FicWad

Chapter 49: The new order
EDRIC

POP!

When I arrived at Last Hearth, they were under a full assault by the Army of the Dead! I ran to the top of the castle wall and started casting Fiendfyre after Fiendfyre. Every time I did, the Wight Walkers would counter with a blast of frigid air that would blow out my flames. Even so, each initial blast would make a hole in the wights that they would rush to re-fill. I even got a Wight Walker once, taking a few hundred wights with it. But another Wight Walker would come along and revive any of the deactivated wights or Wight Walkers that I had not burned away. This went on for hours. By the end I was too magically exhausted to cast and had resorted to stabbing with my valerian steel sword, just like everyone else was doing with their obsidian spears. Finally, they stopped coming. The Others were retreating for now, but I knew that they were still out there, surrounding the castle, just out of bowshot.

I staggered down the stairs and went looking for the kitchen. Casting the Fidelitus takes a lot of power. I’m not sure I will ever be able to teach any of my students how to do it. I barely had enough left in me to stand, much less do a Fidelitus. I need to get some food in me. The kitchen had several women in various stages of food preparation. I staggered over to one who looked a lot like Sansa. She was a little older, perhaps mid-twenties, but her hair was the exact same shade of red as Sansa’s. I could easily see Sansa looking like this in a few years.

“Food!” I moaned.

“Yes, m’lord,” said the cook, in an accent that was slightly more Northern than Sansa’s, and she ladled me a bowl of stew and handed it to me with a spoon.

I sat on the counter while she went back to cooking and ate my stew. When she heard me scraping the bottom she took the bowl from me.

“More, m’lord?” she asked.

I shook my head.

“Then perhaps some wine?” she asked. “We still have some left.”

“That would be nice,” I agreed.

She went over to a barrel on tap, and poured me some in a goblet which she handed to me. I just sat on on the counter watching he as she worked and sipping my wine. Slowly, I could feel my magic renewing. When I finished the goblet, she took it and asked:

“Is there something else I can do for you, m’lord?”

I still had a hunger of a different sort, the kind you get after a battle with the Others.

“Is there a place we can go that’s more private?” I asked her.

She gave me a smile, and answered: “Of course, m’lord! Right this way!”

She took me by the hand and led me into the pantry.

As I began making advances on her, she seemed enthusiastically willing. There was a barrel that was just the right height standing on end that she could sit on the edge of it while I took her. I was really getting into dogging her. She looked so much like Sansa and inside she felt just like her. She made those soft little moans that Sansa makes when she’s enjoying it and that brought me over the edge! I finished inside her and hugged her close so I could whisper in her ear:

“I love you Sansa!”

“Thank you, m’lord,” the cook replied.

It was like someone had thrown a buck of cold water on me! I pulled out of her and jumped back! Calling up my wand, I cast the charm, which revealed that she and I had just made a baby. I’d done it again! I’d made another bastard! Sansa is going to kill me if she finds out!

“M’lord?” asked the cook as she tried to pull her dress back down.

“I’m sorry,” I told her. “I just put my bastard in you. But I will see that you are taken care of. And when he’s old enough I will foster him with me. But I’m going to need an oath from you. What’s your name?”

“Branwen, m’lord,” she replied.

“I’m Edric Peverel, Lord of the Twins,” I told her. “Give me our hand.
Do you promise not to reveal that I am the father of this child to anyone without my permission?”

“Aye, m’lord. I promise,” said Branwen

“And I promise that you will always have a home to live in and food to eat and that, when our child is old enough, I will foster him or her.”

The snake of light wrapped around our wrists and the spell was done. After I explained everything about how the magical vow worked, I asked her:

“Is there a guest room I could stay in?”

She took me to a spare room set a side for noble visitors. After leading me in she asked:

“Is there anything else I can do for you m’lord?”

I gazed at her for a moment in silence. She looked so much like Sansa! And I’d already knocked her up. I couldn’t make her more more pregnant . . . .

