When Suleiman learned of his predicament from the old steward, he knew his time was short.
Before heading to Deddings Keep, he decided to first inspect the territory under his rule, also to stabilize the people's morale.
Suleiman did not want anything to happen to his territory while he was away. He had to understand the state of the territory and the people's views of him to plan his next steps.
He brought Old Nick with him, followed by Simon and Lenn. This was their first time accompanying their liege lord to inspect his village.
Even though it was the place they had lived their entire lives, they were still uneasy, nervously clutching the longswords at their waists.
Looking out, all he saw was a low, uneven landscape, with damp soil everywhere, soft, wet mud, and water weeds that would make one get lost if they entered.
"This place is not suitable for living, let alone farming," Suleiman couldn't help but complain in his heart.
The scene before him looked more like a cluster of crude shacks hastily built by refugees out of mud and water weeds on the edge of a wetland, just to survive.
These shacks were suffocatingly low, with thick water weed roofs, and Suleiman doubted if they could truly shield from wind and rain.
The ground was muddy, every step sinking deep, and the air was filled with the putrid smell of thin mud, characteristic of wetlands.
It reminded him of the first time he caught loaches in a stream, the smell of the mud all over his body, making him want to retch, unable to bear it for a moment.
Yet, these people had lived here their entire lives, some even for generations.
Suleiman looked at all this with mixed feelings. This was his territory, these were his people.
It was too tragic. Suleiman felt as if he had entered a refugee camp.
"How is the harvest in our territory? Are there any other sources of income?"
Old Nick sighed and said, "The harvest is barely enough to get by. In good seasons, we can store a little bit of surplus grain."
As for income: "We have almost none. We don't even have enough food for ourselves, and others won't pay to buy our fish and shrimp."
Old Nick suddenly said self-deprecatingly, "If water weeds were valuable, we might be the wealthiest family in the Seven Kingdoms. We have so many water weeds that they could flood King's Landing."
How should he develop this land? Suleiman kept pondering internally.
Just as he was observing the surroundings, a commotion came from not far away, mixed with children's cries and shouts.
Several ragged children were wrestling with each other.
"Simon, go break them up," Suleiman said to the guard behind him.
Simon immediately stepped forward, somewhat clumsily pulling apart the fighting children.
"Why are you fighting?" Simon asked, trying to sound intimidating.
The children, their faces covered in snot and tears, looked timidly at the adult with a longsword at his waist who had suddenly appeared, and for a moment, dared not speak.
One of the braver ones pointed at another child and said tearfully and aggrievedly, "He drew the Ironborn role, but he cheated and hit me!"
The child being pointed at shouted loudly, "I want to be a soldier for Suleiman! I want to fight for Suleiman!"
Suleiman: "...."
Listening to the children's childish squabble, he felt a bitter taste in his heart.
When he learned the reason for their dispute, his heart was filled with mixed emotions.
These children, they did not know the source of their suffering.
The village was not large, and the children's crying and the appearance of Suleiman and his group quickly attracted attention.
A large crowd poured out of the low mud houses, looking over with curiosity and a hint of reverence.
Most of them were women and children, with only a few elderly men.
They were dressed in rags, some of the villagers were barely clothed, and the children, both boys and girls, were naked.
Everyone was sallow and emaciated, yet had the distended bellies caused by hunger, and their faces bore the marks of years of labor and poverty.
It was too tragic. Suleiman felt a pang of reluctance looking at his people.
They recognized Suleiman at a glance—the young lord of Droppings who had just returned from Seagard, rumored to have died and come back to life.
The crowd watched him from afar, looking at Suleiman, the master of their land, with reverence.
Just then, there was a rush of footsteps from the crowd.
A ragged woman, so frail she looked like a gust of wind could blow her over, tightly holding the hand of a child of about five or six, stumbled and ran over.
Her face was still streaked with tears, her body trembled with excitement, but her eyes were fixed on Suleiman, filled with excitement and gratitude.
It was the peasant woman who had previously tearfully complained to Suleiman outside the tower, Old Hark's wife, the mother of the little Harks.
And the child who had been pulled apart by Simon, with a face full of mud and tears, looked blankly at the woman who rushed in front of Suleiman.
As soon as the peasant woman rushed in front of Suleiman, she seemed to lose all her strength and fell to her knees in the mud with a thud.
The movement of kneeling was so sudden that the child she was holding also stumbled, letting out a few cries of pain.
But the peasant woman completely ignored it. She pulled the child in her hand to kneel on the ground, then pulled the child who had just been pulled apart by Simon to kneel with them, and kowtowed vigorously to Suleiman.
