Summary: High above the green and growing Riverlands in the rocky crags and stony canyons of the hills on the border of the Westerlands and the Riverlands, Deepen Hall perches like a vulture over a herd of fatted calves. House Dulver, which claims the ancient mountain fastness as its seat, does little to assuage that impression. Shrewd, grasping and mean, the Dulvers hover on the edge of richer lands with hungry eyes on their neighbors, ready to make a meal of anyone who falters. Though nominally sworn to House Lefford, Lord Dulver's first loyalty is ever to his own ambitions.
Allegiance: Leo Lefford, Lord of the Golden Tooth.
House Banner: A black pickax on a copper field.
House Words: "Earth Yields."
History: Mudge the Bronzeman, say the Dulvers, was the first of the First Men to dig into the earth of Westeros, and it is to him that they trace their line and the founding of their name. It was from Mudge's forge that the First Men armed themselves with spears and swords to drive out the Children of the Forest. It was the axes that Mudge made that cut down the weirwoods.
But even in those days the Dulvers were known for practicality rather than zealous loyalty. When the peace was made between the First Men and the Children, they planted a godswood within the walls of Deepen Hall and spoke their vows before the Old Gods. When the Andals came, the Dulvers built a seven-sided sept and Lord Dulver took an Andal wife. And when the Conqueror came, they learned to love dragons. Whatever else may be said of them, the Lords Dulver knew where power lay, and strove in every generation to see that their allegiances lay with it.
For all their cunning, though, the Dulvers have rarely been especially rich or powerful in their own right. Their holdings are small, remote and poor—stony hills and spare pastures. Their people are few. The Dulver knack for knowing which way the wind blows has served mainly to ensure survival rather than promote enrichment. Leastwise until Lord Harald Dulver took the lord's chair.
Lord Harald's father, Lord Hemmel Dulver, called Hemmel Pinchpenny, was a notorious skinflint. It's said around the tavern tables that the late Lord Dulver was so miserly that it took his lady wife locking herself in her chambers for a month for him to agree to serve more than turnip gruel and cider at their only daughter's wedding. For all his reticence to spend coin on luxury though, Lord Hemmel had a miraculous nose for a bargain. He employed a veritable legion of factors combing the countryside for goods that might be acquired on the cheap. He bought up the goods of impoverished houses, the discarded weapons of defeated armies, brass hinges and bronze urns, books and candlesticks and iron tools. And when he had filled the cellars beneath his hold, he had his miners dig more.
When Lord Hemmel perished of a chill in his forty-third year (taken from his cellars while counting great casks of iron nails) he left his heir his name, his lands, and a hundred cellars stuffed to bursting with the castoffs of seven kingdoms. Some might count this a burden, but Lord Harald had two things his father had always lacked—ambition and the willingness to sell.
There was little enough wheat among the chaff Lord Hemmel had gathered, but Lord Harald found it all. Through patience, will and a vicious knack for haggling, the new Dulver found buyers for the strangest things and in the strangest places. Every penny that came to him he sent back out to bring in more. And while he had his father's nose, young Harald had a much more discerning eye.
By the time of Robert's Rebellion, Lord Harald was doing a brisk business taking the lead and tin and copper that the mines upon his land would yield and turning them into gold and steel and more. He had also got himself a Lannister wife by way of Lannisport, a distant cousin to Lord Tywin and the Lannisters of the Rock. And when Lord Tywin kept his men at home, so too did Harald Dulver.
Each time a messenger arrived below his gates, Lord Dulver threw them open and welcomed them most warmly, be they Robert's men or Aerys'. But when they asked for men he had but to show them around the castle and let them see his ill-manned walls. "I have but blind old codgers and callow boys, my lords," he said. "But I cannot let you go empty-handed." And so he sent them each away with casks packed with salt pork or wayns laden with new boots, but never men.
When finally Lord Tywin marched from Casterly Rock to support Robert Baratheon, Lord Dulver met him on the road with three hundred footmen behind him. As the Dulver men joined the Lannister host and marched on King's Landing, Lord Tywin asked from whence these men had come. "My cellars," replied Lord Harald. "I had misplaced them behind some turnips. I hope His Grace will understand." And so Lord Dulver's turnips marched with the lions of the Rock up the road to sack the city before bending the knee to a king.
