At this moment, in Castle Black a dozen miles away, three senior officers of the Night's Watch holding chief titles were fuming, waiting for Robb Stark's reaction and handling of Jaime's actions this morning. Meanwhile, Cotter Pyke and all his subordinates had already packed their belongings, waiting only for dawn the next day to return to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.
They could never have imagined that before their complaint about today's incident even reached the Warden of the North, the accused had already begun planning a far more shocking, far more insane plan. A plan so audacious that no one would believe it even if told.
…
Aegor left the office with Kent.
Strictly speaking, what he was planning was a typical mutiny. If he acted rashly without any prelude—sending troops to surround Castle Black and forbidding anyone to leave—it would inevitably anger a large number of Night's Watch brothers, who would see it as an attempt to seize power by force. However, at this moment, the conflict that had occurred in the morning had ironically become the key factor in Aegor's final decision.
With the earlier physical clash between Cotter Pyke and Jaime Lannister, the Night's Watch would see his large-scale action tomorrow as a demonstration and retaliation directed at the Commander of Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, rather than as an insult and challenge to the entire Night's Watch. While the essence of the matter would remain unchanged, the emotional resistance would be much less.
Admittedly, even the smallest resistance and aversion would cause some of the votes he had already secured to be lost. But Aegor still decided to proceed: if the votes were reduced, so be it. He could use the influx of the third batch, the fourth batch... an endless stream of new recruits to slowly make up for the loss and forcefully reach two-thirds. But once there was a problem with the Iron Bank grain, no number of votes could feed tens of thousands of New Gift People.
People who cannot eat are the most dangerous creatures in the world.
…
It had become completely dark outside, with fine snowflakes drifting down and accumulating in a thin layer on the frozen ground. This was already the result of someone having swept the ground at noon. One could imagine what the vast wilderness outside the walls, left untended, looked like at this moment.
Traveling at night, facing the cold wind and trudging through ankle-deep snow, was enough to make one's scalp tingle just thinking about it. But looking on the bright side, in the cold northern climate where the ground was permafrost, at least the snow would not turn into mud, and the white, reflective snowfield provided just enough visibility to see the road ahead in the moonless night.
After several inquiries, they found Torghen Flint, who was busy and sweating profusely. After a brief discussion, they resolved the matter of the escort team. The Flints were the Mountain Clans with the largest number of people who had come down from the mountains to garrison the Wall. If they could be mobilized to participate, it would greatly ease the manpower problem. However, with Northerners and soldiers everywhere inside the Nightfort at this moment, it was impossible to quietly transfer one or two hundred people without being noticed.
The visit of the liege lords made the Nightfort livelier than any festival. Under the eaves, between the buildings, on the ramparts, torches burned everywhere, their flames dancing in the wind, yet unable to illuminate every corner of the largest fortress on the Wall. When the time for the evening banquet arrived, all the guests from the North were invited into the great hall. In an instant, the central courtyard of the ancient castle was left with nothing but cold wind and flying snow.
In this dimness, the well-fed messenger team emerged from the kitchen. Under the cover of the noisy banquet, they quietly lined up and walked toward the East Gate. They slipped out through a gap carefully opened by the guards and disappeared into the dim night.
Inside the Nightfort, glasses clinked and guests were merry. Outside the Nightfort, the cold wind blew snow into the faces of the special detachment. With uneven steps, they began to head towards Castle Black and Crown Town along a path that was almost invisible.
---
There is a joke in the modern world: why did people in ancient times have so many children? Because after dark there was nothing to do, and lying in bed unable to sleep, they could only make children.
The joke is crude, but it vividly depicts the lack of activities and the boredom at night in a world before electricity. In the Gift, especially in Crown Town, the situation is even worse than the joke. It is not just that there is no electricity. Most of the employees and armed forces of the Night's Watch Industry are young commoners chasing dreams, hoping to make money by following Aegor or carve out a career. Most of them do not even have wives.