"Suleiman! Suleiman!" The peasant woman's voice was hoarse and trembling, filled with unbelievable gratitude.
Her eyes filled with tears, she looked up at Suleiman.
"Thank you, Suleiman! Thank you, Suleiman!" she said, continuously kowtowing.
"You saved our family! Without you, we wouldn't know how we'd survive!"
She cried, then turned to her two children beside her.
"Children, you must remember what Suleiman looks like!" she sobbed, tears streaming down her throat, making her words unclear.
"Remember! This is Suleiman! This is the benefactor who saved our family!"
Children from poor families mature early, and they knew that day their mother had returned happily with two generations of grain, telling them they wouldn't starve to death.
Because their father fought bravely on the battlefield against the Ironborn, this was a grace bestowed by Lord Suleiman upon their father who died valiantly in battle.
And she constantly taught them that Suleiman saved them, and when they grew up, they too should fight for Suleiman like their father!
This was Suleiman. The two children also excitedly kowtowed.
The farmwoman pointed at Suleiman, speaking loudly to her two children, and also to the surrounding villagers who were watching.
Her body trembled constantly from excitement.
"You must remember Suleiman's kindness! You must! When you grow up, you must repay Suleiman well! Just like your father!"
Mentioning their father, the farmwoman's voice suddenly choked, and she could no longer speak, then pulled her children to kowtow again.
Immediately after, a long-suppressed burst of crying erupted from the crowd.
The crying spread from one person to another, quickly sweeping over everyone, and the crying echoed and drifted throughout the entire village.
These were the women and children who had lost their husbands, lost their sons, lost their fathers.
When they stood before the benevolent Suleiman, who had given them pensions to help them through their difficulties.
Amidst the crying, one person after another knelt down.
The muddy ground was quickly covered with tears.
"May the Seven bless Suleiman!"
"The Seven will surely reward Suleiman!"
"May Suleiman live a long life!"
All kinds of prayers and blessings intertwined, echoing over the wetland village.
They knelt not out of fear, but out of gratitude, because that young lord had given them hope to live when they were most desperate.
Suleiman looked at these subjects kneeling in the mud, crying and praying to him.
A complex emotion surged in his heart; he understood from the merged memories.
When his father went to war, he almost conscripted all the young and strong male farmers in the territory.
Those fifteen farmer-soldiers who followed him to war, for this small territory of only a few dozen people, involved every family.
Thirteen of them died in battle; Simon and Lenn were the only survivors.
Therefore, Suleiman distributed all the family's possessions to the families of those who died in battle, which was equivalent to distributing pensions to all families in this village.
Those grains and copper coins.
In this extremely poor village, which had lost its pillars and was constantly facing famine, it was enough for them to at least survive the next few months until the next planting and harvest.
Suleiman once again deeply felt how difficult life was for commoners in Westeros.
Under the laws of the Seven Kingdoms, farmers were the lord's property; participating in war was their duty, not a right.
Their lives, their labor, all belonged to the lord.
He recalled asking Old Nick before what would happen to the families of farmers who died fighting for their lord in other territories.
Old Nick's gaze at him at the time was full of resentment and incomprehension, as if he was saying how foolish a question he had asked.
"If the wives of those who died in battle are unable to farm, their land will be confiscated and then given to more capable subjects to farm," Old Nick had answered at the time.
Suleiman asked in shock, "Then what about the families of these fallen soldiers?"
Old Nick thought for a moment, his tone as calm as if stating a matter of course: "Women and girls must marry whomever the lord designates, and the elderly and children must pay a 'head tax' to the lord; otherwise, the land will be confiscated, and new male laborers will take over the land."
Suleiman was very shocked; could such conscripted farmers have any fighting power? Once they died in battle, they would have nothing, their wives would become someone else's wives, and their whole family would be left to starve to death.
He could only sigh again at the fate of the commoners, who, like the land, were property that the lord could dispose of at will.
Now, looking at these women and children kneeling in the mud, their eyes filled with tears and gratitude.
They were grateful to him not because he had done something extraordinary, but because he had not, like other nobles, stripped them of their remaining land or even forcibly dictated their marriages when they had lost everything.
He merely gave them something that rightfully belonged to their sacrificed relatives, but which in this world would usually be swallowed by the lord, and that was enough for them to regard him as a benevolent savior.
He said nothing more, knowing that even if he traveled far, there would be no more problems; he simply stood quietly for a while, looking at these subjects full of hope and gratitude.
Then, he turned around, saying nothing more, and followed by Old Nick and two guards, walked along the muddy path towards the tower.