In all the years of Harald's rule, House Dulver's fortunes have advanced steadily, if slowly. The mines that dot their holdings are not so rich as their cousins', yielding lead and tin and copper instead of silver or gold. But even kings need chamber pots and spoons. When his neighbors need anything, Lord Dulver can provide. Arrows, swords or the men called Dulver's Turnips. Grain or salt or seeds. Two of everything in his cellars, it's said. And acre by acre, Lord Harald's domain grows, because while the Lannister may always repay his debts, the Dulver always takes his price.
Defense: Deepen Hall is small as castles go. Supposedly, it was built some ten thousand years ago by the First Men, but so much of it has been rebuilt over the years it's hard to tell. The castle sits on the shoulder of the Deepmont, a low, round-topped mountain. Its walls, towers and keep are all built of stone quarried from the mountain itself. In those dark and distant years, the builders of the First Men carved away the lower slopes of the Deepmont and left sheer cliffs broken only by a narrow causeway curling up and around to end before the great bronze gate.
Towers flank the gate facing south with another, taller tower looming at the far end to look out over the hills. Between these three towers rises the main keep like a fist thrust up from the body of the mountain, the curve of its peak making a natural motte. Within the walls a half-dozen wells keep the castle in water and stables and outbuildings line the inside of the walls.
Below the keep are the fabled cellars that gave Deepen Hall its name. Stories say the mountain itself is hollow as an old gourd, and while this isn't true, the cellars do go deep. There is, in fact, as much of Deepen Hall below the earth as above it. Dulver's Turnips hid in them. And it's said that more than one rival or unwelcome relative has disappeared into them over the years. Any time they've shown any signs of running out of room, the truth of Lord Hemmel Dulver's words are proven—you can always dig another hole.
In recent years Lord Dulver has acquired a parcel of land north and east of Stony Heath, and with it a small tower house of stone and timbers. His younger son Horas holds it in his name with his young wife and a small complement of men from the castle's garrison.
Lands: The Stony Heath is comprised mainly of low, rocky mountains and rolling, sandy hills. The farming is poor and is mainly restricted to onions, leeks, carrots and turnips. This is something of a sore spot among the Heath's inhabitants given the unmitigated bounty of the Riverlands, well within sight from the mountains and hills.
The acquisition of a small tract of a northern neighbor's lands has given the Dulvers hope to add some greater variety to their pallet of crops. Lord Dulver has dispatched his younger son to oversee the development and cultivation of these lands, but so far the young Dulver has borne no useful fruit. In fact, some have taken to calling young Horas Dulver "Blackthumb" after the failure of three crops in one year. Perhaps the family's words, they say, do not extend to crops and harvests.
Small herds of sheep and goats also roam the hills, gleaning sustenance from the sedges and gorse that speckle the land in tufts.
The one extravagance you'll find on the Heath is the narrow path called the Digger's Road. Laid in the days before the Andals came, the road wends its way through valleys and over hills to Deepen Hall, every mile paved with stone. Once it was a river of bronze flowing out from the hall as swords and spears and suits of mail. The coming of iron and steel put an end to that, but the road itself endures.
Law: Aside from the narrow trade road running from Deepen Hall to the River Road, Stony Heath is a largely trackless and desolate land, dotted with isolated crofts, cottages and mining camps. There is little worth stealing by the measure of most bandits and by dint of that fact alone, banditry is but a minor problem.
The garrison mounts regular patrols of the road and the route to Ser Walton's tower, but circuits of the hills and mountains are rare and irregular. From time to time some band of desperate men will take refuge in one or another of the valleys creasing the Heath. At those times Lord Harald sends his garrison out in force to root them out with steel and fire.
Population: The only thing thinner on the Heath than the trees are the people. Shepherds' cottages dot the valleys and poor farmers' crofts huddle on the hills. Mining camps squat over holes in the ground grubbing out the lead and copper and tin that the earth of Stony Heath will yield.
The largest concentration of smallfolk lives in Copperton, the little hamlet that huddles at the foot of the Deepmont serving the needs of his Lordship and the castle. They butcher his sheep and cut peat from the bogs on the sides of the hills. They serve the needs of the teamsters driving wayns, though poorly. And most of all, they dig.
