Recaps

Suleiman took control of the Terry castle and dealt with the former lord’s family and the captured soldiers. After discovering the hoarded treasury, he promised the villages a major tax refund and far lighter taxes in the coming year.

• The castle soldiers surrendered to Suleiman and offered him Walker Terry’s wife and daughter, but he expelled the soldiers and ordered the women to join the Silent Sisters.
• Suleiman entered the castle treasury, found its vast hoard of Gold Dragons and valuables, and ordered everything inventoried.
• Suleiman summoned the village heads and learned Walker Terry had taken most of their harvest, imposed numerous taxes, and demanded people each year.
• Suleiman promised to return ninety percent of the taxes collected that year and to take only half of the villagers’ taxes the following year.
• The village heads wept and praised Suleiman as he affirmed that he would keep his word and ensure the people had food and clothing.

Suleiman planned how to develop the Riverlands and found that complaints were preventing land distribution. He established the Suleiman Acre as a uniform standard for measuring farmland.

• Suleiman drafted plans for governing the Riverlands and prioritized building a cavalry force, breeding horses, and securing equipment.
• Roslyn told Suleiman that residents disputed the size and quality of their assigned plots, while former refugee veterans said their plots were too large to farm alone.
• Suleiman ordered Roslyn to gather sturdy ropes and summoned the soldiers to the riverside fields.
• Suleiman had riders use taut ropes to mark out a square and declared that the Suleiman Acre would be the standard size for farmland.

Suleiman imposed a standard rope-based measure for land allocation, ending disputes and ordering Lushen and Roslyn to measure and record all the territory. When they could not reliably calculate even how many soldiers received land, Suleiman concluded that cultural education could not be delayed.

• Suleiman declared the Suleiman Acre the mandatory standard for land allocation and warned against challenging the rule or his officers.
• Suleiman ordered Lushen and Roslyn to make more standard ropes, measure the land, and register the results.
• Lushen and Roslyn directed the measurements, and soldiers praised Suleiman as fair after receiving clearly marked plots.
• Lushen and Roslyn reported that the first river-side land had been divided and disputes settled, but could not provide a reliable total.
• Suleiman asked how many soldiers had received land, heard estimates ranging from about sixty to nearly seventy, and lamented the lack of education.

Suleiman used generous public rewards to recruit literate people and anyone with practical skills, appointing eleven commoners as administrators and opening the castle to applicants. The campaign attracted a few useful recruits, but Suleiman ended the chapter dismayed by how few people in Westeros could read, write, or calculate.

• Suleiman ordered Lushen and Roslyn to announce rewards of silver and land for anyone who could read, do arithmetic, or demonstrate a useful skill.
• Riders recruited Bana, who proved he could calculate, and Herman, who knew a few written characters; their families received silver rewards.
• Suleiman appointed Bana and Herman, along with nine others, as territorial administrators and declared their authority equal to his officers.
• Applicants arrived at the castle, where Suleiman tested their literacy and arithmetic, and Lushen and Roslyn registered, housed, and screened them.
• Suleiman reviewed the applicants' results and realized that only a handful could perform more than basic reading, writing, or arithmetic.

Olivier brought his disguised daughter to Suleiman, who tested her with questions about land and taxes and recognized her abilities. After insisting she reveal her identity, Suleiman allowed her to stay but left her role unresolved.

• Suleiman suspected Olivier had a more distinguished background than he claimed when he examined his elegant handwriting.
• Olivier brought his hooded daughter to Suleiman and vouched for her literacy and knowledge.
• The woman advised Suleiman to grant soldiers long-term land-use rights, establish a clear legal code, and raise revenue through controlled industries and market taxes.
• Suleiman confronted Olivier and the woman, demanding to know who she was and ordering her to uncover her face.
• The woman washed away her disguise, revealing her golden hair and striking beauty, and Suleiman allowed her to stay while assigning Olivier to serve as his clerk.

Suleiman established the terms under which Evelyn and Olivier could stay, then presented a plan to consolidate his sixteen villages into four fortified military towns with a strict local command system. When Evelyn challenged the plan’s practicality and urged him to grant villages to hedge knights, Suleiman explained that he would frighten the villagers into moving and judge officials by their results.

