New Barrel Town lies downstream along the Goldtree River. It is the seat of the powerful Reach noble house Fossoway. Because it sits right beside the Rose Road and the Goldtree River, it has also become a gathering hub for traveling merchants. Nearly all goods bound for Goldengrove, Red Lake, and Old Oak are distributed here, rather than taking the route through Highgarden.
At first, merchants made this choice because Highgarden's taxes were notoriously heavy. Transporting goods through Highgarden meant paying an additional, burdensome levy, and merchants—driven by profit—naturally knew how to weigh their options.
Later on, House Tyrell of Highgarden drastically reduced the transit taxes on caravans and abolished several unreasonable levies, hoping to draw this group of merchants back from New Barrel Town.
But by then, merchants had already grown accustomed to trading in New Barrel Town. Moreover, the lords of Red Lake, Coldmoat, Old Oak, and other cities had all constructed some roads of their own for the convenience of commerce. Though these roads were crude and couldn't compare to the Rose Road, merchants were used to them nonetheless. As a result, Highgarden attracted only a small fraction of traders, while the vast majority continued to choose New Barrel Town.
However, over the past few days, the number of merchants gathering in New Barrel Town had seemed unusually large. Not only had caravans that had already unloaded their goods failed to depart, even some merchants from Highgarden had come here as well. They all appeared to be waiting for something.
Those with good connections soon uncovered the reason. During the recent joint operation by Goldengrove, Red Lake, and Old Oak to encircle and suppress the bandits of the Red Lake Forest, there had been unexpected gains. The rumor that those bandits were remnants loyal to House Targaryen had turned out to be true. The three great houses had seized a massive amount of supplies from them—not only grain, but also weapons, along with large quantities of valuables that could be converted into coin at any time. Among these were even some important items that had gone missing before the Mad King's death.
Thus, some people speculated that before his death, the Mad King had foreseen the fall of House Targaryen and had therefore entrusted part of his supplies to loyal followers to carry away—and the bandits of the Red Lake Forest were one such group.
Although the seized supplies were vast, there was very little coin among them. The three houses did not need so many supplies; what they needed was ready money—gold dragons and silver stags. Moreover, the supplies all bore the marks of House Targaryen. They feared that if they kept them, Robert Baratheon might regard them as Targaryen loyalists and seize upon that as an excuse to deal with them.
Therefore, they needed to sell off this batch of goods as quickly as possible. And nearby, there were only two places capable of dispersing such a large volume of goods rapidly: one was New Barrel Town, the other Highgarden.
However, House Tyrell of Highgarden was currently devoting all its energy to repairing relations with Robert Baratheon and had no time to deal with commercial affairs. By contrast, the head of the Green Apple Fossoway family—the lord of New Barrel Town, Count Tarthos Fossoway—showed great enthusiasm for the matter. He even proactively contacted the three houses and offered generous terms, such as waiving taxes, to persuade them to sell the goods in New Barrel Town.
Some people were puzzled—didn't this mean Count Tarthos would gain nothing? But the shrewder ones saw through his intent. The transaction tax on that batch of goods was not what he valued. What he valued were the merchant caravans drawn to New Barrel Town by those goods. Those caravans would bring prosperity to the town for a long time, and the ancillary benefits would far exceed the value of a single tax levy.
Still, for the common folk of New Barrel Town and the low-ranking guards of the caravans, such high-level noble calculations were far too distant. They didn't care. What they cared about were the legendary stories that had emerged from the campaign against the Red Lake Forest bandits—tales like Joel Fossoway, who charged through enemy lines alone and slew the bandit leader, or Alester Oakheart, who led thirteen riders to rout over a hundred bandits.
Yet among all these legendary tales, there was one that stood out above the rest—so striking that it eclipsed all others. That was the legend of the Bear Hunter, Lind.
Compared to those lofty knightly lords, the Bear Hunter Lind—himself a commoner—was far easier for ordinary people to identify with. When they heard songs of the Bear Hunter from tavern minstrels, they could always place themselves into the story, creating legends alongside him.
