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"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
They strung up a man
They say who murdered three
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree"
"Are you, are you
Coming to the tree?
Where dead man called out
For his love to flee
Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be
If we met at midnight in the hanging tree"
-- --- ---
280 AC
"You made this?" Jon Arryn asked curiously as he fiddled with the thing.
"Well…," Rommel drew out as he scratched the back of his head.
"The blacksmith did, but I surely designed the thing to be what it is now. I drew it on parchment as I do the others and took it to the maester for his advice," he continued.
"We discussed its practicality, its design flaws and improvements, and I went back to the drawing board, and there we go. The finished product"
"And what was the name you gave it again?" The father of the scholastic child asks.
"It's a quintuple blade/furrow steel plow. Perhaps the best plow ever made in a millennium," he boasted in a matter-of-fact tone while puffing his chest out.
Jon Arryn sighed at another of his son's… inventions. Another of many, and three-quarters of that many were failed things of wasted silver, time, and resources.
Yet his 10-year-old son had always found some way to persuade him to fund his crazy projects and errant ventures. Either through begging, flattery, or doing his duties most diligently and mastering his studies and skills in the yard even though he was merely a page. He hadn't laid to rest these sullied inventions for even a second; he pressed and pushed on, not giving even an inch away to his ambitious works.
"If it's made of steel and qualitative as you say it is. How do you expect the common folk to buy such a thing when many of them can hardly afford cast iron ploughs or the beasts of burden to pull them?" Jon asked in a tone expecting an answer.
"And that's the thing!" Rommel quirked up with his fine boyish voice, one his age would possess.
"The answer to that is already carried out in other ways throughout our lands. We'll lease it to them for ten years or five… and in that time, based on results, these new revolutionary tools provide it would see any crop yield triple each harvest." He professed optimistically.
"Well… I'm not so optimistic about these unproven results as you are." The aged lord murmured.
"Then I'll show you! Whenever you're ready, if you doubt me so," Rommel stood tall, defending his work.
Jon Arryn let out a short sigh before rubbing his temple.
'The boy was giving him a headache!'
'He could see in his eyes the anxiety he tried to hide; there was internal turmoil indefinitely. Rommel was no doubt fearing the answer he would've given him.'
'He'd no doubt be prepared if it was a no, but it was clear what answer he wanted to hear.'
Sigh
A boy of only 10 years, with the intellect of a maester and the emotional intelligence of a man well grown three times his age.
"Think of the small folk's future, House Arryn's future; this, among others, will set a precedent for the years to come. We would lead beyond everyone else in agriculture and metallurgy even. I just need this last chance, please, Father." He begged.
"Fine," Jon relented.
"I'll give you 100 gold dragons, and that's it, no more! If you fail, then blame yourself for this, as it would be the last time I put up with these "experiments" and creations of yours."
The young boy smiled then and there, a toothy grin that proclaimed victory.
"May God bless you, Father; you shall live on as the greatest lord Westeros has ever known. None will ever match your greatness…..
"Out with you, boy! And your flattery." He fanned him off.
He got what he wanted, and so he'd not stop to talk his way into his mind as he usually does with his usual sycophantic compliments.
And there he was stating "God" instead of "Gods" again. His son believed in the ruse of the Seven made one, as a single entity, not a separate divided being.
"Yes, my lord." Rommel preened as he gave a deep bow with hands at his sides.
—— ——— ——- ——- ———-
Rommel POV
'As one of the laws of power stated, "Conceal Your Intentions."'
'And so I did mine.'
Being the only son of an old lord did one really well, you know. It meant that you were spoiled; it meant that you could get away with a lot of stuff.
Jon Arryn, Lord Paramount of the Vale, and my father in this new life. A thing that didn't really sit well with him. Eleven years ago he was a twenty-five-year-old man relaxing in the comfort of his home. In a reality where the world had vehicles, smartphones, the internet, skyscrapers, asphalt roads, and planes, but here in this one you only had carts, dirt paths, stone castles, feudal lords, and wooden ships. This was the world of Game of Thrones, a fictional world made by George R.R. Martin.
The world of Game of Thrones was not a place one would think it would be. It wasn't some nice warm fantasy like in some cushy loving books. This life was brutally real. His new society now was structured not around democratic electoral systems, but a decentralized system of loyalty and protection.
And he had thanked God he hadn't been born among the lowest rungs of society. He couldn't imagine slaving his life away on a farm day in and day out until he had croaked in a bed made of straw and full of even lice or whatever other parasites lingered in such things. Peasant life meant little freedom, and lack of freedom was a danger in and of itself, and in such a world where war was ever so often so common, one might've found himself a levy at the front lines to be run over by horses, impaled by a spear, or split shoulder to torso by a sword. All grisly deaths, and they were not equally quick ones either. It was a life of suffering and struggle. Something hard if not borderline impossible to escape at times.
And it was through this understanding of the lower rungs and their livelihoods that he held so much empathy for them. He made a promise then, a promise to not lose himself to the temptations of this life, nor would he be complacent or ignorant of the lives of his subjects. And so he would help them and help himself in the endeavor to not only improve upon their local society but to also set for himself the foundations to the power he sought.
Call it pride or ego, but he'd not bow his head to neither the dragons nor the stags. He came from the world of much more… far more. So why, as a young lord now, should he settle for less?
Settle for a life of being a future warden when one could be a king or an emperor if he played his cards right. But such ambitions needed planning; they needed resources, technological or otherwise. He would also need military might, wealth, and power.
This was his goal; this was his purpose, perhaps. To change things. It had often dawned on him why, out of several billion people, he was the one chosen to be here, to be in such a circumstance, and as time went on and he saw more and more of this world, it became forever clear.
It needed correction. It was broken, and he saw none better to fix it than himself. A divine calling perhaps, and he would answer.
And here in the Vale, a place of fertile fields, exceptional knights, and vast natural defenses, something great could be made. He could see it already, an empire infinite, and at its behest, he rode front and center, endless lines of soldiers, endless rows of iron and steel.
Ambition.