Chapter 153

The Vale. The Bloody Gate. 299 AC.

Lord Axel Arryn.

After the victory in the War of Wrath, when men had fought side by side with the Valar's army against their fallen brother, a wave of patriotism had swept through the Númenóreans, one that frequently crossed into something uglier. We had not considered ourselves the finest of Men without reason. In lifespan, wisdom, intelligence, martial prowess, technological achievement, cultural development, and a dozen other disciplines besides, we stood far above every other people. I had not escaped that particular vice myself, and it was honestly difficult to respect men who scratched at the earth with sticks while your own people raised structures that would astonish the world for thousands of years.

I have always held that every self-respecting patriot ought to have a reason for his love of home, whether it is history, political order, economic development, cultural values, or something else entirely. From the fragments of my memory I could say with certainty that my own boundless respect for the Númenóreans was rooted in their ability to build. Osgiliath, Minas Tirith, Minas Ithil, Isengard, Pelargir: they had stood for thousands of years and would stand for thousands more. Barely a dozen castles across all of Westeros could approach that standard, and even those had been substantially rebuilt and patched over the centuries.

The secret lay in concrete. It was used in every construction project for its durability and accessibility. Naturally I knew the formula and intended to use it in my future works. The ingredients were practically underfoot, save one: volcanic ash. The nearest source was Dragonstone. While I was still Hand, I had managed to quickly reach an agreement with Stannis for regular deliveries of the material I needed. In my imagination I had already begun building a castle the world had never seen, but the onset of civil war had sobered me abruptly. The ash shipments stopped, I recognized my dependence on external supply, and I wound down several projects, keeping only the metal-extracting fortresses in the Mountains of the Moon.

The mines had been in operation less than a year, yet they had already brought meaningful changes. To simplify the economic chain: the more iron, the cheaper it becomes, and the more accessible the finished goods. From there: the more orders, the more craftsmen grow in number, the more it serves my plans very well. A year was not enough to increase the number of master smiths, but apprentices and journeymen were a different matter. From that followed a derivative: better arms and armor, which I was looking at with considerable satisfaction now.

"Magnificent," said the two-meter giant watching the marching column. "This is exactly how I pictured an army. You have done excellent work, my lord."

A broad, recently built road, constructed to Númenórean standards, one that would serve for centuries to come. The method is almost insultingly simple, and even across the span of my memory the principle has not left me: first mark the future route, excavate the section of road to depth, level and compact it, then lay a foundation of medium stones and fill over them with rubble, sand, or a thin layer of gravel. The next layer consists of fine sand, lime, or earth, which produces a surface that is yielding but firm. Finally, closely fitted dressed stone or basalt is laid on top. Such rapid progress was achieved by sending the bulk of the captured mountain clansmen to the work. They were not spared, and were driven to the full extent of their endurance until death, which is why burial mounds appeared at intervals along the road's length.

It had irritated me since the Greyjoy Rebellion that every house armed its men as it saw fit. Some soldiers wore mail, some plate, some arrived in little more than a shirt. That disparity degraded overall fighting strength. The only exceptions worth noting were the Lannisters and, in a certain sense, the Starks. The Old Lion had frightened his vassals thoroughly enough that they were compelled to equip their soldiers according to the lion house's template. I respected him for it, though I was certain that with Tywin's death the practice would collapse, for what could be more humiliating to a proud lord than fighting in another man's colors? Among the Starks the situation was tied to widespread poverty and the ready availability of leather armor, which was why the overwhelming majority of northerners wore broadly similar kit.

That kind of disparity among my own troops I had no intention of tolerating. Immediately after the Fish Rebellion I had moved to change it. Through negotiation, argument, a degree of bribery, and in some cases outright threats, standardized equipment had been introduced across the Vale, with all the major houses in agreement and allowances made for each house's colors. An ambitious project, and a slow one: only part of the combined army met the standard as yet. That did not trouble me. According to plan we still had a few years in hand.

"My thanks, Ser Jasper, though we have all worked hard in the time that has passed." My companion said nothing to that.

Ser Jasper Redfort was heir to Redfort and my second-in-command for the coming campaign. He had once been an arrogant, contemptuous ass who had led his men into an obvious trap and forced me to put myself in serious danger on his account. But that man had died on that battlefield and been reborn. Jasper was heir to one of the strongest houses in the Vale, and naturally I had been watching him. What I observed pleased me. That battle had stripped away everything superfluous and tempered what was best in him. Before long the Vale would have one more capable commander to its name.

"My lord," he said at last, coming to the point. "You have fought in many battles. You have killed thousands of enemies and lost hundreds of friends. Tell me: how does one go forward when the men you shared your whole life with are dead because of your ambitions?"

Across my many lives I had buried so many friends that I could not begin to count them. Thousands, tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. And the most wretched part was that I could not remember their faces, their names, their habits, nothing. Losing people had become natural to me, but that was not the answer he was looking for.

"You need a purpose. A fixed point. Something that carries you forward through every difficulty. And if that purpose is fulfilled, then nothing was in vain." A grim look was his answer, for we both knew that the deaths of his men had been Jasper's own doing, and that contradiction was eating him from the inside. "History remembers kings, not the warriors who gave their lives in his name. A century from now no one will recall them. They will dissolve into the sands of time. But the memory of those desperate guardsmen will live on alongside your own story. How long the world remembers the guards of Redfort depends entirely on you."