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Ch.93: Tourney Starts
🕑 Added 2025-03-04 06:00:45 +0000 UTCDreadfort Castle
POV of Domeric Bolton
The next few days went by in a flurry of activities as various lords from all across the North arrived in Dreadfort for the tourney.
They were all astonished by the amount of wealth on display in his lands and quite a few of them tried to arrange a betrothal for him with their daughters. Lord Manderly himself talked with him six times about having a betrothal with one of his granddaughters.
And while he would admit that it was a little flattering at the start, it got annoying far too quickly for him.
By the end of another week, almost all the lords from the North had arrived in Dreadfort and he finally started the tourney.
Unlike the South, the North don't have very many horsemen or knights. And even those who knew how to ride a horse didn't know how to use a lance with it. So, he skipped the joust entirely and started with melee.
But instead of having people fight one-on-one against each other, he had people sign as a group and fight in group vs group fights.
This led to all the great houses forming their own groups while the smaller houses joined together to form a decent block of warriors on their own.
It was quite fascinating to watch.
The competition was especially tense because instead of gold or silver as a reward, he had decided to give 1000 full-plate armor as a reward for the 1st group, 100 horses for the runner-up, and 50 swords for the 3rd place.
These things might be expensive for other lords but not for him. For example, a full plate armor easily would cost between 10 gold dragons to 30 gold dragons depending on how good it was. And his frost steel armors sold for about 25 gold dragons.
But their production cost was only 5 gold dragons at best. So, in truth, he was giving away a reward of 5,000 gold dragons while to the others it seemed like he was giving a reward of 25,000 gold dragons.
Not that he would have faced any particular problems by giving away 25,000 gold dragons as a reward. But years of living near poverty under the Dursleys taught him to save money so he had the habit of trying to save wealth whenever he could get away with it.
Other than the Melee, there were other individual and group competitions as well.
The group section of 'tug-of-war' became especially famous as the other lords like Greatjon Umber, Rickard Karstark and Lord Ned Stark himself descended on the field to lead their teams in this show of strength.
Lord Greatjon Umber became even more pumped when Domeric told them that the winner would get to take part in a tug-of-war against a single giant.
The whole tourney lasted for a whole week and there was a festive atmosphere in his domain during that whole time.
Of course, he had to import some whores from the brothels to serve as tavern waitresses and maids during this week as he would have been pissed if some lordling tried to paw at the women working in his castle just because they were 'smallfolk' and no cares about them.
Regardless of the precautions his subordinates had taken, he still increased the number of Bolton guards in Dreadfort by 3 times and the police force in the outside town by 5 times to maintain order.
13 men were sent to Nights Watch during this time because they tried to rape the women in the town. Of course, all of them were caught before the act could happen, thanks to all the precautions he had taken in place.
Some lords grumbled about him sending their men to the Wall when the rape didn't even take place. He did not neglect to deal them a new blow with his own counter-arguments.
He might have made a few enemies among the small lords, but the other lords got his message clear enough and started to reign in their men after that.
No one wanted to be humiliated by their own host in front of the whole North.
Lord Stark seemed especially proud of him for protecting his people with such fervor.
The other matter of importance was the number of spies that tried to infiltrate the town and Dreadfort during this week.
Thankfully, he had already created and completed the equivalent of the Marauder Map for his lands along with the intent sensing capabilities. With its help, his spy mistress Lyra was able to rout out each and all the spies sent to spy on him by Varys, Littlefinger, the Queen, Tywin Lannister, Olenna Tyrell, Braavosi merchants, Myrish merchants, Pentoshi merchants, etc.
His men from the Interrogation Department captured those spies in the dead of night, interrogated them during the night, and sent them packing to the Wall by morning.
Lord Jeor Mormont was especially happy with all the new recruits he had sent them this time with the biyearly support items of food, gold, and clothes.
Domeric also had to make time to meet with all the lords of the greater houses one by one to set up business proposals with them and make them aware of the things they could accomplish with his support.
He was glad that he had people like his aunt, Celly, and a host of other competent subordinates who were able to keep the castle and the whole tournament running without him having to worry about it.
He did not doubt that he would be truly lost if he didn't have these people working under him.