Power: No lordly family holds its seat for ten thousand years by letting their swords go to rust. Lord Dulver, though a mediocre warrior at best himself, knows the value of keeping strong men and steel about him. His garrison is strong, well-trained and regularly drilled by Lord Harald's bastard uncle and master-at- arms, Ser Gambol Hill. A force of well-armed crossbowmen stand his walls as well, ready to rain death down on the rare force that might assault Deepen Hall.
Along with his combat troops, Lord Dulver maintains an expert force of sappers and engineers. On those occasions that Lord Dulver must bring his banner to bear in the service of his liege lord, it's most often the case that his engineers are the men most wanted. If indeed the need is great, the hills and valleys about the Heath can also be gleaned to assemble an able, if unseasoned, corps of laborers.
Wealth: Rich is a word that is often attributed to the lords of the Westerlands, but where most of his fellows count their riches by the dragon, Lord Dulver's wealth lies mainly in the goods he stores in his cellars and the talent he houses within his walls. It was not always so. Not so long ago, House Dulver was just as poor as the lands it held. Old and hung heavy with history, but poor. Ever since the Andals brought steel to Westeros and condemned the bronzemen of Stony Heath to be makers of sconces and chamber pots, House Dulver struggled to make its way.
Lord Hemmel's obsession might have beggared the ancient house, but his son's timely ascension turned obsession into innovation and reversed a house in decline. Through wise stewardship, wily trading and a healthy dose of luck, Lord Harald has improved his family's fortunes immensely and seems likely to continue doing so.
Among his assets Lord Harald counts the service of a masterful stonemason in Master Karyl. Building or breaking, Karyl knows as much about stone as any man in the West.
Though Lord Harald is not much given to luxury, the advancement of his House's fortunes has afforded him one. It was seven years ago that he sent to the Citadel at Old Town and six since Maester Falstan came to serve.
Household Members
Harald Dulver, Lord of Deepen Hall: Called the Vulture of Dulver by his neighbors—either for his looks or his manner—Harald, son of Hemmel, was never a handsome or happy man, and age has done nothing to improve either his looks or his disposition. Short, bald, and gaunt with a thick wattle under his chin that waggles when he works his jaws, Harald Dulver has on occasion been likened more to a turkey by those who have only ever seen him. Sharing the man's company dispels such notions in short order. His lordship's jests tend toward gallows humor; when he laughs, his beak of a nose bobs up and down and the flesh of his throat wags back and forth. There is a hunger that gleams in his dark eyes. Hunger of a patient sort. The sort that knows that eventually, in time, you will grace his table.
He is not a man of martial bent, but noble blood demands a son learn the ways of axe and sword. Lord Dulver was a decent, if never brilliant, fighter in his youth. Now in middle age, he keeps his wits as sharp as swords and uses them far more often. "Battles are for young men," he is fond of saying, "I've won my wars with sheep and wayns." And indeed, his lordship is known by all who've dealt with him to be a demon at the negotiation table. Lord Harald has always had a head for business and a knack for finding use in what others have dismissed as useless. Dulver takes what is offered. It's a popular saw among the local smallfolk that 'under Deepen Hall you'll find two of everything.' And indeed, no one who comes to his hall in need is turned away. But Lord Dulver asks his price, and nothing is given away for free.
With his lady wife and their sons he is a dutiful husband and father, but never warm. Indeed, anyone would be hard pressed to name a soul that enjoys the affection of Harald Dulver. But if he is not loving or loved, he is respected. Lord Harald takes care of his own, be they kin, knights, sworn swords or smallfolk. In return, he demands firm, unswerving loyalty. None go hungry under Lord Harald's rule, and all must give their due.
Lord Harald does not put much stock in friendship and indeed, has no friends of a personal nature. The closest thing he does have to a friend is Short Tom Tinker. Ever since Harald found the old man shuffling over the hills in the first wicked blows of an early blizzard and brought him home to Deepen Hall, no doubt saving his life, Tom has been Harald's faithful agent and confidante. More even than Lady Dulver, Tom is privy to the inner workings of Lord Dulver's plans and machinations and Lord Dulver trusts the old tinker further than he trusts any other man in his life.
