Game of Thrones: The Impaler of the Blue Fork

Chapter 45: The Branding Iron in the Gray Tower and the Duke's Raven

The mist on the river had not yet completely dissipated when a shallow-draft, flat-bottomed open boat docked at the dilapidated wharf of the Blue Fork River.

Ilion tightened his grey maester's robes and stepped off the ship onto the swaying gangplank. The maester's necklace around his neck, made of black iron, brass, lead rings, and a few silver rings, jingled softly in the cold wind.

He was a maester sent to this new fiefdom by order of the Duke of Horst of Riverrun.

During the days of turbulence on the ship, Ilion kept picturing the fief he was about to face. It should be a castle, simple but at least in its rudimentary form: a clean courtyard paved with gravel, a drawing room draped with rough tapestries, and a baron who knew to show reverence to the envoys of the City of the School.

When his leather boots trod the ground, he saw no gravel courtyard. Only a rammed earth path mixed with horse manure and rotten grass.

There was no castle. There was only a newly built rammed earth wall, six feet high, with sharpened wooden stakes exposed on top.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of quicklime, the strong smell of rust, and the sour smell of moldy wheat being cooked in several large pots under the windbreak.

Ilion frowned, his gaze sweeping over the people busy in the mud.

A dozen or so crippled men, missing limbs or even arms, sat on a large rock, painstakingly polishing rusted chainmail plates with coarse gravel. Nearby, several thin women were pounding linen cloth more firmly with wooden mallets.

Pollifer emerged from the shadows of a longhouse. He wore a greasy fur coat and a pair of tattered brass-rimmed spectacles held together with twine.

"Scholar Ilion." Pollifer didn't bow, but simply nodded curtly. "The Baron awaits you in the stone tower. Please follow me."

Illion followed Pollifer across the muddy ground that could barely be called a training ground.

Forty men in tattered leather armor were training there.

They gripped sharpened wooden sticks, each with a piece of dead wood tightly clenched between their teeth. No one shouted for battle, no one cried out in pain, not even uttered a heavy sigh. The only sound on the entire drill ground was the bone whistle blew by a one-eyed old soldier.

One whistle blows, thrust. Two whistles sound, halt. Three whistles sound, turn around.

These forty people repeated these few actions over and over again in the cold mud.

Ilion stopped in his tracks.

He had read in the scrolls of the Citadel about lords who used whips and gallows to command their soldiers. But the deathly silence before him made him feel breathless.

He quickly followed Pollifer and entered the towering stone tower.

The base of the stone tower was piled high with wooden crates and cast iron ingots. They climbed the narrow stone steps to the top, where Pollifer pushed open a heavy oak door.

There was no fireplace or tapestries in the room. There was only a rough wooden table and a few wooden crates filled with cast iron arrowheads.

Otto Hohenzollern sat shirtless on a wooden chair.

His face, contorted in a grimace, was covered in cold sweat. His left shoulder was swollen like a purplish-black tumor, the surrounding skin a deathly gray, and the muscles were twitching uncontrollably.

Ilion strode over to Oto.

He didn't greet her, but simply reached out and pressed on the purplish-black abscess.

Otto let out a very low groan, his body tensed slightly, but he did not flinch.

"It's rotting down to the flesh." Illion's brow furrowed deeply. "There are bone fragments stuck in the wound, and the pus has infected the surrounding flesh. How long have you been dragging this out?"

"More than ten days." Otto's voice was hoarse.

"You're a madman." Illion opened his briefcase and quickly rummaged through his tools. "If you delay any longer, this poisonous blood will flow into your heart. Or, you'll have to let me saw off your entire left arm."

"Heal it." Otto stared at the scholar.

"I'll use poppy milk," Elion said, pulling out a small glass bottle. "It'll put you to sleep. Then I'll cut open the boil and remove the bone fragments."

"No."

Otto refused.

"I don't drink that stuff. I need to stay sober."

Ilion stopped what he was doing and looked at him.

"This isn't sword practice on the training ground, Baron. I'm going to cut through your flesh and scrape your bones with tweezers. The pain will drive you mad. If you convulse in agony while I'm cutting, and my blade misses by even half an inch, it will sever the thick blood vessel next to your neck. At that point, neither the Old Gods nor the New Gods combined can save you."

"Tie him up."

Otto used his good right hand to pull three thick leather horse reins from the table next to him.

He threw the reins at Ilion's feet.

"Tie me to the chair." Otto pointed to a red-hot charcoal brazier next to him, with several cast iron bars used for branding horses stuck in it. "After you've removed the bones, use the fire to brand the bottom to stop the bleeding."

Ilion looked at the horse reins on the ground, then glanced at the charred iron bar.

