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He had always wondered how such a house comparable in wealth to the rest of them grew so quickly and so wealthy in a span of five years.'
'How could it happen!?'
'They had been ruling for years, yet some green boy had ousted them in all categories of wealth and power.' Galbart Glover thought.
'House Bolton had overtaken all the houses of the north even the Manderlys to become the richest and most powerful.'
'Bolton ships in Braavos, Bolton ships in kingslanding, Oldtown, Dorne, Pentos . They were everywhere. Bolton caravans , bolton drinks, bolton steel, bolton clothing. Everything now house bolton.'
'Almost every goods from that land had that damn stamp or seal.'
"Too much foreign entanglement, with slavers and usurers," Galbart says. "It was never the Northern way and no matter the circumstances it should never be." He added.
"Neither is starvation, nor empty coffers lord brother" Robett Glover replied simply.
The response from his younger brother had silenced the Deepwood motte lord.
Because it was true.
The North had endured hard years. Winters that killed, summers that barely healed. And the little they earned wasn't much. The lumber they exported were bought by different intermediaries now, who then sold it to their main customer which was ironically, yes you know who, the bolton lord himself , which they disliked so much.
The irony of hating the one man that had been buying your only valuable resource.
Nonetheless whether they wished to admit it or not , Domeric Bolton's climb had eased the pain… of many.
Just not for everyone. And not for Galbert Glover based on his own words and experiences, even as they traded with the merchants under the flayed man's banner.
"What worries me," Hother speaks up, "is not that they grow rich. It is that they grow indispensable."
"Lord Stark has been blinded by their monetary contributions, they have shown their worth and value",
Galbart nodded. "And a house that becomes indispensable no longer bows it head in loyalty and we all know how that goes with the history our liege Lord's house and the boltons had before".
"Indeed"
"Yet if Lord Stark falters?"
"Then the North changes," Galbart said grimly.
"The North has already changed," Gawen added his two cents, making the men direct their attention to him.
We've cling to our stubborn ways too much, me thinks we could take a page out of the
Lord Bolton's book and do as he does. We could be much better off."
"Coin had been flowing through here in trickles, but now it flows heavier, all due to the aftermath of his hands. I don't think we should relegate him as an enemy but as a ally to our needs here." Galbert's eldest son added again.
"You speak of such nonsense Gawen," Robett admonishes his nephew.
"Even now as we speak slaves work and toil on those roads he favor so much and you wish us to ally ourselves with such a person."
"Exaggerated tales, no slave can work under a man in these lands and the man is not put to death. And if that is so why hasn't lord Stark executed him as yet?" Gawen fires back.
Robett was silenced again, hissing his teeth as he looked back to his brother and lord.
"Be as it may, the umbers and karstarks have made an accord with him. The lamprey lord Wyman is all but ink pals with that damn boy and I've heard he continues to push his granddaughters in a marriage to make their alliance even stronger" Galbart states.
"And what do you propose then father?" Gawen asked anxiously as he looked into the man's eyes.
Galbart stared back but he didn't have the answer to the ensuing problem of lord Bolton's increasing power and wealth.
"I don't know", Came his sigh.
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Somewhere in the North
"You hit that buck I'd buy you fifty whores xillan ", Domeric quipped to the summer islander as he stared through his spyglass at the deer 400 yards away in the open field.
"Fifty dornish whores wouldn't be so bad, as long as I get to keep them", the man japed making Domeric and his companions laugh.
Nonetheless Xillan drew back the string of the six-foot-long bow, a craft of the summer isles itself, its draw weight easily over one hundred and twenty pounds. He inhaled softly, his focus fixed not only on the arrow before him but on the animal far downrange. He felt the wind shift against his skin, and before anyone could speak, he loosed the shot.
They watched in unison as the arrow rose into the sky, sailing dozens of meters away before gravity finally claimed it.
And when it landed, Domeric laughed when he saw where it fell, twenty meters wide, passing cleanly past the animal's far side. The Summer Islander had lost the bet. That came as no surprise; the wind was far too strong.
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