Chapter 274: The Wolf Lord's Northern Inspection
By relying on the whimsical and incredibly cynical maneuver of 'selling the wildlings' own food back to them in exchange for labor, Egger had accomplished a deployment and construction feat along the Wall and the Gift that many previous Lord Commanders of the Night's Watch could only dream of. He had reactivated all abandoned fortresses, repaired the roads of the Gift, and transformed the ruins of Queenscrown into a burgeoning new town.
However, the free folk's grain was not inexhaustible. To keep this game going, external forces were needed to sustain the Gift Settlement Plan. Until the relief grain from the Braavosi across the Narrow Sea arrived, support from the North remained a vital link.
It was for this reason that, despite completing all prior tasks, Egger had spared two thousand able-bodied men to follow him south to relieve the North's crisis. This not only put the Northerners in the Gift's debt but also cleared the logistics channels for transporting Northern grain to the Gift.
During his final two days at Winterfell, Egger divided the men he had brought into several teams of varying sizes. Equipped with funds, they headed to the fiefs of every Northern house to purchase as much food and materiel as possible—supplies that the Gift could not yet produce itself.
Afterward, the Warden of the North took a hundred elite soldiers and joined Egger's returning Gift troops. Together, they set out in a grand procession onto the Kingsroad leading toward Castle Black.
The other four houses Robb had invited were busy escorting their spoils home and disbanding their respective armies; they couldn't return to Winterfell within two days to join the inspection group. Instead, they agreed to rendezvous directly at Castle Black. It's worth noting that—by whatever means Arya had used—she managed to convince her eldest brother, the current head of House Stark, to bring her along. Robb's explanation was that their father's death had left his little sister in low spirits, so he was taking her out to clear her head.
The men of the Wolf house were always soft-eared when it came to the women of their family, and Egger had experienced Arya's persistence himself. While it was somewhat unexpected, upon reflection, it wasn't surprising. Having the girl along might even mean she'd speak up for him at a critical moment.
With the Ironborn expelled from the North and the wildlings assimilated into the Gift, the northern stretch of the Kingsroad had never been safer. The column of over a thousand men encountered no trouble on their journey. After several days of non-stop travel, they approached the first major fork in the road leading to the Wall.
"I thought they said if you head north along the road, you couldn't get lost even with your eyes closed. Why is there a fork here, with both paths leading north?"
Robb sat atop his horse at the junction, looking at the road ahead which split in two. He questioned Egger. The Kingsroad marked on the map, which should have gone straight north to Castle Black, was now covered in lingering snow and mud. Replacing it was a road veering about a dozen degrees to the west—a clearly newly constructed, rammed-earth road raised inches above the surrounding ground and wide enough for four horses to ride abreast.
"The left path leads to Queenscrown," Egger answered. "The original village was located several miles west of the Kingsroad. To reach it, one had to go ten miles further north on the old road and then turn left. This meant that if travelers wanted to pass through the Night's Watch logistics hub between Castle Black and Winterfell, they had to leave the main road, take a side path to the town, and then backtrack to the Kingsroad the next day. This detour added nearly ten miles to the trip. After discussion, the Logistics Department decided to reroute the main line, abandoning a thirty-mile stretch of the old road and building a new, slightly angled segment to bring the modified Kingsroad directly through Queenscrown."
The stretch of the Kingsroad north of Winterfell was merely a thin trail worn into the wasteland, and the sections within the Gift were barely distinguishable from the surrounding grasslands, maintained only by the footsteps of passing Watchmen. Since the effort to repair or rebuild was roughly the same, the fact that someone was managing it at all was a godsend. No relevant authorities were going to jump out and criticize Egger's rerouting, which was why he had dared to issue such a bold command.
The road was originally a straight line running north to south, with Queenscrown sitting at the tip of an offshoot. The rerouting plan turned the straight line into a slight curve, silently integrating Queenscrown into the Kingsroad. In a year or two, everyone would forget what the original road looked like.