• Suleiman told Evelyn she would serve as his advisor and personal maid, warned her to keep her past troubles from endangering his lands, and she accepted his terms with Olivier’s agreement.
• Suleiman gathered his officials and proposed merging his sixteen villages into four fortified military towns where people would gather in winter and during attacks.
• Suleiman introduced a Three-Chief System to organize households and announced collective punishment for crimes and failures to report them.
• Evelyn warned that villagers would resist leaving their ancestral homes and criticized the commoner administrators, recommending that Suleiman grant villages as fiefs to impoverished hedge knights.
• Suleiman ordered Lushen and Roslyn to stage nonlethal raids on remote villages so the people would fear staying in their homes, then promised that his fortified towns would offer safety.
• Suleiman defended using officials according to their effectiveness rather than their social class, and asked Evelyn whether she had any further questions.

Suleiman ordered Lushen and Roslyn to stage a terrifying raid on Mountain Pass Village without killing its residents, hoping to make them feel unsafe. The bandits looted the village and fled before dawn, leaving the villagers frightened and their homes damaged.

• Suleiman instructed Lushen and Roslyn to lead twenty veterans in a disguised raid, burning empty huts and stealing livestock while avoiding serious harm to villagers.
• Lushen and Roslyn led the veterans into Mountain Pass Village at night, where they killed dogs, set fires, and terrorized the residents.
• Old Hans hid with his family as the bandits broke into his home, stole his chickens, belongings, and goat, and threatened to return for more valuables.
• A villager invoked Suleiman's name, but a bandit beat and threatened him while the villagers remained too afraid to intervene.
• The bandits fled into the mountains with their loot, and the villagers waited until dawn before cautiously leaving their homes.

After bandits ravaged a village, Lushen arrived with Lord Suleiman’s soldiers and promised the villagers aid. He explained that Suleiman could not protect every scattered settlement, then hinted that Suleiman had anticipated the danger and had one possible solution.

• The villagers mourned their stolen food and belongings and feared the bandits would return.
• Lushen arrived, pretended to rage at the destruction, and ordered his soldiers to help the villagers and extinguish the fires.
• Lushen promised that Lord Suleiman would provide the village with seeds, food, and livestock.
• Lushen explained that Suleiman’s lands were too vast and his forces too few to guard every village against the bandits.
• As the villagers despaired, Lushen said Lord Suleiman had foreseen the danger and that there might be one way to survive.

Lushen persuaded Mountain Pass Village to seek refuge in Suleiman’s military forts, and Suleiman accepted the villagers while representatives from other threatened villages followed. Evelyn confronted Suleiman about using bandits to frighten people into accepting his protection, and he denied ever claiming to be a good person.

• Lushen convinced the frightened villagers of Mountain Pass Village that Suleiman’s military forts would protect them, and they agreed to move.
• Lushen brought Old Hans and the villagers to Suleiman, who granted their request and ordered Bana the Beggar to house them temporarily in the eastern camp.
• Representatives from River-Side Village, Valley Village, Forest Village, Stone Beach Village, and other settlements arrived over the next two days seeking refuge in the forts.
• Evelyn accused Suleiman of sending bandits to frighten the villagers before presenting himself as their savior.
• Suleiman argued that defeating bad people could require worse and more cunning methods, then told Evelyn he had never called himself a good person.

Suleiman gathered his advisers to plan mountain forts, but Evelyn proposed a self-sustaining underground fortress with detailed defenses and living districts. She warned that disease and contaminated water could kill its inhabitants faster than an invading army.

• Suleiman showed his advisers remote fort locations backed by the Mountains of the Moon and explained their natural defenses and local building materials.
• Evelyn recognized that the forts were meant to withstand a major invasion, and Suleiman agreed when she compared them to House Reyne's mines.
• Evelyn sketched a mountain fortress with traps, barracks, workshops, a marketplace, homes, a lord's residence, supplies, and hidden escape routes.
• Evelyn explained how to stabilize the mountain and organize its districts, astonishing Suleiman and his advisers.
• Evelyn warned that poor management of water, waste, and garbage could cause an epidemic inside the fortress.