Where there is demand, there are those who make a living by meeting it. Crown Town, while called the Capital of the Gift, is also the place north of the Neck, excluding White Harbor, where "flesh trade" occurs most frequently and densely. These transactions usually take place in small wooden cabins or cellars behind Crown Town's main trade street. The women providing services are mostly those who came from beyond the Wall, having lost most of their belongings or even the adult men in their families. The clientele primarily consists of employees of the Night's Watch Industry, soldiers, and some Mountain Clans with disposable income.
Jon Snow had reported this matter to Aegor, believing that such chaos was immoral, making the Capital of the Gift a mess, and also damaging the image of the Night's Watch. He requested Aegor to issue an order prohibiting such physical transactions.
It was not an unreasonable request, but Aegor shook his head and refused. The reason was simple: there are priorities.
In this nascent small society, with limited resources at his disposal, he could not establish a welfare system and distribute food for free to feed everyone. The New Gift People had to earn their food through service or labor.
Aegor and his trusted subordinates did their best: having men build houses and roads, enlist and drill; having women clean, do laundry, and cook. But despite racking their brains, the Logistics Department could only create jobs and work opportunities for a quarter of the New Gift People.
This meant that the quarter of New Gift People fortunate enough to find work had to support the remaining three-quarters of their compatriots and families. In such a situation, strictly prohibiting the flesh trade, as Stannis Baratheon once did, would be tantamount to forcing those orphans and widows who had lost the pillars of their families in battles against the White Walkers or in raids against the Wall, and who themselves lacked any competitive skills, onto a dead end.
What is more, once a ban is issued, someone has to enforce it. And Aegor simply did not have the extra resources, energy, or manpower to waste on such non-fatal minor issues.
Things that sound reasonable are not applicable everywhere and at all times. At least, in the Gift, at the present moment, before Aegor has officially been elected Commander, secured his position as the true highest leader of the Gift, and found a way to provide everyone with the chance to support themselves, to rashly start some sort of anti-prostitution campaign is simply putting the cart before the horse and failing to distinguish between what is important and what is not.
However, not prohibiting it does not mean letting it run wild. Aegor still issued several restrictive regulations: the flesh trade was not allowed to be conducted openly, it was strictly forbidden within the walls of Crown Town, and organized brothels and pimps who earn by acting as middlemen were absolutely not allowed to appear, becoming parasites on this nascent society.
---
Of course, the above has nothing to do with the changes currently about to happen in the Gift.
No matter how energetic and full of desire people might be, it does not continue deep into the night, not to mention that Crown Town has a curfew, strictly forbidding entry or exit from the city after dark.
Therefore, when the welcoming banquet at the Nightfort reached its climax, the bustling and busy Capital of the Gift had already gone dark and quiet, completely fallen into the silence of slumber, with only the sentries on duty on the walls still awake.
Cold.
So cold.
It was really fucking cold.
Standing guard on top of the city wall in this weather, one's brain felt frozen, with no room for any thought except this. Teeth chattering, Hatch wrapped his cloak tighter and huddled into a sheltered corner.
He was the squad leader for this shift of sentries, responsible for ensuring they performed their duties diligently. If he, the supervisor, was caught slacking or sleeping during duty, while it would not cost him his head, he would certainly be fired and sent home.
In theory, no one was watching him, but he dared not slack off.
Although the armed forces of the Night's Watch Industry were not a formal military organization, their military rules and regulations were stricter than any army in the world. The officers called this "discipline." This "discipline" was so harsh that even as a member of it, often having to enforce discipline and criticize or punish the soldiers under him, Hatch occasionally still felt it was making a mountain out of a molehill.
But no one complained. At least, no one dared to complain openly.
Salary determines a man's attitude toward his boss.
At one silver stag a month, all the Industry employees in Crown Town would be gone by tomorrow.
But for one hundred silver stags a month, that would be enough to force everyone to swallow their complaints and work hard.
And the soldiers of the "Night's Watch Industry Security Team," with their salary plus living expenses, subsidies for serving in the Gift, and so on, had a total income close to one golden dragon per month.
What does one golden dragon mean?
In a poor place or a small village, the monthly tax a knight-level minor lord could collect would only be about that much.
Such a salary, in a world like this, could absolutely make 99% of people calmly accept being thousands of miles from home, in the ice and snow, with a whole set of strict rules.
