Chapter 300: Change in the Gift (Part 1)
At this very moment, in Castle Black just a few miles away, three high-ranking members of the Night's Watch holding the title of First were waiting with suppressed fury for Robb Stark's reaction and decision regarding Jaime's actions that morning. Meanwhile, Cotter Pyke and all his subordinates had finished packing their belongings, waiting only for dawn to return to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea.
They could never have guessed that before the complaint against today's events had even reached the Warden of the North, the accused had already begun planning a scheme more shocking, more frantic... and so bold that no one would believe it even if it were spoken aloud.
Egger led Kent out of the office.
Formally speaking, what he was about to undertake was a classic mutiny. If he were to do this rashly without any prelude—simply dispatching troops to surround Castle Black and forbidding anyone to leave—it would inevitably enrage a large number of Night's Watch soldiers, who would view it as a violent power grab. However, the conflict that occurred this morning now became the pivotal factor in Egger's final decision.
With the precedent of the violent clash between Cotter Pyke and Jaime Lannister, the men of the Watch would perceive his massive operation tomorrow as a demonstration and retaliation against the Commander of Eastwatch, rather than an insult or disrespect directed at the entire Watch. While the essence of the act remained unchanged, the emotional resistance would be significantly lessened.
Admittedly, even the slightest resistance or resentment would cause his hard-won vote count to drop, but Egger remained resolute. If the votes decreased, so be it; he could slowly fill the deficit by bringing in a third batch, a fourth batch... an endless stream of new recruits to force his way to a two-thirds majority. But if something went wrong with the grain from the Iron Bank, no amount of votes could feed tens of thousands of new Gift residents.
A hungry person is the most dangerous creature on earth.
It was now pitch black outside. Fine snowflakes drifted through the air, settling in a thin layer on the rock-hard frozen ground. This was despite the area having been swept just at noon; one could imagine what the vast, untended wilderness outside the walls looked like at this moment.
The mere thought of traveling through the night against the cold wind, wading through ankle-deep snow, was enough to make one's scalp tingle. But looking at it optimistically, given the freezing climate of the North and the permafrost, the snow at least wouldn't turn to mud, and the white, reflective snowscape provided enough visibility to see the surroundings even on a moonless night.
After several inquiries, they found the Clan Chief of the Flints, who was sweating profusely with work. After a brief negotiation, the issue of the escort team was settled. The Flints were the mountain clan with the largest presence at the Wall; mobilizing them would solve many manpower difficulties. Unfortunately, with Northern nobles and soldiers everywhere inside Nightfort, trying to quietly move one or two hundred men was an impossible task.
The visit from the liege lord had made Nightfort livelier than any festival. Under eaves, between buildings, and atop the battlements, torches burned everywhere, their flames dancing in the wind, yet ultimately unable to illuminate every corner of the largest fortress along the Wall. As the banquet hour arrived, all Northern guests were invited into the Great Hall. In the central courtyard of the ancient castle, only the cold wind and falling snow remained.
In this gloom, the messenger squad, having eaten and drunk their fill, emerged from the kitchen. Under the cover of the boisterous noise from the welcoming banquet, they silently filed to the East Gate. Slipping through a gap gently opened by the guards, they vanished into the dim night.
Inside Nightfort, wine flowed and guests cheered. Outside, the cold wind slapped snow against the task force's faces. Wading through the drifts, they began their journey along the nearly invisible path toward Castle Black and Queenscrown.
There is a joke in the modern world: why did ancient people have so many children? Because there was nothing to do after dark; they lay in bed unable to sleep, so they could only make people.
The joke is crude, but it vividly illustrates the lack of activity and boredom at night in the world before electricity. In the Gift, and specifically in Queenscrown, the situation was even worse than the joke suggested: it wasn't just a lack of electricity. Most of the employees and armed forces of the Night's Watch Industry were common young men chasing dreams, eager to follow Egger to make money or carve out a career. Most of them didn't even have wives.