The contrast between this new route and the old road was somewhat like a ramp leading to a service area on a highway... except the service area of Queenscrown was a bit further from the road, making the ramp much longer, and it had simply replaced the original main road entirely. As for the "decision made after discussion by the Logistics Department," it didn't actually exist; everything was decided by Egger alone. He simply used the phrasing to avoid giving the Warden of the North the impression that he was acting as a dictator in the Gift.
...
Robb had no way to personally verify the Watchman's words, so he simply nodded after hearing the explanation. "A very good idea. But you didn't consider those who don't intend to pass through Queenscrown. With this reroute, the path is no longer straight, and they'll have to travel several miles more than on the original straight road. Besides, why not set the Night's Watch logistics base at Castle Black or another fortress along the Wall? Why pick a newly built town?"
"The ride from Castle Black to Queenscrown is exactly one day's journey. Whether a traveler is heading south from the Watch's fortresses or north toward the Wall, they must spend a night at roughly this point on the Kingsroad. Since they have to stop anyway, sleeping in a bed in a Queenscrown inn has to be much better than camping out in the wilderness, wouldn't you agree?" Egger replied fluently. "As for why not Castle Black or other fortresses: the functions of a logistics base are fundamentally different from the fortresses along the Wall. It is a distribution center for goods, needing to provide constant supplies to the residents of the Gift. This requires a certain scale of storage space and a significant degree of openness... things that Castle Black cannot achieve or should not have to shoulder."
"Well, you always have a reason!" Robb smiled.
The site for Queenscrown hadn't been chosen at random. With a bit of thought, reasons were easy to find. But the points mentioned above were only some of the benefits of rerouting the Kingsroad—they were the results, not the cause. Egger's true purpose in ordering the reroute was to strengthen the presence of Queenscrown. As an outsider, no matter how hard he worked, he could never be as deeply rooted in influence at the Wall as the knights who held noble status and had been there for years.
Rather than attempting to seize control of established strongholds like Castle Black without a foundation, it was undoubtedly easier and more reliable to build a new, entirely personal base from scratch.
And a location—whether a civilian town or a military fortress—can only truly flourish if it sits on a major thoroughfare or a key position.
"Why are we stopping?" Arya rode her small mare to the front of the line and interjected. "What's there to think about? We definitely won't reach the Wall today, so let's go to Queenscrown. It's an interesting place—great scenery, there's a lake, and you can fish right outside your door!"
Arya had only stayed in Queenscrown for a few days, yet she acted like the host, wanting to entertain her brother. However, while it was true that the place was a day's journey from the Wall, it was no longer the place the girl remembered.
Inside stone walls that were now much taller and sturdier than before, the town's infrastructure had been significantly improved. Outside the walls, countless tents, simple wooden huts, and small houses had been erected. Stalls lined the paths between them, looking like a replica of the Winter Town surrounding Winterfell.
But it was much busier here than the Northern capital for one simple reason: Winterfell's Winter Town was only meant for short-term residence, shelter, and warmth during the coldest seasons. In principle, it only provided space, and people had to bring their own necessities—not to mention it wasn't even deep winter yet. Queenscrown, meanwhile, was the key to survival for nearly thirty thousand 'Gift-dweller' across the Gift. The settlement fees they had received in exchange for grain when passing the Wall had long been spent. To survive, every wildling family or tribe had to follow the rules Egger had set: send able-bodied men and women here to seek work from the Night's Watch Logistics Department, earn wages through hard labor, and quickly exchange them for the goods needed to sustain their family or tribe members.
To this day, the grain the wildlings brought into the Gift had not been exhausted. By deliberately manipulating the prices and supply of various goods to prevent them from hoarding food, no tribe could go ten days without sending someone to Queenscrown. The place was constantly filled with Gift-dweller coming from surrounding settlements to provide labor or trade goods.
And today, to prepare for the leadership inspection, the area had been arranged long in advance. The relevant people had received simple instructions and rehearsals, all waiting for the Warden of the North to see.
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