What is more, within the structure of the Night's Watch Industry, they were soldiers, but in the Gift these dozens of men were actually officers. They had all received systematic training and drills at the Industrial Park in King's Landing, and only those with excellent results were selected and sent to Crown Town. Each of them had five, six, seven, or up to ten Mountain Clans or Grey Area Citizens warriors they could call upon, and if a situation arose requiring a large number of troops, that number could instantly become fifty or one hundred.
They were the core products of the military aspect of Aegor's grand plan. When needed, using the Night's Watch security team soldiers as the framework, and summoning the basically trained Clans or Grey Area Citizens, an army could be formed overnight—and this had already been proven in the operation to help the North drive out the Ironborn.
A commoner with no family background or special skills would not dare to casually say arrogant words like "If this place doesn't keep me, there are other places that will" in the face of such treatment. Losing this job, which was decent and well-paid, though difficult, and which seemed to have a bright future, meant returning to the South where no one of importance valued ability and attitude over surname and birth.
Returning home to farm or living in Flea Bottom by doing odd jobs meant a lifetime of hard, hopeless toil.
…
Hold on a bit longer, just one more hour, and he could rightfully return to his warm room and sleep until noon tomorrow.
Just as Hatch was shivering and silently counting down, anxiously waiting for the next shift of sentries to relieve him, something appeared outside the wall.
A row of several points of light appeared at the northern edge of the view, approaching along the King's Road, braving the fierce wind and snow, crossing the street opposite Crown Town lined with houses on both sides, and reaching the North Gate.
It was clearly not the enemy: the arrivals had no intention of concealing their movements. The dozen or so people were all heavy-footed and panting like oxen, looking utterly exhausted. Less than half of them carried torches, and everyone's clothes, hats, eyebrows, and beards were covered in snowflakes and fine ice crystals. They laboriously "waded" through the snow coming south along the King's Road, only stopping when they reached the base of the city gate.
"Open the gate!"
Having worked countless night shifts, it was the first time Hatch had encountered someone so brazenly shouting to open the gate in the middle of the night. "Who is it? Look at the time! If you want to enter the city, wait until dawn!"
"I am Kent! Lord Yam ordered me to ride quickly to the Nightfort this afternoon to deliver a message, and I am now bringing back the Chief Logistics Officer's urgent instructions!"
"Kent?" Hatch frowned. The Night's Watch Industry had just over a hundred official employees in Crown Town, so he naturally knew him. But knowing him did not mean he could break the rules. "Urgent instructions? Everyone in Crown Town is asleep right now, except for the guards on duty. Even if it is true, who is going to receive and execute the orders? I advise you to find an inn for the night and deal with it in the morning."
"Do you understand the common tongue? Urgent instructions are urgent instructions. They need to be executed before dawn. It is extremely urgent. You cannot afford to delay the Chief Logistics Officer's important matter!"
"Rules are rules." Hatch was not intimidated, but he did not dare to completely ignore it either. "How about this: I will lower a basket, you put the military order document in it, and I will pass it on to the officer for you."
"Time is urgent, there is no complete document, the details need to be conveyed orally! Pull me up, and I will personally explain to Lord Yam!"
"Hmm… that works too."
Hatch was not worried about anything happening to his colleague whom he knew well; he was suspicious of the dozen burly men following Kent. If they were wandering Free Folk bandits who had kidnapped an Industry employee and were trying to sneak into Crown Town to cause trouble, that would be bad.
His worry was soon proven unnecessary. After calling a few subordinate sentries from his shift and lowering a rope, Kent climbed the rope alone and was pulled up the wall. The dozen or so men who had come with him showed no sign of resistance.
Brushing off the snow from himself, Kent greeted the sentries and hurried down from the wall, rushing towards the residential area of Crown Town.
Ten minutes later, Aegor's instructions were delivered into the hands of Humfrey Hissan, the Chief Logistics Officer stationed in Crown Town, and Yam, the Town Chief.
Half an hour later, as the Nightfort banquet, more than twenty miles away, was nearing its end and the participants were gradually dispersing, Crown Town, which had long since entered a state of slumber, gradually awoke and became lively.
(To be continued.)
***
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