Wherever there is a demand, there are people who make a living satisfying it. While Queenscrown was known as the Capital of the Gift, it was also the area north of the Neck (excluding White Harbor) with the highest frequency and density of the flesh trade. Transactions usually took place in small wooden huts or cellars behind the core trade street. Most of the women providing services came from beyond the Wall, having lost most of their property and their prime-aged male family members. The clientele consisted mainly of Night's Watch Industry employees, soldiers, and some mountain clansmen with relatively deep pockets.
Jon Snow had once raised this issue with Egger, believing such chaos was a moral outrage that clouded the Capital of the Gift and tarnished the image of the Night's Watch. He requested that Egger ban the trade.
It wasn't an unreasonable request, but Egger shook his head and declined for a simple reason: priorities.
In this nascent society, Egger, with his limited resources, could not establish a welfare system to provide free food for everyone. The new Gift residents had to earn their bread through service or labor.
Egger and his trusted subordinates had exerted every effort: men built houses and roads or enlisted for drill, while women cleaned, washed, and cooked. But even after racking their brains, the Logistics Department could only create positions and job opportunities for a quarter of the new residents.
This meant that the one-quarter who were lucky enough to find work had to support the remaining three-quarters of their compatriots and families. Under these circumstances, to strictly ban the flesh trade—as Stannis Baratheon might—would be to drive those widows and orphans, who had lost their breadwinners in the fight against the Others or the defense of the Wall and had no competitive skills, into a dead end.
Furthermore, if a ban were issued, someone would have to enforce it... and Egger currently had no spare resources, energy, or manpower to dedicate to solving such a non-fatal minor problem.
What sounds reasonable is not applicable at every time or place. At the very least, in the Gift—before Egger was officially elected Lord Commander and secured his position as the actual supreme leader, and before he found a way to provide everyone with the opportunity to support themselves—rushing into a "moral cleanup" would be putting the cart before the horse.
However, not banning it didn't mean total negligence. Egger still established several restrictive regulations: the trade was not to be conducted openly, it was strictly forbidden within the walls of Queenscrown, and systematic organizations like brothels or professional pimps were absolutely disallowed. No middlemen were to profit from the margin and become parasites on this new society.
Of course, the above had little connection to the variables currently unfolding in the Gift.
No matter how energetic or full of desire one might be, it wouldn't last into the deep night, not to mention that Queenscrown had a nighttime curfew with closed gates, strictly forbidding movement in or out of the walls.
Thus, as the welcoming banquet at Nightfort reached its climax, the normally busy and bustling Capital of the Gift was dark and silent, fallen completely into a dormant slumber, with only the sentries on the walls remaining awake.
Cold.
So cold.
It's bloody cold.
Standing watch atop the wall in this weather, a man's brain felt frozen solid; there was no room for any thought other than that one. Teeth chattering, Hatch wrapped his cloak tighter and huddled into a wind-sheltered corner.
He was the sergeant of this watch, responsible for ensuring the sentries did their duty. If he, the supervisor, were caught slacking or sleeping on duty, while he wouldn't lose his head, he would certainly be fired and sent home.
Theoretically, no one was supervising him, but he didn't dare slack off.
Although the armed forces of the Night's Watch Industry were not a formal military organization, their regulations were stricter than any army in the world. The officers called it "discipline." This discipline was so harsh that even as a member who often had to enforce it and punish his subordinates, Hatch occasionally felt it was a bit much.
But no one complained... at least, no one dared to complain publicly.
The salary determined the employee's attitude toward the boss.
For one silver stag a month, every industry employee in Queenscrown would have vanished by tomorrow.
For ten silver stags a month, at least half would spend their days doing the bare minimum while thinking, "I'm your father, boss."
But at one hundred silver stags a month, it was enough to force everyone to swallow their grumbles and work hard.
As for the soldiers of the "Night's Watch Industry Security Force," their total income—including wages, living expenses, and subsidies for serving in the Gift—approached one gold dragon per month.
What did one gold dragon mean?
In a poorer region or a small village, that was the magnitude of tax a knightly minor lord could collect in a month.
Such a salary, in a world like this, was enough to make 99% of people peacefully accept being thousands of miles from home, in a frozen wasteland... along with a mountain of diverse and strictly enforced rules.