Lord Harald's chief concern is the advancement of his house. He is driven to acquire power and advantage the way his father was driven to acquire things. Warfare has never been this Dulver's strongest suit. Harald prefers to gather power through garnering wealth, favor, and land—and he is not above the use of force if the odds are in his favor.
The Westerlands are renowned for their gold and silver mines, but the Dulver lands have only ever yielded up the basest of metals and Harald Dulver is keenly aware of this. He prides himself on knowing the location, quality and annual yield of every mine between the Neck and the Dornish Marches. He spends a great deal of time pondering ways he might wrest even a moderately fruitful vein of iron from whichever lord holds it.
Harald Dulver regards his people much as he does any other resource at his disposal, though a resource deserving of far greater consideration than the wagons of ore yielded up by his mines. His lordship regards his family as most precious of all, and it is just this regard for his sons and daughter that is at the root of the trouble that is building. Lord Harald suspects the septon of the Sept on the Heath of co-opting his son and heir, Walton, and filling his head with useless drivel about the gods and knighthood.
Thus far this idea remains but a shadow in Harald's mind. Walton is a dutiful son, and while Lord Harald was displeased with Walton taking vows as a knight, the boy at least makes a good show of listening to his father's lessons on the principles of good stewardship. Should the young heir exhibit some sign of open rebellion, though, Septon Arlyn may well find himself shouldering the blame for a rift between the lord and his firstborn, whether he deserves it or not, and the price he will pay will be very steep indeed.
Ser Walton Dulver: Walton Dulver is the firstborn son to Lord Harald and Lady Falyse. While Walton bears his father's name one need only look upon him to know he is Falyse's son through and through. Where Lord Harald's frame is spare, Walton is stout and strong. Where Lord Harald is short, Walton stands better than six feet tall. Good Walt, as he's called by his father's sworn men and smallfolk, has yellow hair and a ready smile. There are those that point to the young heir's size and mien and whisper that Lady Falyse, in her Lannister pride, has given Lord Harald a cuckold's horns. The trouble is, no one can figure out what poor, mad sot would lie with her long enough to sow a son in her womb.
The tasks of stewardship have never come easy to Walton, either. Despite his father's relentless drilling, Walton is only a middling manager of wealth at best. Dutiful and devoted as a son and heir should be, Walton has done his best to learn the lessons his father has worked so hard to teach, but Walton was made for the yard rather than the hall.
If Walton was indifferent in his lessons on lordship he was anything but when it came to learning the ways of arms and warfare. Under the tutelage of his great-uncle, the bastard Ser Gambol Hill, Walton excelled with sword and shield and soon proved himself a match for any man in the castle.
On his twelfth nameday, Walton was made squire to Lord Harald's younger brother, Ser Horton Dulver. For four years he served until in his sixteenth year a party of ironmen came raiding along the shore and attacking the lands of Lord Damon Marbrand of Ashemark. Ser Horton and a troop of men, visiting a local lord to attend a tourney, went down to meet the raiders and drive them off, but Ser Horton took an arrow and the arrow took his life. As his uncle lay dying, young Walton stood over him and rallied the Dulver men. They were too few to drive the ironmen off, but they held long enough for Lord Marbrand to come to their aid. Together, Marbrand's men and Dulver's threw the ironmen back into the sea and there on the battlefield, Lord Damon, himself an anointed knight, gave Walton his knighthood.
Lord Harald is not a demonstrative man. Walton's lord father rarely praises good work, but makes a point of chastising the bad. A son wants warmth and the good regard of his father and when that is not forthcoming, he will seek it elsewhere. Walton found his acceptance at the feet of his great-uncle Gambol and the septon of the Sept on the Heath. Septon Arlyn was all that Walton's lord father was not. Beloved by the commons, jovial, encouraging, devoted to the gods and prodigiously fat. As Walton was growing up, the Septon was the most learned man in the district and so saw to the young heir's education. It was Arlyn that instilled in him respect for the gods, and Arlyn who gave him his easy way with the smallfolk. After his knighting, it was Arlyn that anointed Walton with the seven oils and made him a knight for good and true.