Evelyn presented plans for a mountain fortress with water supply, drainage, sanitation, and hidden passages, and Suleiman gave her authority over its construction. When he confronted her about her extraordinary knowledge, she claimed her family came from Essos and studied Old Valyria, and Suleiman promised to protect her until the Long Night was over.

• Evelyn explained the fortress’s water, drainage, sanitation, and escape systems to the Council, leaving the men astonished.
• Suleiman approved Evelyn’s plans and granted her full authority over the Military Fort’s construction.
• Suleiman summoned Evelyn and questioned her about her precise maps, construction knowledge, and Olivier’s abilities.
• Evelyn said her family came from Essos and had inherited knowledge from studying Old Valyria and its ruins.
• Suleiman said he would protect Evelyn until the Long Night was over, and she accepted his offer of loyalty.

Suleiman ordered Evelyn to design a mountain fortress called the Lion's Den and began construction in a remote valley. Five days into the work, blocked routes left the builders unable to move excavated stone or bring in supplies, and Evelyn felt helpless as the workers grew restless.

• Suleiman ordered Evelyn to plan a subterranean fortress for four hundred people and named it the Lion's Den.
• Evelyn chose a remote valley in the Moon Mountains, and residents were sent there to begin building the fortress.
• Evelyn overruled an old miner's foundation plan with her calculations, and the miners followed her instructions after Suleiman backed her.
• After five days, Qigong Bana reported that the work site was in disarray, and Suleiman ordered him to prepare several things.
• The workers complained that they could neither remove excavated stone nor bring in timber, while Evelyn trembled at the setback.

Suleiman led the villagers in building a ropeway across the cliff, then proposed a system of reflective plates to bring sunlight into the mountain stronghold. Evelyn designed and completed the lighting system, leaving the miners awed and revering Suleiman as the source of a miracle.

• Suleiman organized villagers to build a ropeway across the abyss and personally crossed the cliff to help secure it.
• The villagers used the finished ropeway to transport a boulder safely to the valley's exit, cheering Suleiman.
• Suleiman suggested guiding sunlight into the mountain stronghold with polished reflective plates, and Evelyn eagerly began designing the system.
• Evelyn directed the installation of copper plates that carried sunlight into a dark hall inside the mountain.
• The miners knelt in reverence at the shaft of sunlight while Evelyn gazed up at Suleiman.

Suleiman explained the zipline’s dangers and introduced Evelyn to gravity and the bending of light, inspiring her to grind crystal lenses. After countless failures, Evelyn made a crude pair of spectacles that restored her clear vision, then collapsed into Suleiman’s arms.

• Suleiman ordered Bana to inspect the zipline ropes frequently, replace unsafe ones, and avoid using the lines to transport people.
• Suleiman explained to Evelyn how gravity drove the zipline and showed her how water and crystal bent light.
• Suleiman gave Evelyn a valuable crystal and suggested that carefully shaped lenses might restore blurry vision.
• Evelyn worked relentlessly in a secluded chamber, grinding and shaping the crystal into lenses despite many failed attempts.
• Evelyn made crude spectacles that let her see clearly again, then collapsed as Suleiman caught her.

Suleiman sent Lushen to intercept a prominent merchant caravan and invite its leader to visit his lands. After seeing a crystal lens that revealed its remarkable potential, Roderick eagerly agreed and turned his caravan toward Suleiman’s territory.

• Suleiman ordered Lushen to stop a large caravan from King's Landing and invite its owner to his lands, using a crystal lens to show the value of the goods there.
• Lushen blocked the Kingsroad with fifty soldiers and confronted the guarded caravan of the Grain Guild of King's Landing.
• Roderick, the guild's leader, questioned Lushen about why his caravan had been stopped.
• Lushen presented Roderick with the crystal lens and explained that Suleiman had goods worth sharing with discerning friends.
• Roderick recognized the lens's potential and demanded that Lushen take him to Suleiman.
• Roderick's caravan turned around and followed Suleiman's soldiers toward the mountain path.

Suleiman demanded warhorses from Roderick, but the caravan representatives mocked him until his soldiers brutally punished one of them. Roderick explained that warhorses were forbidden trade goods, leaving Suleiman to consider the obstacle.

