through the open windows, each one bringing forth a gift for each of them, name tags of polished weirwood scribed with their names. The spectacle made Luwin miss the entrance of their 'sorcerer' completely.
"Let me get all the important stuff out of the way so we can get to work. Humours are complete dogshit. Maester German was right about everything. Until one of you designs a farseer that can see small instead of far, you'll have to take my word for it that the process on this blackboard works for what I have in mind. I saw it in my visions. In case it wasn't clear, magic is real." The white mist cleared from the boy's eyes as the ravens left. "Will that be a problem?
Brandon Stark looked like he was defined by everything he didn't want to be. He looked old but didn't want to be. He looked tired but didn't want to be. He looked stressed when he wanted to be running and climbing up and down the castle. He looked like a child who didn't want to have needed his father to break the spine of the wold's oldest continuous institution just so he could finally grasp the chance to heal his mother and… and Luwin really shouldn't be getting so much information just from looking at him.
"No," Marwyn finally replied, fascinated and sage-like and his voice banished the strange mood that Luwin had fallen under with just a word. "That won't be a problem at all."
Brandon Stark. Brandon Stark was the healer. The failed alchemist. Brandon Stark was the sorcerer.
… Marwyn had given him the wrong puzzle key!
It was a good thing he ended up being so superfluous because he wasn't useful for much of anything that day, that's how furious he was. At Marwyn. At the situation. At his penchant for puzzle-making that betrayed him. At himself.
Qyburn cracked process in two days, made the first batch of medicine in two weeks, figured out how to distill it in just one day with Marwyn's help, then came one extra month of work by all of them to set up a relatively reliable manufacturing process for deployment. It could have been much longer, but Lord Brandon had been working on the mold cultures for years and had several different cellars full to the brim with the right strain months before their lone predecessor showed himself a turncoat. Qyburn was sure the Lady could be prescribed the new treatment immediately, but Lord Brandon insisted they first test effectiveness and doses on a few well-paid volunteers. It worked out fine and led to the first witnessed case of Brandon Stark laughing when the whores of Wintertown found a new god in Qyburn for creating a way to heal the clap.
Luwin wasn't overmuch involved in most of it, being too busy going to meet the Lady and taking charge of her healthcare. He didn't begrudge it though, since he'd only have ended up feeling as useless as everyone else there. Qyburn really was a whole world beyond all of them.
Somehow, though, Luwin still ended up Maester of Winterfell.
Considering what all had happened in the lead-up to it, though, it was probably for the best.