Ser Walton still craves his father's approval, but he works, too, to be his own man and find his own path. He tries to learn the lessons his father works to impart because he knows that in time he will come into his inheritance and he wants desperately to do honor to his father's name. Walton is a good man, devoted to his family, dedicated to his vows, and sincerely reverent of the gods. He is no zealot, though, and is fond of the pleasures of the flesh. A drink shared with his men, a rich meal in a warm hall, and the occasional willing wench (though he often wakes up the next morning with a mind to repent) serve to soften the edges that come with the Dulver aim and endear young Walton to those who will one day serve him as they do his father.
Short Tom Tinker: Short Tom Tinker was born as just Tom, as low a birth as ever there was and so long ago, he likes to say, even his mother's like to have forgotten it ever happened. Even he seems to have forgotten where he came from, or has chosen not to remember. Each time he tells the story the town that surrounds the streets he was born on changes. One time it's an alley behind a brothel in Golden Tooth lands, the next a butcher's porch in Ashemark. Ask a third time and he'll tell you he was born upon a radish wayn on the road to Lannisport. Whatever the truth of his birth, Tom Hill was apprenticed to old Hollis Tinpenny some fifty years gone and has wandered the Westerlands ever since.
Hollis Tinpenny has been dead thirty years, but left Tom his mule, his packs, and the names of every village, farm and croft between Oldstones and Crakehall. The packs have been mended a hundred times and the names Hollis gave him have died and come again, but the ancient mule still brays when it rains and carries Tom's goods and tools on the tracks and trails of the west.
Tom is a bent old man these days, never tall but shorter now after years of hauling his things from village to village. Most of his hair is gone, and what's left rings his head, bristly and gray. He has bird's eyes, black and sharp, and a large, bulbous nose somewhat gone to red from the ale that warms him against cold nights upon the road. He's more bone than meat and wears a quilted coat against the chill as well as to 'to keep the warmth the ale makes!' as he says.
Tom knows everyone and everyone knows Tom. Fishwives and merchants alike come out when they hear his packs come jangling up the road. Tom mends their pots and kettles, sells them candles, salt and spice, and tells a merry tale or two and gets a meal, sometimes even a bed for a night. And all the while, he watches, he listens, he sees.
It was a bitter winter, and lean, the year Tom met Harald Dulver. Harald was but the heir of his house back then. That year had been a thin one for Tom, else he would not have been upon the road so late, looking for silver and a place to spend the winter. Harald had been out upon the Heath as well when both men were surprised by a sudden, early blizzard that came blowing off Ironman's Bay. Harald was ahorse, well-fed and warmly dressed, but Tom's poor year had left him hungry, threadbare and leading his mule on foot, unwilling to leave his goods by the road and save his shoes the wear.
When the wind came up and the snow came down, Short Tom nearly froze to death. Harald came upon him on the road. Harald tied the half-dead tinker on his horse and led both mule and horse up the road to Deepen Hall through drifts and wind and blinding snow.
Short Tom Tinker spent that winter with the Dulvers and many an evening over wine or ale trading stories with young Harald. When the Spring came, old Lord Dulver had gone into the cellars and would not come out again. Harald was the lord now and Short Tom was in his service.
More winters have come and gone since then, summers, springs and falls as well and through them all Short Tom Tinker has been Harald Dulver's eyes and ears out in the world, a valuable service for a lord who looks greedily at land he dreams of owning. Tom wanders for a time, a month, a year, a season, then comes back to tell Lord Harald what he saw.
Short Tom grows old. He is not so spry as once he was. He bought a horse a few years back, a shaggy little garron from the north to spare his feet.
Septon Arlyn: At the foot of the Deepmont, nestled into the last curve of the causeway that climbs the mountain to the gates of Deepen Hall, sits the Sept on the Heath. Perched high above, the Vulture of Dulver rules the land. But below, the Merry Grouse (for so the smallfolk call Septon Arlyn) rules the people with a ready grin and an easy laugh.
Septon Arlyn began life as Arlyn Qorgyle, third son of a landed knight who was cousin to the lord of Sandstone. His father's holdings were poor and with peace firmly established at the time, there were two stout young men ahead of him in line for the meager inheritance his father would leave. Not given to fratricidal scheming, Arlyn was packed off to a sept.