• Roderick watched workers excavate stone from the mountain around the Lion's Den.
• Suleiman asked Roderick to sell him a large number of horses, especially warhorses.
• A caravan representative laughed at Suleiman, and Lushen ordered soldiers to smash the man's teeth and cut out his tongue.
• Roderick tried to stop the punishment but arrived too late, then apologized and resumed the negotiations.
• Roderick explained that warhorses were tightly controlled and merchants who sold them between regions or houses faced death.
• Suleiman accepted the explanation with a noncommittal smile.

Suleiman showed Roderick the Vision-Clarifying Spectacles, and Bana the Beggar turned their sale into a partnership that secured the caravan’s goods for Suleiman. Roderick rushed off to arrange more Spectacles, while Suleiman ordered the wounded attendant discarded.

• Suleiman showed Roderick the Spectacles, and Roderick discovered they made his failing eyesight clear.
• Roderick agreed to pay five hundred Gold Dragons, but Bana the Beggar explained that the money was an upfront investment for a sales partnership with a seventy-thirty profit split.
• Roderick accepted the partnership and left his caravan’s goods as payment, promising to source fine crystals and order more Spectacles.
• Roderick abandoned the wounded, tongueless attendant, and Suleiman ordered Lushen and the soldiers to throw the man into the abyss.

Roderick brought Suleiman’s Vision-Clarifying Spectacles to Highgarden, where Mace Tyrell bought one for a thousand Gold Dragons before Lady Olenna recognized their immense value. She ordered Roderick to offer Suleiman a thousand Gold Dragons per pair and two thousand more for temporary exclusivity, while Roderick returned north uneasy about the deal’s dangers.

• Roderick traveled to Highgarden and presented the spectacles to Mace Tyrell, who bought them for a thousand Gold Dragons.
• Mace showed the spectacles to Lady Olenna, who realized they could be sold across the Seven Kingdoms and Free Cities for enormous profits.
• Lady Olenna summoned Roderick and learned about Suleiman, their partnership, and his supply of spectacles.
• Lady Olenna ordered Roderick to offer Suleiman a thousand Gold Dragons for every pair and two thousand Gold Dragons for exclusivity until House Tyrell could make copies.
• Roderick left Highgarden with a token bearing House Tyrell’s rose and headed north, worried that the deal could bring danger.

Suleiman accepted House Tyrell’s restriction on producing Spectacles, choosing to protect his people and keep the valuable business discreet. He then used the payment to announce wages for workers, winning their enthusiastic support.

• Roderick delivered House Tyrell’s one thousand Gold Dragons, and Suleiman gave him the promised three hundred.
• Roderick relayed Lady Olenna’s terms that Suleiman stop producing Spectacles and selling them elsewhere while House Tyrell copied them, and Suleiman agreed.
• Suleiman refused Roderick’s pleas to make more Spectacles, saying Evelyn was more precious than the gold.
• Suleiman had Bana gather the workers, then poured Gold Dragons onto a platform and announced wages and bonuses for their labor.
• The workers cheered Suleiman after he promised pay, including a monthly Silver Stag for miners who met their quotas.

Suleiman inspected the completed first phase of the Lion's Den and declared it an impregnable city for its first residents. Roderick's caravan arrived with more than ten thousand Gold Dragons, but Suleiman realized that Roderick no longer controlled it and that the armed men accompanying him were not from House Tyrell.

• Evelyn showed Suleiman the Lion's Den's completed living quarters, ventilation, lighting, storage, water channels, and temporary sewer system, and agreed to extend the drainage farther away in the next phase.
• Suleiman declared the Lion's Den an impregnable city and promised the project workers they would become its first residents.
• Bana reported that Roderick's caravan had arrived with Gold Dragons, and Suleiman noticed Roderick's unease and the disciplined soldiers accompanying him.
• Suleiman completed the exchange of more than ten thousand Gold Dragons for ten cases of Vision-Clarifying Spectacles while Bana and Evelyn counted the coins.
• Suleiman asked Roderick about finding quality army equipment, and Roderick said he planned to quit traveling; Suleiman inferred that Roderick no longer led the party and that the men were not from House Tyrell.

Suleiman sent Roderick’s party out of his territory and ordered the Gold Dragons hidden before gathering his advisers to plan a military force. He unveiled the Black Lion Armor, but learned that his current iron supply could produce only nine more suits.

