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Ch.76: Ygritte
🕑 Added 2025-02-25 07:48:45 +0000 UTCBolton Lands
POV of Domeric Bolton
Domeric planted the sapling on the ground and then started drawing runes around it. Runes would make it grow at a far faster rate than an average plant so that the Weirwood sapling would reach the size of a 2-3 story building in a matter of months instead of the usual decades.
Once he was done with the runes, he took out his wand and cast a few powerful charms on the ground to make it more fertile.
"What are you doing?" the red-haired girl of about his age asked from behind him.
He turned around and rolled his eyes to her. "What does it look like I'm doing Ygritte?"
"It looks to me like you're using your stick to do your dark voodoo magic on the little plant. Are you going to turn it into a little rabbit too?" she asked as she sat down and looked curiously at the sapling he had just planted.
"No. That rabbit transfiguration… it was a one-time thing. And it's not dark voodoo magic. Where do you even learn such things from?" he asked in exasperation.
The girl shrugged. Not deigning to answer him. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"What? Planting the saplings?" he asked. She nodded. "It's a hobby of mine." He said and shrugged.
"What's a hobby?" she asked. "Is it something you can eat?"
He opened his mouth to speak but then closed it once again and thought about it as he spoke "A hobby is something you do in your free time for your enjoyment."
"Like fucking?" Ygritte asked and he opened his mouth once again before he closed it and gave her a look.
"Aren't you a bit too young to know about it?" he asked and as he asked that question, he wondered if 'Fucking' counted as a hobby. True it was something that people do in their free time for their enjoyment but there was so much more to the act of having sex than that.
The girl scoffed at him "Your lordlings sit in your towers and think that not talking about things makes you so much better than us. How do you think your mother had you? By being fucked by your father. That's how."
Yeeeah… he really didn't need that image in his mind. He doubted that he would be able to think about James and Lily the same way ever again.
"Don't you have to go to school?" he asked, and the girl ducked her head and looked away. "Does Karsi know that you're skipping your classes? Again."
Indeed, one of the few conditions that he had given to the free folk before they came to his lands was that they would have to send their children to the school he had created outside Dreadfort.
Creating a building for it, along with the uniforms, and books, providing food and black slates for the students, and paying and providing for the teachers were just a few of the things he needed to do in order to start a school in this medieval world.
It was nothing compared to Hogwarts. A place that he studied at for 7 years. But it was a start.
And he wanted the free folk children as well as the children living in Dreadfort and the surrounding areas to come to school to learn.
And since he was the lord of his lands, his word was the law.
Especially if he himself provided books, uniforms, and food for the children.
Aunt Barbrey never quite saw the benefit of having a school and 'teaching smallfolk things beyond their station' and considered it a waste of his wealth but this was one of the few things that he didn't budge on.
"It's boring. And a waste of time anyway." Ygritte complained while kicking a stone "It's not like learning how to write a fancy letter is going to fill my stomach at the end of the day."
He looked at her and let out a sigh.
"Since you're here, you might as well come and help me with this instead of being idle." He said as he took out another sapling from inside his bottomless pouch.
"Sure." She shrugged and started taking out the dirt with a shovel.
Well, whatever you might say about the free folk, they at least didn't shy away from hard work.
It was probably why he gave them 10,000 cattle and 20,000 sheep, 20,000 goats, and 1000 horses to tend.
The unfortunate fact about them living in the True North was that the land there was always covered with snow so they couldn't plant anything on the earth. Which led to them being totally ignorant about farming.
But what they did have was the experience of tending to the goats and cows that were able to survive in the cold and the knowledge to make clothes and other essentials from the bodies of those animals.
This was why instead of giving them free land to farm, he instead provided them with animals, that they could easily look after.
He might have to provide them with some food for now but once they're set up, he would start receiving a steady supply of milk, beef, leather, and manure from them.
And for those men among the free folk who still wanted to fight and pillage, he conscripted them in his hidden army which has now grown up to 2500 infantry, 1000 archers, and 500 cavalries.
The leader of the free folk in his lands, Karsi told him the free folk who live in these new lands are content with their life a lot.
He was glad to hear that.
It seems that so far, the risk he'd taken to bring free folk within his lands was paying off.
Then he remembered the 2000-something people that he rejected and left behind in Hardhome due to their violent nature and wondered if they'd cause trouble for him down the line.
Even if they did decide to get violent, it was not like they would be any problem for him as long as the Wall stands between the North and the 'True' North.
