260 AC
Varg
Varg sat in the lord's chair, a half-empty cup of sour ale dangling from his hand. Six months had crawled by since he'd taken Driftwood Hall, and the realisation hit him like a fist to the gut: the Essosi traders weren't coming.
He'd misjudged the timing, assuming they'd sail in within a couple of months. No, he'd missed their last visit when his father still ranted, and now the horizon stayed stubbornly empty. He slammed the cup down, the dull thud echoing in the hall, and rubbed his temples.
"Six months wasted," he muttered. "Pathetic."
Torv, his scarred captain, lounged nearby, sharpening his axe with slow, deliberate scrapes. The man glanced up, his jagged grin flashing. He was my closest ally here. I made him my new Captain of the Housecarls from my previous ten-man retinue. A new title and bodyguard unit I 'invented' here. A level above man at arms.
"Still brooding over those Essosi, m'lord? Thought you'd be planning to gut 'em by now for keeping you waiting."
Varg snorted, leaning forward. "Oh, how I wish, Torv, how I wish, but then no more traders would come in and no more spices."
Torv chuckled, the sound rough as gravel. "Well, you still got something to occupy you, lord. You've got three swollen bellies to show for it. Better than most lords get in half a decade."
Varg's lips twitched into a smirk. "Aye, that's something. Can you believe it? All three knocked up at once. Didn't think they'd all take at once." He paused, his eyes glinting.
"But you're right, it keeps me warm while I wait for these bastards to sail in."
Torv raised an eyebrow, testing the axe's edge with his thumb. "Warm, eh? Lord, I think you're getting more than warm. Heard Ema muttering about you last night. Said you near broke the bed again. They're soft for you now, those girls."
"They'd better be," Varg shot back, voice low and edged.
These past months, he hadn't been idle. With his personal Housecarl formed, he'd tightened his grip on rule, rooting out dissent among the men-at-arms and servants with a few well-placed axes while trying not to look like a tyrant. He had to be careful, too; he couldn't be seen killing his subjects too openly.
One other thing tribals were known for, besides might makes right, was proto democratic institutions where elders were supposed to be listened to. Fuck this primitive shit. Autocracy was where it's at: a more civilized form of government. Ask anyone, like myself.
The port, at least, was something to work with. It was old, weathered but functional. You needed a port if the local nobility wanted any sort of spices coming in. He'd walked its creaking docks himself yesterday, boots sinking into the salt-soaked planks, barking at the fishermen to patch the nets faster as the wind whipped his bear cloak. Oh, how he loved it.
As Sana, Eina, and Ema were all pregnant in truth, he hadn't expected his seed to take in all three at once, but then again, he'd barely left them alone since that first night.
Days blurred into nights of passionate intercourse and breathless gasps. He ruled the keep by day and claimed them by night, sometimes all day when the mood struck. Sometimes, a primitive lifestyle does have its perks.
A smirk tugged at his lips as he pictured them now, their bellies rounding out those patched wool clothes, their eyes softer. Beautiful.
He'd seen it yesterday in the lord's quarters. Sana, once sharp-tongued and proud, had knelt to adjust his boots without a word, her hazel eyes flicking up to meet his with a quiet, almost eager submission.
"My lord," she'd murmured, voice low, hands lingering on his calf a moment too long.
Eina, the rosier twin, had waddled over with a cup of mead, her braid half undone, her usual nervous chatter replaced by a timid smile as she pressed it into his hand.
"For you," she'd said, with confidence these days. And Ema, her dimple deepening as she rubbed her swollen belly, had stayed close to her sister, watching him with those wide hazel eyes, waiting for his next command like a hound eager to please.
They'd changed, all right, softened up as they should be, better for it, I say.
Surprisingly, House Stane wasn't some upstart rabble. He'd found proof in the keep's so-called library, a damp corner room where he'd kicked aside a rat to pull crumbling books from sagging shelves.
Dozens of them, some so old the pages flaked under his fingers, told a story he hadn't expected. House Stane stretched back to the Age of Heroes, as ancient as the Starks or Hightowers.
He'd sat there half the night, a flickering candle spitting wax onto the table, piecing it together. Driftwood Hall's name made sense now; some mouldy tome claimed it'd once been a weirwood keep, a grand thing before time and centuries of war tore it down to this sad pile of timber. No wonder the chair he sat in felt older and more polished than the rest of this heap.
He snorted, tossing a brittle page aside. Ancient or not, it didn't change the present. No grey rats from the Citadel would come sniffing around to preserve this junk, unfortunately. Oh, how he wished he had a maester. But nah, he was stuck with "wise men".
He'd laughed aloud when he thought of a ridiculous conspiracy from his past life, the idea of those maesters running some grand spy network across Westeros. A conspiracy lasting centuries? Hah. One greedy maester with a loose tongue and a fat purse would've blown it wide open. Retards gonna retard, he thought, shaking his head.
With the Essosi traders a bust until next year at the earliest, Varg's mind turned west. Beyond the Wall, the wildlings squatted in their frozen wastes.
He'd seen their kind once when he was twelve years old; his father dragged him and his brothers to defend against some wildling raid: fur-clad wretches with their stone tipped spears.
They were nothing, but they had numbers, and numbers meant labour. His keep and its outskirts scraped by with a few thousand souls, but it wasn't enough. He needed bodies, disposable ones, to turn this rock into something more than a cannibal's backwater. A grand vikingr, that's what he'd arrange, raiding west, cracking wildling skulls, and hauling back thralls.
That evening, Varg summoned Sana, Eina, and Ema to the lord's quarters once more. The door thudded shut behind them, sealing the chamber.
Sana stepped forward first, her swollen belly straining her wool shift, but her hazel eyes held a spark of that old defiance softened by months of his rule. She knelt before him, hands resting on his thighs as she looked up, her voice a low purr.
"My lord," she said, her fingers tracing upward with a boldness that made his blood stir. Eina followed, her rosy cheeks flushed as she pressed herself against his side, her breath warm against his neck.
"We've been waiting," she whispered, her timid smile gone, replaced by a hungry edge as she nipped at his ear.
Ema slid onto his other side, her hands roaming his chest, her swollen form pressing close.
Their eagerness fuelled his lust, and he pulled them into the furs, a tangle of heat and moans filling the night. Varg's last thoughts: Was he in heaven?
The next morning, Varg stood on the port's docks, the wind punching at his face as he barked orders.
"Load the cog with axes and extra spears," he growled at the men scurrying about.
Torv loomed at his side, overseeing the Housecarls as they hauled barrels of salt fish and bundled furs aboard.
The raid beyond the Wall was no joke now; soon, there would be action.
He'd take fifty of his best equipped men at arms and his ten Housecarls west to the wildling coast and raid them until the cog was full.
"We'll need more chains too," Torv added, voice cold.
"Drill the men today. I want them sharp, not sloppy. We leave in three days."
Torv nodded, his grin widening.
"Aye, m'lord. They'll be ready to crack some wildling skulls."