Even before the battle to suppress the Red Lake Forest bandits, stories of the Bear Hunter Lind had already been circulating through taverns in cities across the Reach. At that time, however, listeners merely regarded Lind as a lucky hunter. They admired his bravery and filial devotion in avenging his father alone and hunting a mountain bear, but no one considered the Bear Hunter a true warrior.
Now, after hearing the legendary accounts of the suppression campaign, everyone's view of the Bear Hunter Lind had changed dramatically—so much so that it felt almost unbelievable, like a familiar acquaintance suddenly turning into a complete stranger.
Refusing the assistance of ten soldiers, going alone to guard a vital position, single-handedly slaying nearly a hundred bandits who fled there from the battlefield—including two Targaryen loyalists—such an exaggerated record sounded like a fabricated rumor to anyone who heard it. Yet this feat had been acknowledged by Ser Roman Webber of Coldmoat and by Ser Joel Fossoway, who had brought the campaign to its end. Both men were renowned among the Reach nobility for their integrity.
Thus, the Bear Hunter's experiences in that campaign were turned into songs by certain minstrels and began circulating through taverns in Red Lake, Old Oak, and Goldengrove. The common folk loved them, and the minstrels made a tidy profit.
Once others saw that these songs could make money, more minstrels began spreading them of their own accord. The Bear Hunter's fame once again spread throughout the cities of the Reach, and New Barrel Town was naturally among them.
After nightfall, the townsfolk of New Barrel Town, finished with their day's work, gathered in a tavern near the docks to unwind. Caravan mercenaries also poured in, spending their hard-earned wages on drink and losing themselves in revelry. The tavern's resident minstrel was playing the Song of the Bear Hunter for the third time that day. Though his voice was quite ordinary, the crowd listened with rapt attention.
"To our hero, the Bear Hunter!" someone couldn't help but shout, raising his mug high when the song reached the part where the Bear Hunter wielded twin swords to cut down his foes.
"To our hero, the Bear Hunter!"
"To our hero, the Bear Hunter!"
...
Once someone started, the cries praising the Bear Hunter rose again and again within the tavern. Whether the noise carried out and stirred the patrons of a nearby tavern or not, soon that tavern also rang with shouts honoring the Bear Hunter. Gradually, the cries spread to other taverns throughout the town and even to the campfires of merchant caravans.
No one knew exactly when it began, but the Bear Hunter Lind had come to embody the image of a commoner's hero. The people treated him as their idol, projecting onto him the life they had once dreamed of but could never attain. When the Bear Hunter created a legend, they felt as though they themselves had taken part in its creation, and their reverence for the unseen Bear Hunter only deepened.
"At this rate, I might soon hear people shouting 'Long live the Bear Hunter,'" said a tall, broad-shouldered middle-aged man in a cloak, sitting in an inconspicuous corner of the tavern. He took a sip of mead, then turned to glance at his companion, who sat quietly against the wall, eating in silence, and spoke with teasing amusement.
The other man lifted his head slightly, looked at him, and said, "I just hope I won't get my head chopped off by our new king because of it."
The first man continued to joke, "No, I think with our new king's temperament, you'd be praised instead. Who knows, there might even be a place for you in the Kingsguard."
"Forget it. I still want to pass on my bloodline." In his mouth, the Kingsguard—highest honor of knighthood, revered by all—seemed utterly worthless.
"You really are an ambitious fellow!" The middle-aged man took another drink, speaking with genuine admiration.
The two men sitting in the corner of the New Barrel Town tavern were none other than Joel Fossoway and the very Bear Hunter Lind celebrated in the songs. None of the commoners or mercenaries shouting praises realized that the object of their worship was sitting right beside them.
This made Lind wonder—if he revealed his identity now, what would happen? Would he be hoisted onto the streets of New Barrel Town in a celebratory parade, or would he be taken for a madman and thrown out of the tavern? Lind felt the latter was far more likely.
The reason the two of them were here was simple: Joel was honoring his promise to recommend Lind to Ser Forley Crane as a squire.