Furthermore, while they were soldiers in the hierarchy of the Night's Watch Industry, in the Gift, these dozens of men were actually officers in status. They had all received systematic training and drills at the industrial park in King's Landing. Only those with excellent marks were selected for Queenscrown. Each had five, six, or even ten mountain clansmen or Gift warriors under their command. Should a situation arise requiring a large mobilization, that number could instantly become fifty or a hundred.
They were the qualified products of the military portion of Egger's grand blueprint. When needed, with the Security Force soldiers as the backbone and the basic-trained clansmen or Gift residents as the body, an army could be formed overnight—a fact already proven and validated during the campaign to help the North expel the Ironborn.
A commoner with no family background or special skills wouldn't dare say something as arrogant as "if this place won't keep me, somewhere else will" in the face of such treatment. Losing this job—which, though a bit difficult, was respectable, high-paying, and seemingly full of prospects—would mean returning south, where no great man would act like the Night's Watch Industry: valuing only ability and attitude, regardless of surname or origin.
To go home and farm or scrape by in Flea Bottom on odd jobs would mean a lifetime of harder work with no future.
...
Hold on, just one more hour, and he could return to a warm room with a clear conscience and sleep until noon tomorrow.
Just as Hatch was shivering and silently counting the seconds, waiting for the next shift to relieve him, something happened outside the wall.
A row of light points appeared at the northern edge of his vision, approaching along the Kingsroad. Braving the fierce wind and snow, they passed through the street of houses opposite Queenscrown and arrived beneath the North Gate.
They weren't enemies; that much was obvious. The arrivals made no attempt to hide their presence. More than a dozen men, all with heavy footsteps and breathing like oxen, looked utterly exhausted. Less than half held torches. Everyone's clothes, hats, eyebrows, and beards were covered in snow and fine ice. They struggled through the snow, coming south from the Kingsroad, and only stopped once they were directly under the gate.
"Open up!"
Having pulled countless night shifts, this was the first time Hatch had encountered someone so brazenly calling for the gate in the middle of the night. "Who is it? Look at the hour! If you want to enter the town, wait until dawn tomorrow!"
"It's Kent! Yam ordered me to ride to Nightfort this afternoon with a message, and I have brought back urgent instructions from the Chief Logistics Officer!"
"Kent?" Hatch frowned. There were only a little over a hundred formal employees of the Night's Watch Industry in Queenscrown; of course he knew him. But knowing him didn't mean he could break the rules. "Urgent instructions? Everyone in Queenscrown is asleep except for the night watch. Even if it's true, who is there to receive and execute the orders? I suggest you find an inn to crash in for the night and talk about it tomorrow morning."
"Do you understand the Common Tongue? Urgent means urgent. It needs to be executed before dawn. This is a matter of extreme importance. If you delay the Chief Logistics Officer's business, you won't be able to bear the responsibility!"
"Rules are rules." Hatch wasn't intimidated, but he didn't dare ignore it entirely. "How about this: I'll lower a basket. Put the military documents in, and I'll deliver them to the officers for you."
"Time is of the essence! I don't have a full document; the details need to be delivered orally! Pull me up, and I will explain to Lord Yam myself!"
"Hmm... very well."
Hatch wasn't worried about a colleague he knew well, but he was suspicious of the dozen or so burly men behind Kent. If they were wandering wildling raiders who had taken an industry employee hostage to try and infiltrate Queenscrown, that would be bad.
The worry was quickly proven redundant. After calling several fellow sentries and lowering the ropes, Kent was hauled up the wall alone. The dozen or so men with him made no attempt to interfere or follow.
Brushing off the snow, Kent greeted the sentries and hurried down the wall toward the residential area of Queenscrown.
Ten minutes later, Egger's instructions were delivered to Humphrey Hill, the Night's Watch Logistics Officer stationed in Queenscrown, and Yam, the town's mayor.
Half an hour later, as the welcoming banquet at Nightfort over twenty miles away drew to a close and the participants began to disperse, the dormant Queenscrown gradually woke up and grew boisterous.
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