He didn't try to persuade him further. He picked up the reins and tightly bound Otto's chest, waist, and legs to the heavy wooden chair.

"Bite down." Illion handed over a clean piece of cork.

Otto opened his mouth and bit down hard on the piece of wood.

Ilion took a deep breath and picked up a sharp razor.

The blade precisely sliced ​​open the purplish-black abscess.

A foul-smelling stream of yellow pus and blood gushed out instantly, splattering onto Illion's leather apron.

Otto's body jerked upwards, instantly taut the three thick leather reins, which creaked and groaned. The veins on his neck bulged.

Ilion didn't stop. He picked up a long, thin pair of iron tweezers and, following the incision, probed deep into Otto's festering muscle.

The sharp metal tip groped through the flesh and blood, finally encountering the hard surface of bone.

Otto's back was pressed firmly against the wooden chair, the leather belt making a teeth-grinding cracking sound as wood chips fell to the ground.

His eyes were bloodshot, and his eyeballs were almost bulging out of their sockets.

But he didn't make a sound.

The cork was chewed out of shape between his teeth, and a few drops of blood trickled down the corner of his mouth.

Ilion's hands were steady. The tweezers gripped a sharp piece of bone and pulled it outward with force.

A piece of white bone fragment covered in rotting flesh was pulled out and tossed into the copper basin next to it with a "clink".

Dark red blood gushed out instantly from deep within the wound.

"Iron bar!" Ilion shouted.

Polliver, who had been standing guard nearby, immediately used tongs to pick up a red-hot iron bar with a white tip and handed it to Illion.

Without the slightest hesitation, Ilion pressed the scorching hot iron bar directly onto the deep wound that was still gushing blood.

"laugh--"

A strong, nauseating smell of burnt flesh, accompanied by wisps of smoke, instantly filled the entire room.

Otto's body convulsed violently.

He finally managed to squeeze out a muffled groan of pain from his throat.

……

Illion threw the blackened iron bar back into the charcoal brazier; the back of his clothes was completely soaked with cold sweat.

He walked to the basin beside him and washed his hands. The cold well water washed away the bloodstains on his hands.

When the Duke of Horst sent him, he privately instructed him: "Use the raven's message tube and the Duke's decree to keep this vicious dog firmly chained up for me."

Otto was leaning back in his chair, breathing heavily. The leather reins on his horse had been untied by Pollifer.

He spat out the piece of cork that had been chewed to pieces and was stained with blood, took the glass of cold well water that Pollifer handed him, and gulped down three large mouthfuls.

Then, with his intact right hand, he grabbed the gray-black wool coat and put it on with one hand.

"Duke, did you have a few listening strings hung here with you?"

Otto sat in his chair, his calm eyes fixed on Ilion.

Ilion stood by the basin of water.

"His Excellency the Duke requires me to report every ten days," Ilion said calmly. "Reporting on the inflow and outflow of provisions for the Blue Fork River, the number of refugees killed or wounded, and—"

Ilion paused for a moment.

"How much unreported silver is hidden beneath those earthen kilns you use to fire bricks?"

Otto looked at him.

He slightly raised his chin and made a gesture to Pollifer, who was standing to the side.

Pollifer walked to a wooden box in the corner, opened the lid, and took out two thick stacks of parchment bound with rough hemp rope.

"Bang."

Pollifer slammed the two stacks of parchment heavily onto the wooden table in front of Illion.

"Open it and take a look," Otto said.

Ilion frowned, stepped forward, untied the rope, and turned to the top page.

The above clearly records:

The actual total amount of raw silver mined.

The barricades and spears they secretly built to deal with the harassment of the Blackwood family's cavalry were worn out.

The relief rations for the farmers and refugees who died or were injured in the cold winter.

And, in the Korben workshop, the number of weapons being manufactured day and night without being reported to Riverrun.

Ilion looked at the numbers.

"These three hundred old, weak, and disabled soldiers are eating moldy wheat and guarding this river for the Duke."

Otto's voice echoed in the room.

"Every silver deer I spend on forging makes the Duke's defenses a little more secure."

Otto pointed to the stack of dark curtains.

"I used these unreported silver and ironware to deflect the Frey family's patrol boats and the Blackwood family's probing attacks."

Otto stood up. He walked up to Ilion.

"Copy these numbers exactly into your raven's parchment and send them back to Riverrun."

Otto stared into the scholar's eyes.

"Tell the Duke that if he wants me to continue guarding this muddy land for him, he should deduct these losses from my 30% cut of dark silver. In addition, I need him to supply another fifty cartloads of sheepskin and one hundred cartloads of smokeless charcoal."

Ilion stood in front of the table and re-tied the two stacks of parchment with hemp rope.