After attending the victory feast in Goldengrove, Joel had not stayed to take part in the subsequent discussions, nor had he returned to Red Lake with House Crane's party. Instead, he had taken Lind and traveled south along the Goldtree River.
Originally, Joel intended to sail straight south to Highgarden. But when their ship docked at New Barrel Town, he overheard dockworkers chatting about how Highgarden had dispatched a group to King's Landing to attend the tourney held by the new king for his firstborn child. The leader of the group was Ser Garlan Tyrell, the second son of the Duke of Highgarden. Accompanying him was Forley Crane, now serving as Highgarden's guard instructor and Garlan Tyrell's swordsmanship teacher. The party had already arrived in New Barrel Town and would rest for the night before continuing their journey the next day.
Since Ser Forley was already in New Barrel Town, there was no need to go on to Highgarden. Thus, the two disembarked there.
By the time they got off the ship, however, it was already deep into the night. Visiting the Tyrell lodgings at such an hour was inappropriate, and all the inns in town were already full of merchants. With no rooms available, Joel decided to make do for the night in a tavern and pay a visit to Ser Forley at dawn.
"Aren't you drinking?" Joel asked after finishing his mead, pointing at the untouched mug in front of Lind.
Lind shook his head. "I don't drink."
"What a boring fellow," Joel said, taking Lind's mug and downing a sip himself. Watching Lind chew his food slowly and carefully, he felt time passing unbearably slowly.
Over these days together—especially since leaving Goldengrove and traveling south by boat—the long hours in Lind's company had deepened Joel's understanding of him.
Self-discipline. Extreme self-discipline—that was Joel's latest assessment of Lind. Over the past two days, he had observed that Lind arranged everything with meticulous precision: what to do at what time, how long to spend practicing swordsmanship, how much time to allocate for eating and resting. Every activity followed a detailed schedule, as if he carried a timetable in his hands and lived by it daily—boring to the extreme.
This extreme self-discipline made Joel think of one man in particular: Randyll Tarly, the Lord of Horn Hill.
Fortunately, the man before him could still joke and trade banter, unlike Randyll Tarly, who was so stern and humorless, like a slab of cold iron.
Even so, Joel felt somewhat relieved that he had not taken Lind as his own squire. A few days earlier, upon seeing Lind's battle record, he had felt a surge of impulse—to claim Lind as his squire himself, rather than handing him over to Forley.
After all, a squire as powerful as Lind would be a great help to him, especially on the battlefield, where he would have a capable assistant at his side instead of the current squires who still required his protection.
But the thought had passed through his mind only briefly before he dismissed it. He had neither the time nor the energy to train a commoner, and more importantly, he didn't believe Lind would be able to go very far in the future.
After draining his mug of mead, Joel felt a strong urge to relieve himself. He stood up, swaying slightly—after two large cups of mead, his poor tolerance had left him somewhat drunk. He staggered out of the tavern, glanced around, then found a secluded spot beside the building and prepared to take care of business.
But just as he was pulling himself out, he had no idea that someone had crept up behind him. A wooden club came crashing down hard. As he fell to the ground, the attacker quickly rummaged through him, took his coin purse, stripped him of his sword and anything of value, and even didn't spare the bear-hide cloak he wore.
Inside the tavern, Lind had no idea that Joel was being attacked and robbed outside. He continued chewing his food slowly and methodically.
The only reason he ate so politely was that the food before him was truly awful. Though grapes had been mixed into the bread and the outside glazed with honey, the loaf itself was so hard that tearing off a bite required real effort, and it took a long time to chew it down enough to swallow.
Lind wanted badly to throw the bread away, but he reminded himself that he would have to face many more such unpalatable meals in the future. If he didn't adapt now, it would be too late later.
Just as Lind was forcing himself through the meal, two people—one tall, one short—entered from outside the tavern. They swept their gazes across the room, and seeing that Lind was sitting alone, they walked over and sat down at the remaining two seats at his table without greeting him.
...
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(End Chapter)