Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 69: The Ship of the Charter

The return trip was made by a flat-bottomed barge used for transporting hay.

The planks at the bottom of the boat were soaked with the smell of river water and old horse manure. It wasn't a pleasant smell, but after being immersed for half a month in the stench of Pike Place City, a mixture of seawater, rotting flesh, and burnt tar, this earthy and livestock odor actually made one feel grounded.

The seven men huddled in a haystack at the bottom of the cabin, and no one spoke.

The shieldbearer, whose left arm had been severed, was running a fever. The Maester of Ilion hadn't accompanied him on the campaign; the only person with him was a mediocre barber hired from Seafront City for two silver deer, who hastily sealed the severed arm with a branding iron and applied some unknown ash powder. The shieldbearer's lips were cracked from the fever; he could only inhale but not exhale, and he shivered incessantly.

The defeated soldier who had been forced to push forward by Otto with his sword in the corridor now sat next to the shield bearer, his eyes fixed blankly on the grain of the ship's planks, his hand gripping the oak shield stained with dried brain matter tightly. Anyone who touched him would send a shiver down his spine.

Gareth sat on the hatch steps, holding a chipped earthenware bowl containing a little warm water he had begged from the captain. He dipped a piece of not-so-clean linen in the water and gently moistened the feverish shield bearer's lips.

He did it very carefully, and his movements were very gentle.

Otto stood on the deck.

The river wind was harsh, blowing against his face like fine sand. The old wound on his left shoulder, taut for too long in the main hall of Haijiang City, now relaxed, brought back that familiar dull, aching sensation. He didn't rub it, but simply pressed his right hand on the hilt of his sword at his waist, watching the withered trees receding into the distance on both banks.

The warrant bearing the golden seal of the crowned stag was sewn close to his body into the lining of his armor.

That was something he gained at the cost of four lives and the risk of almost having his throat pierced.

Is it worth it?

A voice sounded behind me. It wasn't a question, but a statement that poured out what was on my mind.

Otto didn't turn around. He knew it was Gareth.

Gareth went up to the deck, still holding the wet burlap sack. He walked over to Oto and they looked out at the river together.

"Those four guys in the hallway. Martin, and three others." Gareth's voice was hoarse, as if he had a handful of dry grass stuck in his throat. "I was just thinking down there, if I were in the second group, if I were at the front, would Martin have avoided getting his face cleaved in two by that throwing axe?"

Otto continued to look at the river, the water cutting a white gash in the bow of the boat.

"When he's training, he's always a half-beat slower than everyone else. It's his habit, not that he doesn't want to be fast, it's that he can't break it." Otto's voice was calm and even, without a trace of emotion. "In a phalanx, being half a beat slower means the flank will be exposed for a second longer. On muddy ground, that second can be fatal; in the corridors of Pike City, that second is the time it takes for a flying axe to smash in. Even if you're in front of him, you can't stop the axe from flying in through that opening."

Gareth was stunned.

He turned his head and looked at Otto's young yet cold and hard profile.

"You knew all along?" Gareth's fingers clenched tightly on the burlap. "If you knew he was slow, why did you still assign him to the left wing of the second group?"

"Because the first group needs the most stable shield, and the third group needs the fastest substitute. The second group's left flank, at the turn of the two right-angle bends, receives the least impact." Otto turned his head, his gaze calmly meeting Gareth's eyes. "I placed him in the position with the theoretically highest survival rate. But he still died."

Otto did not explain further.

Gareth looked at him. They were eyes that conveyed a stubborn seriousness.

"My lord," Gareth's Adam's apple bobbed, "what do you take them for? People, or just spears on a rack that can be replaced at any time?"

"They are the cornerstone of the Hohenzollern territory."

Otto did not dodge the question. He looked at Gareth.

"The foundation stone must be buried in the mud, it must bear weight. If they don't crumble in the corridors of Pike, my territory will not gain independent jurisdiction, the Blue Fork River will be trampled at will by the cavalry of Blackwood, and the women and children they leave behind in the territory will be driven away and starved to death like dogs by those great nobles."

He took his hand off the hilt of the sword.

"You feel sorry for Martin. But before he went to war, Pollifer gave his family double the rations and ten silver stags. He didn't die in vain; his death secured ten years of peace for his wife and children. He signed that deal himself."

Gareth remained silent.

He opened his mouth as if to refute something, but in the end he said nothing.

He turned around and walked back to the cabin without a word to continue feeding the shield bearer who was about to burn to death.

Otto looked back at the river.

He had obtained the charter, and nominally he had won. But Tywin Lannister's indifferent gaze, as if looking at a dead man, and Hoster Tully's silent demeanor in the hall, made it clear to him that this piece of paper was not yet iron.

The Duke of Tully would not tolerate a baron with independent jurisdiction in the heart of the Riverlands.

He needed to turn this parchment into a boundary marker nailed to the Blue Fork River the moment he returned to his territory.

"The leaf-covered beach is just ahead."

The captain's voice rang out from the stern, carrying a hint of relief, "After two more bends, we'll see your stone fortress, Your Excellency."

Otto's gaze passed over the ramming post at the bow of the ship and landed on the distant riverbank.

The river narrows here, and the banks should have been covered by a dense birch forest, a natural barrier at the southernmost tip of the Hohenzollern territory.

But the birch forest has changed.

Otto's eyes narrowed slightly.

Less than fifty paces from the riverbank, several birch trees, each as thick as two people could hug, had been cut down at the base. The cuts were fresh, and the white stubble was particularly striking in the sunlight.

Several soldiers dressed in black and red robes were dragging a thick, sharpened log with ropes. At the top of the log, a black raven with outstretched wings was painted in red.

The coat of arms of the Blackwood family.

Beside the soldier stood a scholar dressed in a grey robe with a small copper chain around his neck. He held a bronze protractor and a parchment map in his hand, and was instructing the soldier to forcefully hammer the black raven log into the soil within the territory of Hohenzollern.

"Bang!"

The sound of a mallet striking a log carried across the water to the boat.

Otto's left hand slowly tightened its grip on the wooden railing of the ship's side, splinters piercing his leather glove, but he did not let go.

"My lord?" Gareth, who had just stepped out of the cabin, also saw this scene. He paused, stunned. "Isn't that the boundary of our territory? What are they doing?"

"They are measuring the land."

Otto's voice was as cold as if it had been frozen in an ice cave.

Horst Tully did not disobey the king's orders; he simply sent a boundary officer to "precisely" execute the charter that granted ten miles to the north and south.

The boundary officer stood next to the Blackwood family's boundary marker.

"Prepare to dock."

Otto drew his longsword.