Solomon said nothing. The silence in the great hall hardened around him like cooling metal.
Lady Roslin gripped the armrests of her chair until her knuckles went white. She could read nothing at all from that unreasonably young face, and that unsettled her more than anything he could have said.
She made herself open her mouth again, and there was something quietly pleading in her voice that she did not quite intend. "Little Solomon, surely you have another way?"
Solomon let his gaze move across the room one more time before settling on her. "There is only this one way, my lady. Gold for steel. Large rewards bring out brave men. Ten silver stags per Ironborn head, or even a gold dragon. The soldiers and farmers inside this city will stop being sheep and become lions."
The hall fell into a silence that no one broke. Every person in the room knew it was the most effective method possible. They also knew it was the one least likely to happen.
Lady Roslin went pale and practically launched herself out of her chair. "No!" The word came out sharp and twisted, all composure gone. "Absolutely not! The wealth of House Deddington has been built across generations! It exists for unforeseen crises in the future! How could we throw it away on farmers like that?"
Solomon watched her and said nothing, a smile barely registering at the corner of his mouth. He had known this would be her answer. This was the fundamental difference between old nobility and new. Old nobles treated everything they owned as sacred and immovable, surrendering even a coin of it like losing a piece of their own flesh. New nobles, before they hardened into the same mold, understood wealth as a starting stake, a lever. Gold was only a tool. It was only worth something once you spent it.
Lady Roslin saw that he had gone quiet again. With no one else to lean on, the anxiety she was fighting only grew. She forced herself to steady her voice. "Little Solomon, is there truly nothing else?"
"There isn't, my lady." He gave a small shrug and spread his hands, the expression on his face hitting the exact note of reluctant helplessness. "If you are unwilling to spend anything, then we hold the castle and wait for the relief force from Riverrun. When they arrive, we combine and fight together."
That answer crushed Lady Roslin completely. For most of the bannermen and knights in the room, it came as a quiet relief. Holding the walls meant none of them had to throw their farmers at the Ironborn.
Lady Roslin was not ready to let it rest. She thought of the stories she had heard about this young man, victories against impossible odds that sounded closer to miracles than battles. She reached for that last handhold. "With your military ability, surely you could strike out and break the enemy outside the walls, the way you broke the wildlings before?"
Every eye in the hall moved to Solomon again.
He met her gaze steadily. "I could strike out, my lady." He let a pause settle. "But if I lose, and the finest force in this alliance takes heavy losses, do you think Deddington Castle could hold?"
He said it slowly, one word at a time, each one landing. The silence that followed had no answer.
Patrick Morrison rose abruptly from his seat, the agreement plain on his young face. "Lord Solomon is right! We cannot afford the risk! His army is the backbone of this entire alliance! It cannot take a single serious loss!"
That broke the dam. The other unit leaders and knights found the backbone they had been waiting for and stood up one by one, talking over each other.
"Exactly! Caution first!"
"The Ironborn are brutal! A head-on fight is too dangerous!"
"Hold and wait for relief! It's the only sound decision!"
They had never wanted a straight fight with Ironborn to begin with. Solomon's conservative plan was exactly what they had been hoping someone would say.
Lady Roslin stared at the scene unfolding in front of her and felt the color drain from her face in stages. Something invisible was pressing down on her and she could not push back against it. Here in her own great hall, with her own bannermen and allies around her, her voice carried less weight than an outsider's. These men had nominally come to help her. They were sitting there taking their cues from a young man who was not even of her house.
The question that had begun forming earlier returned, and this time it would not leave. Who was really in charge here?
The war council ended without resolution.
Solomon walked out of the hall and went straight up to the walls of Deddington Castle. He waved for Ludo to follow.
Beyond the walls it was full dark. The night wind moved cold and sharp, carrying the smell of damp earth, cleaning the stuffiness of the council room out of his lungs.
He looked out into the darkness for a long time before he spoke. "Ludo."
"My lord!"
"You have fought the Ironborn face to face. In your judgment, how many of them are actually out there?"
Solomon turned to look at him. Ludo felt his heart kick against his ribs. This was not a casual question. This was a test, and whatever answer he gave would shape everything that came next.
Ludo opened his mouth, closed it again, and hesitated.
Solomon did not turn away or push him. He spoke quietly, with real weight behind it. "The most important thing a commander can do is commit to a judgment. When to strike and when to stand still, those decisions all come from being willing to make the call yourself."
He let that sit for a moment. When he spoke again, there was something almost gentle in it.
"You have that in you. Roslin doesn't, which is why I am shaping him toward administration. You need to become something else. A good sword in my hand."
Solomon turned sharply and put both hands on Ludo's shoulders, his eyes lit up in the dark in a way that was almost unsettling, holding Ludo's gaze directly.
His voice was not loud, but there was no arguing with it. "So tell me. What is your judgment? How many real Ironborn are outside these walls?"
The pressure of Solomon's presence, and the trust buried inside it, hit Ludo all at once and sent heat rushing to his head.
He stopped wavering. He set his jaw and said what his own observation had been telling him for days. "My lord! Their column looks large! But the actual Ironborn fighters are no more than a thousand! Not one more!"
Solomon let go and nodded. "Good."
He turned back toward the darkness beyond the walls, the lands the Ironborn had turned into chaos, and spoke almost to himself. "A thousand."
The torchlight moved across his face in uneven pulses. Wind pulled at the long dark noble's robe he wore, snapping it behind him.
A bold and reckless thought caught fire somewhere inside him.
He turned it over slowly. The Ironborn invasion might not be a disaster at all. For him, it might be the greatest opportunity he had ever been handed. He thought of a phrase. Chaos is a ladder.
What did it actually get him to destroy this Ironborn force? Whether it was House Deddington or House Tully, or even the king who rewarded him, there was nothing left to give. Every inch of the Riverlands had already been carved up between ancient houses with proud names and long histories. There was no crack left to squeeze through.
But these raiders from the Iron Islands were like a school of black fish plunging into a still pond. They would churn the water. They would bite and tear and pull things under. They would leave those ancient houses, the ones who had divided the Riverlands among themselves for generations, bloodied and struggling to keep their heads above water.
And the Ironborn on land were rootless, no matter how savage. The moment the royal armies arrived, along with forces from the Vale, the North, and the Westerlands, the only thing left for the Ironborn was the sea.
When that day came, the entire Riverlands would be left with a vast hole in the middle of its power. Lands without lords. Castles left empty. Families wiped out. Wealth scattered across the countryside waiting to be picked up.
Solomon's eyes were getting brighter in the dark. Ambition and appetite moved through him in equal measure. All he had to do was hold the line, use the Misty Mountains to absorb the first blow of the Ironborn advance, keep his own strength whole, and last until relief arrived. Then he could turn in whatever performance this chaos gave him, and from there find the justification to quietly absorb whatever the black fish had already half-destroyed. Land, holdings, power.
The mantis catches the cicada, and the sparrow waits behind.
He opened his hand slowly, as if reaching out to close his fingers around the darkness in front of him and the distant fires burning beyond it.
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