Chapter 223

Regarding the mountain clans' overenthusiastic hospitality, Aegor had been warned beforehand, so he wasn’t particularly surprised. Out of respect for local customs and courtesy, he and Jaime accepted the company of two young women who visited their tent late at night, sharing their bedding and blankets. Among the clanfolk, the women could be considered attractive, but Aegor and Jaime weren’t yet close enough as comrades to engage in anything unseemly together. As such, "warming the bed" really was just that—nothing more.

After bidding farewell to the Flint Clan, Aegor visited the Wull Clan, located to the west near the Bay of Ice. The terms he had worked out with the elder Flint were a mutually satisfying agreement, so Aegor presented the same deal without alteration. He successfully secured the Wull Clan’s agreement to settle in the Gift.

With the promise of two fortresses and provisions, Aegor brought two of the largest mountain clans into the Gift, adding nearly three thousand new settlers. Their inclusion gave him confidence in the viability of his plan. However, it also raised a new concern: if he failed to control the number of reinforcements, the influx could overwhelm the Wall's resources, leaving him with a logistical disaster.

The Wall had sixteen abandoned castles, and the ideal scenario would be to garrison them all. This meant similar agreements would need to be made with at least fourteen more clans. It was neither practical nor appropriate for Aegor to handle all these negotiations personally. As the Chief Logistics Officer, he couldn’t afford to waste time on repetitive tasks. Since the terms had proven effective, he decided to delegate the work.

Aegor selected five of his more capable soldiers, carefully explained the conditions and details of the agreement, and sent them southward with guides and warriors provided by the Wull Clan to approach other nearby clans. Meanwhile, he and Jaime returned to Castle Black.

Reinforcements could be secured, but Aegor needed to ensure two things first: one, that Mormont would approve the terms; and two, that the reinforcements would be in position before the wildlings launched their full assault.

...

After Aegor explained the situation, Mormont agreed to the plan. The Night’s Watch was in no position to be picky—if the wildlings could be repelled, it didn’t matter if the clansfolk ended up living in Castle Black itself.

Once Aegor finished reporting, Mormont shared the latest updates on the Wall’s defenses and some good news. The wildlings encamped outside Castle Black had begun to disperse, likely carrying out Mance Rayder’s attack strategy as Ygritte had described. Although King Stannis had taken most of his forces south, he had dispatched a dozen swift warships to support Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. With this naval reinforcement, any attempt to cross the Bay of Seals had been effectively blocked.

Now, the Night’s Watch only needed to intercept two groups: those scaling the Wall and those crossing the Gorge. If they succeeded, they could deliver a decisive victory in what was shaping up to be the largest wildling invasion in a thousand years.

After discussing the allocation of the sixteen fortresses and the resettlement of the new inhabitants, Aegor received a letter from King's Landing, detailing the current state of the Night’s Watch’s industries.

...

Following Renly’s sudden death and Stannis’s bloodless reclamation of the Iron Throne, the new king continued his sweeping reforms in King’s Landing. He suppressed the Faith of the Seven, promoted the worship of R’hllor, and began purging “immoral” industries. Unsurprisingly, the Night’s Watch’s enterprises were affected. The printing of the Seven-Pointed Star and other risqué publications had to cease, and even the brothel Aegor had acquired from Littlefinger was forced to close.

However, the strategy of diversifying their investments paid off during this upheaval. Although some operations suffered, others—such as obsidian, cosmetics, and textiles—quickly recovered and even expanded. Nina, Aegor’s agent in King’s Landing, reassigned the dismissed brothel workers to the Watch’s restaurants and inns, where they continued gathering intelligence. She also secured new, “respectable” printing contracts, minimizing the negative impact of Stannis’s reforms.

One unexpected breakthrough came from the alchemist Aegor had tasked with improving their products. While experimenting with lipstick and soap, the alchemist managed to stabilize wildfire into a solid form. By adding various ingredients, the once volatile liquid was transformed into a paste-like substance with vastly improved stability and a higher ignition point. It no longer risked spontaneous combustion and couldn’t even be ignited with boiling water.

Although the solidified wildfire didn’t function as a liquid explosive as Aegor had hoped, its adhesive and incendiary properties far surpassed those of conventional oils or tar. This development turned wildfire into a superior incendiary weapon, capable of being transported and deployed on a large scale.

...

At the end of the letter, Aegor learned another piece of news that had previously been unclear from Castle Black. To punish the Crownlands families who had supported Renly’s claim, Stannis had confiscated their lands and wealth, arrested key family members for treason, and redistributed their assets to his loyalists.

Among these confiscated assets were shares in the Night’s Watch’s industries. Major investors, including the Buckwell family, had lost their stakes, which Stannis then returned to the Night’s Watch as a gesture of support. As a result, Aegor, who had previously funneled over half of the profits to these backers, now controlled nearly eighty percent of the enterprise’s income.

Though the Night’s Watch’s industries were still limited to the Crownlands and the Riverlands, the monthly profits now exceeded one thousand gold dragons. With this wealth, feeding the mountain clans in the Gift was laughably easy.

With funds secured, Aegor’s resettlement plan could proceed boldly. However, he soon faced a new dilemma. The fall of the Crownlands nobility left a power vacuum, but this void wouldn’t remain for long. Loyalist families would soon rise, claiming resources and challenging the dominance of the Night’s Watch’s industries. To ensure future growth, Aegor needed to invest in building alliances with these emerging families.

But Aegor was also at a critical juncture. Should he prioritize reinvesting in the industries for long-term gains, or divert profits to support the Wall and his grand plan immediately? It was a choice between fishing for a big catch or slaughtering the chicken for its eggs.

Ordinarily, the answer would be obvious. But Aegor had no choice but to focus on the latter. The Wall was the foundation of this entire game. If he hoarded profits while neglecting the Wall’s defenses, even survival would be in question when Stannis inevitably came knocking.

Standing at the crossroads of “making more money” and “doing something monumental,” Aegor was swept down the latter path by necessity.