Tragedy

Suleiman spent a few more days recuperating in bed; although his body remained somewhat weak, he was finally able to walk.

Anxious to understand his current predicament and the state of his fief, he summoned Old Nicken and two guards.

Having been pardoned and appointed as guards, the two farmers played their roles with diligent earnestness.

They were arranged to live on the ground floor of the tower, where Old Nicken had scrounged up two sets of tattered leather armor and rusted longswords for them.

Though dilapidated and crude, these were the best swords and armor available in the fief, and the men quickly settled into their new duties.

Every day, they stood at the tower gate, one on the left and one on the right, hands gripped tightly around their hilts, eyes scanning the surroundings incessantly.

Whenever a tenant passed by, they would fix them with what they believed to be a terrifying glare, to the point that no tenant dared to pass by the tower anymore.

Suleiman also learned their names: the one who looked fearful and cowered every day was Roslyn, while the other, relatively steady but silent, was Lushen.

They were both men in their early thirties, yet they possessed the weary faces of fifty or sixty-year-olds; weather-beaten and rough-handed, labor had aged them prematurely, marking them clearly as lifelong farmers.

When Old Nicken entered again, he carried a steaming wooden bowl of fish soup.

"Young Master, drink some hot soup to warm yourself." Old Nicken handed the bowl to him.

The steam rose with a bland, fishy odor, and several suspicious-looking roots and chunks of fish bobbed in the murky broth.

The fish scales weren't even cleaned off, he thought to himself.

Suleiman took it, his expression grim. Every day was just boiled ingredients of all kinds. Whatever future development or grand ambitions he had would have to wait; he needed to hire a cook immediately.

He could no longer let Old Nicken be responsible for his diet. If this continued, Suleiman could clearly foresee his own end: he would certainly meet the Seven before the old man did.

The warmth spread down his throat, dispelling the chill in his body.

"Steward Nicken, how many people are left in the fief now?" Suleiman asked, setting the wretched fish soup aside.

"Answering the Young Master, there are only about thirty people left in the fief, mostly the old, weak, women, and children. The able-bodied men followed the late Lord to Seaguard and never returned." Old Nicken sighed.

"How is the Greyjoy Rebellion going?" Suleiman asked, sighing in silence.

"The war still rages. The Ironborn fleet strikes in all directions, attacking and pillaging poorly defended areas, then retreating rapidly before our reinforcements can arrive." Old Nicken secretly observed Suleiman's expression, fearing that the mention of his father and two brothers would cause him to break down.

Seeing no signs of distress, he continued, "Young Master Suleiman need not worry. More and more nobles and soldiers are passing through, all heading to the front lines. Everyone says King Robert has gathered countless troops in the Crownlands and will soon arrive to support the Riverlands and the Westerlands. The Ironborn are finished; the war will surely end soon."

Old Nicken hesitated before adding, "Compared to worrying about the Ironborn, who are still far from our Green Fork, the more pressing problem is that our granary is nearly empty. Last year's harvest was poor, the fief had little money to begin with, and the late Lord spent all our saved Silver Stags on this expedition."

Suleiman frowned: "Can we fish?" Suleiman thought of the fish soup he had been drinking every day.

His memory told him that in his fief, food relied primarily on fishing in the river; it was the only source of meat.

Old Nicken shook his head. "The fish in the river have become scarcer these past two years. Now, we can barely catch small fish and shrimp. Our fief's harvest has always been just enough to scrape by; in good years, we could store a tiny bit of surplus. The land isn't fertile, and it's prone to flooding."

Listening to this, Suleiman felt the future was bleak. This was a fief that lived at the mercy of the elements, barely maintaining survival, with no reserves and no ability to withstand risks.

There was a reason for the family's poverty.

The situation in the fief was even worse than he had imagined.

He now had to face not only the decline and poverty of his house but also stabilize the situation in the fief before a famine broke out.

"Steward Nicken, now that I am awake, does that mean I can inherit the title?" Suleiman asked. In his current state of having nothing, this was the most important matter.

Without a formal title, he was nothing.

