Wizard Lord of Westeros-Chapter 87: Rice Wine and Whiskey

Dreadfort Castle

POV of Eddard Stark

Eddard Stark sat in a guest room overlooking the settlement growing outside Dreadfort and gazed out at the horizon while drinking wine from a glass.

He was usually not one to give in to his vices, but the wine was made by none other than Lord Bolton. It was a wine made from fermented rice.

He still didn't know what to think about it.

It was a decent drink, he would admit. And cheap. It was so cheap that even the smallfolk could easily afford it without much difficulty.

It was no match for Arbor Gold or Dornish Red, and he doubted it was supposed to match those drinks, but it kept him warm.

He had seen it being sold in the taverns owned by Lord Bolton. Along with rice wine, another new drink called Whiskey, which consists of fermented rye, wheat, and barley, is also being sold.

"How's the drink, my lord?" Celly Jeastro, the CEO of the various businesses owned by Lord Bolton, asked in a soft voice from the chair beside him. He still had no idea what that "CEO" word meant.

"It's... more than good enough for the small amount of copper that has been paid for it." He replied diplomatically. Hah! And wasn't that a joke? He, Eddard Stark, was being diplomatic. Well, let it not be said that he didn't try.

"A wise answer," Celly said with a small smile. "I do not doubt that you heard the term wine and started comparing it to the vintage made by the Redwynes. But in truth, this particular vintage and Whiskey are much easier to make. So easier to make in fact, that Lord Bolton could open a small distillery in any village within his lands and they'll be able to provide him with a steady supply of Wine and Whiskey after a little instruction."

"I... see." He didn't. He had no idea why she was offering him these vintages or telling him how easy they were to make.

If this had been done by the lady of some poor House, he would have thought that they were trying to ask him to invest in this small venture of theirs.

But by now, he had seen enough displays of wealth to know that the Boltons were far ahead of the Starks in terms of wealth.

"Do you?" the woman asked with a raised eyebrow and a challenging stare. "Do you really understand the significance of the presence of a wine distillery in each and every village in the Bolton Lands?"

"No. I don't." He said, going back to his usual cold bluntness. So much for diplomacy.

The woman smiled once again. But it was not a condescending smile even if it irritated him to no end.

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"The presence of a wine distillery in each and every village will mean that the people of that village will have another source of income aside from farming." She told him, "Another means to earn gold and grow richer. After they've paid back the loan for the distillery first, of course."

"Lord Bolton want... his smallfolk to grow rich?" he asked in slight confusion.

After all, in all his years in the North, he had never heard of any lord actively trying to increase the wealth of his smallfolk.

In fact, many would consider it foolish to give more power to the small folk and would do everything in their power to make sure that the smallfolk wouldn't rise from their status.

"He prefers to call them peasants," the woman replied with a soft and warm smile. Or 'his people'. But yes, he wants his people to grow richer. In fact, he wants everyone around him to grow richer."

"Yet he takes away the smallfolk from his nearby lords." He replied, being bluntly honest once again. "Tell me, Lady Celly. How does that make anyone aside from him richer."

Celly simply raised an elegant eyebrow at his blunt accusation. "Tell me, Lord Stark. When you hear Lord Bolton 'stealing' small folk from the lands of nearby lords, what do you think is happening behind the scenes? Do you think lord Bolton sends his men to kidnap the small folk from the other lands in the dark night? Or does he hold their family hostage and threaten them to come to his land? Or does he send his men from town to town and bribe them for a better future?"

"Please tell me, Lord Stark. The lords who sent you those letters of complaint, did they ever tell you why their people left their lands, their homes, and traveled all the way to the Bolton lands?"

He stayed silent for a long moment, taking a sip from the glass to hide the uncertainty he was feeling over this whole mess.

"No." He replied in the end. Blunt honesty. Right there.

"Because Lord Bolton does none of those things," Celly replied.

"He has no reason to. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Lord Bolton has nothing to do with the people coming from other lands. No. The only thing he has done is make the lives of the people on Bolton lands far better than the lives of smallfolk in any other place in the North."

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