“Branwen, this is an invitation, not an order . . . “ I told her. “You may refuse it you wish . . . but . . . would you like to sleep with me?”

She smiled widely and shut the door, so no one would disturb us. I seduced her again and the next morning, I had her again before she rose to make the morning meal.

After I broke my fast I asked where I could find Lord Umber. I was pointed to the small boy sitting in the middle of the high table on the dais. I approached him.

“Lord Umber?” I asked.

“Are you the wizard that saved us last night?” asked the boy Lord.

“Yes. If I could have a moment of you time after you finish breaking your fast?” I requested.

“No need to wait,” replied Lord Umber. “We can talk now? What do you need?”

“Lord Stark sent me,” I explained. “I can cast a spell that will make Last Hearth Invisible to the Others. They will still be able to get you if you go outside. But inside the castle, you will be safe. They won’t even attack anymore.”

“Sounds good!” replied Lord Umber. “Cast away!”

After everyone had broken their fast, Lord Ned Umber gathered all his people in the central courtyard, I cast the Fidelitus, and made Lord Ned Umber the secret keeper, who told everyone the secret. They made me stay for their celebration through the noon and evening meals before they would let me leave.

POP!

My next destination was the Karhold. When I arrived it looked deserted. No one was manning the walls and the castle gates were broken open. I cast a repairo to restore the gate and began searching There was light coming from one building, so that seemed like a good place to start.

I entered the Great Hall to find a few dozen men in the midst of a party.

“Excuse me, where can I find Lord Karstark?” I asked an old man.

He was still wearing his armor and nursing a drink.

“All the Lords Karstark are dead,” answered the old man. “But Lady Karstark is over there.”

He pointed to a group of men gathered around like they did after a battle at Winterfell to take turns with a Free Folk woman. I advanced to where I could see and found a red-haired woman in the midst of a gang bang. A man was dogging her while she had another man in her mouth and one in each hand. The rest of the men were standing over her wanking it. She looked like she was enjoying herself. So I didn’t interfere. Instead I went in search of the castle’s library. They’d obviously just had a battle. I would wait until morning to speak with Lady Karstark.

I’d meant to grab a book and do a little reading before bed, but I found a fascinating novel of about the early days of the Karhold that I couldn’t put down. I ended up staying up, reading by wand light until I heard the rattling chain of the maester approaching. When he stepped into the room, he was younger than I expected. In fact, I’d seen his face before. The was the one I saw dogging Lady Karstark last night!

“Oh! I wondered who was in here,” said the maester. “How are you doing that thing with the light.”

“It’s magic,” I replied. “I’m a wizard. Can you tell Lady Karstark that I would like to speak with her?”

“Of course my lord,” said the maester, before he walked back down the hall.

It was a couple of hours later before he returned and told me:

“Lady Karstark will see you in her solar, now.”

He showed me the way and announced me before letting me in. Lady Karstark was sitting behind her desk. She had cleaned herself up a lot since I last saw her and looked very elegant in a fancy green dress with golden yellow suns embroidered on it. He hair was a dark red and immaculately brushed in a feathery style. I’m glad Sansa doesn’t know what I’m thinking right now, because she is gorgeous! Even prettier than Sansa!

“Thank you for seeing me Lady Karstark,” I greeted her.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” replied Lady Karstark. “How long have you been here?”

“Since last night,” I told her.

“You didn’t! . . . . You didn’t see! . . . “ said Lady Karstark.

“I’m afraid I did see, though I chose not to participate,” I replied.

She buried her face in her hands for a moment before looking up at me with tears running down her cheeks.

“I thought I was going to die!” she explained. “The Dead came, again and again and killed so many of us! Last time they broke our gates down and when they left, we couldn’t even stop them from taking our dead with them! I realized that I don’t have enough men to defend the castle anymore and that next time they’d kill us all! So I thought, why not? No one will ever know! But now you know and I’ve ruined myself forever. If I survive this I’ll never get a husband! And even if I did, what if he finds out what I did?”