On his nineteenth nameday, Arlyn said his vows and gave up the name of Qorgyle. For another year he served in the sept before shedding his fine robes for the brown habit of a begging brother and began the wandering journey that would end, at last, in the Sept on the Heath.
For three years, Arlyn walked the tangled web of roads that winds through the Riverlands, into the Westerlands and back again. He learned a great many things in those years: to be poor, to be hungry, to dress and treat the wounds and ailments life layers on the smallfolk who dig the earth and feed the kingdom. As he learned those lessons, the smallfolk to whom he ministered came to know him.
Six years ago Septon Arlyn came up the Dulver road bearing messages for Lord Harald and Septon Quayle of the Sept on the Heath. When he arrived, Septon Arlyn found his holy brother in poor health, and old. On the night before Arlyn was to depart the Sept and take up the road again, Septon Quayle collapsed of a stroke. The old man would never rise from his bed again.
What began as a brief visit became a vigil. Without a maester at Deepen Hall, the burden of caring for the old man fell to Septon Arlyn. He did so dutifully, and alone. Septon Quayle had few friends among his holy brothers, having been a dour and humorless man in life, and the Sept on the Heath, while rich in history, had never been a posting much sought among the order. Through the long year of Quayle's decline, Septon Arlyn was the only member of the faith to attend the old man. Upon the occasion of his death, Septon Arlyn (who had, in that year, grown fond of the folk that lived about the Sept and, truth be told, rather fat) spoke the words over Septon Quayle, gave his body over to the Silent Sisters, and took up his post.
It wasn't long before Septon Arlyn and the young heir of Dulver, Walton, struck up a warm friendship. Lord Harald, though he had the respect and devotion of his smallfolk, did little to make them love him. What their lordship could not win and would not pursue, the people of the Stony Heath showered on Septon Arlyn.
With his ready grin and generous nature, it was hard to find anyone who had met him that did not love him. He spent as much time in the hamlet and wandering the hills tending to the faithful as he did preaching in the sept. He saw to the ailments of the common folk, delivered their children, blessed them and bestowed upon them their names. He saw them married, and buried. He tended them in life and in death. He was generous with the sept's coffers, living frugally and giving out as alms all coins that came in at the offering but the barest minimum necessary to maintain the sept in good order.
Just as the smallfolk did, so too did Walton Dulver come to love Septon Arlyn. With no maester, the young heir's education also fell to the septon. And as Walton fell short of his father's idea of lordship, he found in Arlyn an alternative. A different way to rule.
Ser Walton's affection for the septon has made Arlyn an unwilling and unknowing rival to Lord Harald. Arlyn did not set out to win anyone's affection; it is simply his nature to do so. He would be dismayed to learn that in teaching Ser Walton of the Faith he has in some way supplanted the young heir's father and shocked to find that he has, in the process, gained Lord Harald's resentment. Thus far there has been no confrontation, but should Ser Walton make clear to Lord Harald his preference for the septon's style of leadership over his father's, a confrontation cannot help but be close behind.
Septon Arlyn is a portly man, his chief vice being a great fondness for food. Given his position as the much-beloved septon of the only sept in the district, he has no shortage of invitations to table in the homes of parishioners who are eager to lay as welcoming a meal before him as possible. He is dark-haired, dark-skinned, and his eyes glimmer gaily as he makes kind japes of himself and all those around him.
Septon Arlyn has few ambitions of his own, generally being content to serve good people in the name of the Seven. He is, however, a charismatic man and quite astute once he turns his mind to a subject. Should he find himself in the right company, he would not be the first man elevated despite his own lack of aspiration.
Falyse Dulver (nee Lannister), Lady of Deepen Hall: Lady Falyse was born a Lannister in a manor house upon a hill in the city of Lannisport. Her marriage to Harald Dulver has never been much more than dutiful. As duties go, though, it could have been far more onerous than it was. Harald Dulver was not a handsome man, and his house was neither powerful nor wealthy in comparison to the rest of the Westerlands, but it was ancient and thick with history and Harald was clever, shrewd, ambitious, and at least not cruel or deliberately hurtful. And Falyse was no Lannister of the Rock, but rather the third daughter of a distant cousin. The heir of Dulver seemed a good match for young Falyse.