Old Nicken nodded, then shook his head. "Young Master, you are the sole heir; the family title is naturally yours."

"However, to formally become the 'Knight of Foulkeep,' you must obtain the recognition of your liege lord. You must travel to Deddings Castle, the seat of the House Deddings of the Green Fork, and meet Lord Balon Dating to swear your fealty and request his investiture and recognition."

Suleiman looked at the reed beds outside the window, complex light flickering in his eyes. "Once my body is better, we shall go to Deddings Castle."

Just then, a sharp cry, carrying a heart-wrenching despair, pierced into the room, filling every corner with echoes, so piercingly shrill.

Old Nicken stopped speaking and raised his cloudy eyes to look at Suleiman.

Suleiman stood up, the legs of his chair scraping against the stone floor with a harsh sound.

"Go out and see."

His voice was not loud, but the two guards immediately straightened their backs and followed Suleiman toward the gate.

Suleiman crossed the threshold first, Old Nicken followed with a hunched back, and Roslyn and Lushen guarded Suleiman's sides, alert.

Although their weapons were tattered, they gripped them tightly; Suleiman could feel that they were very nervous.

Outside the tower was an empty patch of mud, which barely qualified as the castle courtyard.

In the distance, under a tree, a figure was huddled against the trunk.

It was a woman, wearing tattered, patched coarse cloth clothes, kneeling on the ground with her head buried deep in her arms. Her entire body was convulsing violently, and the painful, sharp wailing came from her.

Suleiman, accompanied by Old Nicken, Roslyn, and Lushen, walked to her side.

"Raise your head. Why are you wailing here?"

The woman's body stiffened abruptly at the sound, and her sharp cry stopped as if a chicken had been strangled. She slowly raised her head.

Her hair was disheveled and dry, her body covered in mud, her face that of a sallow, haggard old woman, her eyes red and swollen, filled with terror.

Her lips trembled, as if she wanted to say something, but in her panic, she only let out a wheezing, gasping sound.

She glanced at the clean clothes on Suleiman and realized his identity, scrambling to get up on her hands and knees.

"I, I, I'll leave right away, my lord." Her voice was as thin as a mosquito's, thick with a nasal twang. After speaking, she stumbled as she turned, desperate to run away.

But she didn't get far; because she had been crouching for so long, her legs were stiff. It was as if the strength had been suddenly drained from her entire body, and her knees gave way, causing her to collapse onto the ground once more.

This time, she made no sound, only burying her face deeper. Yet, the heaving of her shoulders was more violent than before; silent sobbing was far more suffocating than any wail.

Old Nicken stood behind Suleiman, his lips pressed into a thin line. He stared at the dirt on the ground, saying nothing, his already hunched frame appearing even lower.

Roslyn, meanwhile, cast his gaze elsewhere, seemingly studying the clouds in the sky, though the slight trembling of his body betrayed that his heart was far from calm.

The air stagnated for several seconds.

The guard beside them, Lushen, a sturdy man with a dark complexion who was usually the most reticent of them all.

His fists clenched until they creaked, his chest heaving a few times. With his head bowed and his whole body trembling, he finally couldn't hold back, stepping forward with a muffled voice:

"My lord, she is, she is Hack's. Her husband, Old Hack, was one of the farmers who followed the old lord and died at Seaguard."

Lushen paused, as if organizing his words, or perhaps as if something had choked his throat.

"Old Hack is dead, and there are still two children at home. Without a man, she, she, her family will starve to death."

In Westeros, the chasm between the status of nobles and commoners was vast and insurmountable, a fact deeply ingrained in everyone's hearts.

For eight thousand years in this world, nothing had changed; the continent was filled with noble houses that had been passed down for millennia.

Having finished, Lushen also lowered his head and fell silent, his entire body shaking as if he had exhausted all his strength and courage.

Only the sound of the wind remained, along with the woman's irrepressible, fragmented sobs, drifting and circling around Bleiman.

Suleiman stood there, motionless, his heart heavy, his gaze fixed upon the figure curled on the ground, trembling in despair.