“You don’t need to be so upset,” I told her. “These kinds of things happen after a battle with the Others. I’ve seen the Free Folk women do this lots of times at Winterfell after we fight the others. Though usually, they take the men one at a time.”

“Free Folk?” asked Lady Karstark.

“You would call them Wildings,” I explained.

“Wildings! I’m worse than a Wilding!” exclaimed Lady Karstark. “What can I do to buy your silence? I’m already a ruined woman, so I will take you to bed if you want? Just so long as you don’t tell anyone what you saw me do!”

“Lady Karstark, You don’t have to buy my silence,” I explained. “What you did is between you and your men. However, if you are afraid of your future husband finding out, perhaps you should chose yours from amongst the men who were there? After all, they know what you did, because they helped you do it.

But the real reason Lord Stark sent me here was to cast a spell that will hide the Karhold from the Others so that they will not be able to find it. The Spell will hide the location of your keep from everyone who you have not told the secret to. If you feel you do not have enough men left to hold the castle, perhaps you should come with me back to Winterfell. The secret of the Karhold’s location will remain with you until you die and then pass on to anyone you told the secret to. If you tell it to your children, then perhaps at a later point your descendants could return to reclaim the Karhold?”

“That sounds like a good Idea,” replied Lady Karstark.

And so, I made several portkeys to send her men to Winterfell before Casting the Fidelitus Charm for her. She didn’t even tell me the secret. So I have no idea where her old castle is. I sent her and myself to Winterfell with one last Portkey.



TORMUND

This valerian steel stuff was pretty interesting. Brienne and I did some experimenting with it. As it turns out, The Sword of Icy Fire could not cut through it, and it could not cut through the sword. This allowed us to spar using the Sword and her new sword and shield without danger of breaking them. Still, it seemed a waste to only use them for sparing, not when the Others were still out there. To tell the truth, we were starting to get bored with Winterfell, now that if had become a safe haven.

But we had heard that the kneeler wizard Lord Edric was traveling around the North to save who he could and we decided that we wanted to go with him. So when people started appearing in the Gods’ Wood, we nabbed him on his was to get Lord Robb to tell the secret to these new people and asked to travel with him.

“Well, actually, I was planing to go to Riverrun and see my family before I go out again,” replied Edric. “But you’re welcome to come along.”


EDRIC

It was good to see Sansa and the baby again. I’d brought Tormund and Brienne along and they were amazed to meet the children of the Forrest. Before we went back North again, Margaery asked me to retrieve Lady Blackwood and her Ladies-in-waiting, of which, there was only one, from Raventree Hall. Once that was accomplished, I made a portkey to transport Brienne, Tormund and I to White Harbor.


When we arrived, the city was under attack. So we rushed to the city walls to help defend them. But before I did, I made a time delayed portkey so I could return to Sansa after the battle. I knew I would be unable to do this after the battle. Once on the walls, I cast spell after spell on the wights to destroy them until I was magically exhausted, then used my new valerian steel sword on them, which worked very well and would kill them in one stab, just like the dragon glass would. The battle went on for hours before the Others retreated back into the blinding blizzard. Once the battle was over, I activated my portkey, leaving Tormund and Brienne to fend for themselves in the city, as I went back to the arms of my loving wife.


MARGAERY

I’d called together the most important women in the Riverlands, Lady Blackwood was there with her Lady-in-waiting, a younger, prettier woman in her early twenties. From Riverrun, I had invited all the most important, influential women including: Meera, Sansa, Mycella, Rosalyn, Cat, Osha, the head cook and even Blossom, to represent the Children of the Forrest. Everyone was told to bring their needlework so that it would appear to be just some women gossiping while they worked on their embroidery. Once we were all along in the Great Hall, I had the doors locked and asked Sansa to do some magic to make certain we were not overheard.