• Suleiman had Lushen escort Roderick and his party beyond the borders, then ordered Bana to move the Gold Dragons to a secret treasury.
• Evelyn observed that Roderick’s party had not mentioned the agreement with House Tyrell, and Suleiman refused to get involved in their affairs.
• At a military meeting, Suleiman set aside forming cavalry and proposed investing in heavy infantry.
• Bana presented the Black Lion Armor, impressing Lushen and Roslyn with its craftsmanship and imposing design.
• Bana explained that making the armor had consumed nearly a tenth of the iron received from Roderick, leaving enough iron for at most nine more suits.
• Suleiman placed his palm on the armor’s breastplate as the room fell silent.

Suleiman planned to secure iron by buying scrap from Seaguard while sending soldiers to clear the High Mountains and prospect for ore. Two days later, he tested the stewards from the four Military Forts by asking for population counts and the number of families with men among the mountain bandits.

• Bana proposed buying iron from nearby cities or across the Narrow Sea, but Suleiman rejected the cost and delay.
• Lushen proposed taking weapons and armor from bandits, but Evelyn explained that re-smelting scrap would yield too little iron, and Suleiman intended to win over the displaced people in the mountains.
• Evelyn advised prospecting in the High Mountains, where mineral deposits might lie, and warned that the Vale and Riverlands disputed control of the range.
• Suleiman ordered Bana to buy damaged armor and broken weapons from Seaguard, and directed Lushen and Roslyn to summon the stewards and assess the Military Towns.
• Two days later, Suleiman asked the four stewards to report the population, adult men, and families with men living as bandits in the mountains.

Suleiman ordered his stewards to compile a complete census and identify households with men among the mountain bandits, setting off fear and suspicion throughout the Military Towns. After receiving the lists, he focused on the census as proof that his system of control was working.

• Suleiman rebuked the four stewards and ordered them to record every person in his domain and separately list households with men among the bandits.
• The stewards spread the order through the Military Towns, where officials urged residents to report concealed bandits and neighbors began suspecting one another.
• Thomas struggled over whether to report that Amy's son, Laban, had likely joined the bandits, then told the Neighbor Head about him.
• In Crevice Fort, an old woman asked her Household Head to spare her son, who had become a bandit out of desperation.
• A few days later, the stewards delivered four lists to Lion's Den, and Evelyn reported that 112 households had relatives among the bandits.
• Suleiman examined the complete census and concluded that his system could account for every household in his domain.

Suleiman used the territory’s population register to reward his stewards and launch a plan to bring mountain bandits home by promising them pardon and land. The families gathered in the Military Towns began to hope that their loved ones could return safely.

• Suleiman praised his four stewards for registering 817 adult men among the territory’s 2,136 people and ordered Gold Dragons distributed to local officials.
• Suleiman identified the bandits’ families from the register and ordered the stewards to gather them and request keepsakes that could help bring their relatives home.
• The families of the bandits were escorted to the Council Chambers, where the officials told them they had been summoned to hear Suleiman’s promise, not to face punishment.
• The military affairs officer announced that bandits who descended from the High Mountains would be pardoned for their past crimes.
• The military affairs officer promised that every able-bodied returning man would receive communal land, and he vowed that Suleiman’s promises were true.

The military affairs officer used Lord Suleiman’s offer of land and mercy, backed by a threat against rebels’ families, to persuade mountain bandits to surrender. Suleiman kept his promise, and the resulting influx of returning bandits and refugees added more than six hundred people to his territory.

• The military affairs officer told the families to prepare keepsakes and contact their relatives in the mountains, warning that Lord Suleiman’s mercy would be offered only once and that rebel families could lose everything.
• A day later, officials from South Gorge Fort brought more than a dozen mountain men to the Lion’s Den, where Evelyn gave them wooden tablets promising fields and homes.
• Laban accepted his tablet from Suleiman and reunited with his mother Amy and younger brother at South Gorge Fort.
• News that Suleiman had kept his promise spread through the territory, prompting increasing numbers of bandits to descend from the mountains and register.
• Refugees fleeing oppressive Westerosi nobles also sought to become Suleiman’s subjects, bringing the territory’s population up by more than six hundred people, including over two hundred able-bodied men.