King's Counsel
Twenty Fifth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
"Most people south of the Wall would like the shirt off your back, if only to stick a blade into it more surely, that is true, but then when two sides have been bleeding each other for thousands of years for all manner of slights or for survival..." You trail off. The notion that raiding to survive would ever be viable is repugnant, but the circumstances of the Mountain Clans and the Free Folk are such that they could never come down from their snow drifts or their fields of ice, not without being killed for ancient grudges and longstanding feuds. Given a generation you could make the lands north of the Wall a rich one, with enough magic and enough hands, but you do not have that time. The Stark words have never been truer, Winter is coming.
"Slights..." Mance laughs, but it is far from a happy sound. "Aye, that's one way to put it, but we didn't steal apples out of trees in flower, nor break their fences. Raiding is about making it so the Southerners are the ones to starve in our place. Every raider who isn't a fool or a half-grown child drunk with tales of glory knows that much."
"But those oaths of vengeance do not exist in my own lands, nor do your enemies," you point out, glad to see him treat the matter with due gravity. "If you should bring your people together to flee aboard my ships, I can feed them, clothe them, provide them with ample productive work with which to enrich themselves, and they shan't be viewed as beggars or vagabonds or raiders ill-wanted, they will just be one among the many other peoples moving across my realm to better livelihoods."
"Ah, but you see that is the trouble," Mance shakes his head. "You are a king like Andals, maybe like the Valyrians too, I know little of their songs and tales. A good king cares for his
smallfolk, yes?"
"That is the point of kingship, to lead wisely and see the people prosper," you reply, though you have an inkling of what his point might be.
"The Free Folk are usually short of tools, often short of food, but we are never short of pride. Kneelers we call those south of the Wall because they fall to their knees arms outstretched for their lords to save them. It's a damn fool thing, most kneelers eat better, live longer and probably better than us. If I'd had a choice to run south without losing my head to some lord's axe I would have thought about it long and hard..."
Yara's eyes widen on shock at the confession, but the expression changes to something else entirely when Mance flashes a smile and says. "Of course, I was thinking with something other than my stomach at the time."
"Aye, your head, filled with all sorts of kingly wisdom," Vee makes a rare jest of her own.
The Northerner laughs more cheerfully by far, but as he turns to you his expression sobers once again. "If
They were on our heels like the howling blizzard most of the Free Folk would kneel on the shore and and then rush right into the ships, but it's summer still and it's going to be that way for years yet, there's going to be a lot who don't fancy living off naught but what goodwill you feel like showing them. That's why I was in Hardhome. Didn't know you were just going to offer land across the sea, of course, but I figured if I could see about building a proper port, maybe have a talk with the Lady of Skane, get those that followed me to stop thinking of their own feuds and lands but of Hardhome entire, it would be easier to get them all to take ship to the east and we'd have the sliver to pay for it. Silver we don't need, you say, but the time it would have taken to earn it would have had a worth of its own."
Warnings about following the law and the promise of rich tomorrow die upon your tongue, not because they would be untrue, but because it is clear the man... no the
king before you, for he surely deserves the title more than the fool on the Iron Throne, had considered them already. He head meant to forge the Free Folk into a settled folk that lived off trade, not raiding, before buying passage in the hope of easing them into their new lives.
"Hardhome cannot support that many long, not without a hinterland or a lot of fishing boats, preferably both," you point out, quickly going over the numbers from Riz'Neth's report in your mind. "Some would have to sail away."
Mance grimaces, but he still points out. "You would be getting tribes still, raiders, folk with something to prove."
What do you do?
[] Support Hardhome as a trading post while the population can come naturally under your sphere of influence
-[] Write in time and resources allocated
[] Begin evacuation as soon as you are able, Essos can swallow the relatively small Free Folk population without significant issue and you would rather have them out of reach of the Others sooner rather than later
-[] Write in plan
[] Write in
OOC: So here you have it, Mance's plan, it was not to take up permanent residence in Hardhome, but rather to build up a community there that would then be better equipped to deal with the South, or the East as the case may be.