“Why have you summoned us, Lady Tully?” asked Lady Blackwood. “What is this?”

“What this is,” I answered, “is a coup. I called you all together so that we women can overthrow the men and set ourselves up as the rulers of the Riverlands. But first, I need to give you a little background as to why we need to do this:

Recently, I have been inventorying the supplies. I’m concerned about the amount of food we have, and that’s another issue. But I realized that in our preparations for winter, we’d made an oversight. Our supply of moon-tea is too small. If we all keep using it, I estimate that there is only enough left for for a week. Once it’s gone, if we have sex, we’re likely to have children. And we all know what happens after we or our men have fought a battle agains the Others.

We need to face the fact, that the World has Ended. That world we grew up in where we had spring and could grow things and step outside our castle, gone forever. We’ve had a good long summer, which means the winter is likely to be long too. But this winter is unlike any other in millenniae. Only in legend have the Dead ever come with the winter storms. By the time spring comes everything will be different. Men who were Lords will become small folk and small folk may become Lords, even some Wildlings may rise to become rulers in some places. But if everything is changing, we can, if we stand together as women, make those changes work out to our advantage.

So, here is what I propose: Inheritance will now become matrilenial. Paternity will no longer matter as all children will be assumed to be the true born children of their mothers. At the same time, we should abolish the entire concept of bastardy. If all children are true-born, then no one can be a bastard.”

“So I wouldn’t be a bastard anymore?” asked Mycella.

“Yes,” I told her. “You could change your name to Lannister or if you got married, you could take your husband’s name or you could just make up a name like some bastards do when they become a knight. I plan to keep my husband’s name. I rather like being Lady Tully. But you could chose otherwise.”

“What about the names of Children?” asked Rosalyn. ”Would they take the mother’s name or the father’s.”

“Since all children would be true born children of their mothers, they would have their mother’s name regardless of who sired them,” I explained. “So, for example, I plan to remain Lady Tully and hope to have all my children sired by my husband, Bran. So all of my children would be Tullys like me. But if, after a battle, I ended up in some orgy and some other man helped me make a baby, that child would still be my true-born child and thus, a Tully.”

“What if we wanted to preserve a family name?” asked Meera. “If I’m going to start having babies, I’d like to preserve the Rede name. But at the same time, I’d like to have more status than just Bran’s mistress. Is there some way I could be like, an assistant wife?”

“I don’t see why you couldn’t be a second wife to Bran or even be MY wife.” I told her. “And if you kept the Rede name, your children could be Redes too.”

“Like in the ‘Rock of the Rock’,” offered Lady Blackwood.

“Exactly. In fact, since there are so many more men who have survived than women, it might behoove some of us to take on more than one husband,” I suggested.

“This is just like the Free Folk do it,” commented Osha. “I man can have as many women as he can steal. But if a woman is too strong, sometimes a couple of men will team up to steal her and share her.”

“So we’re going to turn into a pack of Wildlings!” asked Lady Blackwood.

“Not necessarily,” I told her. “This is about putting power in the hands of women so that we can make our own choices. Some women might even chose to marry other women, like I would like to with Meera.”

“Our people don’t have these kinds of problems,” observed Blossom. “If we want to mate with someone, we do. Sometimes we form short-term emotional attachments, but they don’t last for life like they do for you. A few decades is usual, a century at most. And even when we are in an intense emotional relationship, we still mate other people when we want to.”

“I love you Sansa,” said Mycella. “And the idea of being your wife or your co-wife to Edric has appeal. But I would like to have my OWN husband and my OWN name. If we do this, I think I want to stop being your Lady.”

“I understand,” said Sansa, as she gave her a hug.

“So we’re all agreed?” I asked. “The women are in charge now?”

People around the room nodded their assent.

“Great!” I announced. “I’ll tell Bran, and it will become the new Riverlands way of doing things.”