Twenty years on and Falyse (now Lady Dulver) still feels so of her marriage. Her husband is astute in the management of his holdings and each day of his rule has seen the fortunes of their family advance. Lady Dulver lives secure in the knowledge that her sons will inherit a greater domain than her husband did and her daughter's prospects are good for a very profitable marriage. If there is little love in the marriage, it is a small price to pay.
Lady Falyse does not often take part in her husband's councils. The vagaries of mine yields and the price of wool at market do not interest her, but she runs her household as her husband rules his domain, with skill, wisdom and a willingness to squeeze the use out of every scrap.
Lady Falyse is not so cool as her husband, though. She knows the names of all those that serve under her roof. She knows their families and the circumstances of their lives. She congratulates them on the birth of a child or grandchild and consoles them upon the death of their loved ones.
Where Lord Harald and Lady Falyse differ most is on the subject of faith. Falyse grew up dutifully attending services in the sept at Lannisport. From the time she left her mother's breast, she was in the care of a septa who saw to her education in all matters of faith and womanhood. The lessons stuck and Falyse came to her marriage with an enduring reverence for the Seven and those that were sworn to their service.
For the majority of their marriage Lady Falyse's faith has been a non-issue. She and the children would descend the causeway for regular services in the Sept on the Heath. Lord Harald abstained, as was his wont. There was no need for discussion on the matter. But when their firstborn was anointed, the subject was broached, and like opening a cask of rotten smelt in the middle of a banquet, what had been a peaceful, profitable marriage suddenly suffered from the stink in the air.
The tension lurks beneath the surface of things and rarely surfaces as more than short comments from either Lord or Lady Dulver, but each of those words is a dry twig on a growing heap of tinder. Should there be a spark—a gesture made by Walton perceived as rebellious by his lord father, a confrontation between Lord Harald and Septon Arlyn—then that tinder could become a blaze.
Horas Dulver: Young Horas, just seventeen his last nameday, is much like his father in both manner and appearance. Sadly, he has inherited precious little of his father's acumen. He is a poor manager, sums vex him something terrible, and he has never been any great shakes in a fight. What he does have, though, is a certain sort of low cunning well-suited to scheming, cheating, and tyranny.
When Lord Dulver acquired a swathe of good, green farmland and turned it over to his younger son, Horas did his level best to withhold his baser impulses. But as crop after crop has failed, the youngster's restraint has failed with them. Thus far he has limited his cruelties and depredations to poor travelers and others that will, should their fortitude prove insufficient, not be missed. But it won't be long before one of the smallfolk under his dubious protection will utter the name Blackthumb in his hearing. When the dam on Horas Dulver's wrath finally breaks there will be many a wailing mother in the newest of the Dulver lands.
Helen Dulver: Little Helen is just six years old, far too young to be hatching schemes of her own. She has her mother's fair hair, her father's quick mind, and a daring curiosity all her own. Helen is her mother's treasure. Lady Falyse rarely goes anywhere without her daughter. She dresses the girl in clothes to match her own and bears the burden of little Helen's education on her own shoulders.
Helen's father treasures her as well, though for entirely different reasons. Even though her flowering is still years away, Lord Harald has already turned Maester Falstan to making lists of potential husbands. When Helen is at last of marriageable age, no one will say she made a poor match.
Ser Gambol Hill: Gambol Hill is the natural son of Lord Harald's grandfather, Lord Willas Dulver—called the Girlfather for the eight daughters he got on his lady wife before finally sowing a male heir in her womb. Once she'd borne her husband the son he sought, Lady Dulver counted her duty done, it's said, and turned her husband out of her bedchamber. When Lord Willas got a boy on a shepherd girl out on the heath a dozen years later, she had little to say on the matter.
Gambol was a stout boy and grew into a stout man. He was clever, too. There were a great many whispers around the Stony Heath that it was his natural son that Lord Willas preferred over the odd young man that was his trueborn heir. Legitimization from the crown has ever been an expensive request, however, and the insult to his wife's family would have been intolerable.
So Gambol Hill stayed a bastard and in time came into the service of his half-brother. Gambol had proven himself an able student at arms, and after that a more than able teacher. He's been master-at-arms in Deepen Hall for twenty years and few know the lay of the land as he does. Long ago, when his father was lord, Gambol decided to stay out of family politics, but neutrality isn't blindness. Gambol saw his half-brother's madness, he saw his nephew's promise and he sees the storm brewing in the Dulver family now.
Maybe it's age that's softening his resolve, or maybe it's the memory of the house he came into, divided on itself, but Ser Gambol Hill is more and more considering confronting the Dulver men. Young Walton loves him and looks up to him as he might a father. Lord Harald respects his uncle and just might listen if the old man had something to say. But then again, Gambol's name is Hill, not Dulver, and a bastard learns caution early and for a reason. Perhaps he could avert a family disaster, but he's just as likely to get himself turned out for his trouble.
For now, he waits and watches and hopes.
Master Karyl: Karyl is a broad man of middling height with blunt fingers and shoulders like a bull. He descends from a line of stonemasons near as long as the Dulvers they've served. It's Karyl's family who've cut near every stone out of the Deepmont, Karyl's family alone that know how deep the cellars of Deepen Hall go. The Dulvers have always kept them well, and they have returned the favor with good and faithful service. There are few in the Westerlands who know as much as they do about the cutting and shaping of stone, and stone is one of the few things the Stony Heath has in abundance. People come from across the seven kingdoms to the Stony Heath for Dulver stone and Karyl's men to work it.
Stingy as Lord Dulver is known to be with every other commodity at his disposal, he is uncommonly generous in hiring out his master stonemason. The reason for that is simple: Karyl is a spy.
Karyl's knowledge of stone and masonry gives him a unique insight into the strength of a castle's fortifications. He has just as keen an eye for defensive weak points. Granted, the information he gleans from his surveys of Lord Dulver's neighbors is unlikely to yield immediate gains, but Harald Dulver plans for the long term. With Karyl's help, his lordship has assembled siege plans for half the castles in the western Riverlands.
Karyl grows old and has no sons to take up his tools. His wife died years ago without bearing any children and Karyl has never remarried. Loneliness wears upon him as the years pass. If the right woman were to come along, there is little Master Karyl would not do for love.
Persal "Coppernose": As the old saw goes, Persal Coppernose has forgotten more about mining than any man in the Westerlands has ever known. Local smallfolk say he can smell copper a mile underground and shits lead. But he's "cursed by the gods for the sin of greed," as he says. Each time he's sought after nobler ores, disaster has followed soon after. The last time he lost a son to poisonous fumes that came up out of a silver mine he'd sunk. Before that he lost a leg in a rockslide hunting for gold in the hills of Ashemark, and the time before that he lost his favorite mule in a flood while sifting for gemstones on a little stream that feeds the Mander. After his son, old Persal decided he'd rather live poor than die rich.
Persal has spent the last 25 years digging copper and lead out of the hills of the Stony Heath and, when need arose, heading up Lord Dulver's sappers. No one is more cunning at digging tunnels than Persal Coppernose.
Thus far, Coppernose hasn't tested his curse digging for iron. On the Heath he's had no opportunity to do so, but Lord Harald's been asking questions about the best lands for iron and the means for harvesting it. Persal has enjoyed a rare comfort in his lordship's service. If Lord Dulver comes into the rights to iron-rich lands, Persal will have a decision to make.
Maester Falstan: Maester Falstan is a newcomer to Deepen Hall, but it didn't take him long to discern the reason he was brought within its walls. Before Falstan came, Septon Arlyn was the most learned man in the district as well as the most popular. Lord Dulver, unable to match the septon's easy manner with the smallfolk, hired Falstan to subvert his place as healer and scholar.
Falstan, however, has a grander vision than simply tending to wounds and reading yet another dusty tome. He has already taken Lord Dulver's measure, and decided that if the house's standing is to improve, then he will need to take steps to ensure it. To that end, he has begun isolating Dulver's other advisers so that he can become the sole voice Lord Harald turns to for advice. And that advice will point to a clear destination: battle.
