The flames of the makeshift camp flickered against the dark belly of winter.
Numbers rolled through Lynn's head like falling snow.
Three hundred mouths.
Three meals a day.
How much grain per person? How many cords of wood? How much leather, salt, herbs, and medicine?
And that was only the first wave of refugees. When Mance's main host crossed the Wall, it would be ten thousand at least.
A hundred thousand bellies to feed before the spring thaw.
The Night's Watch had no reserves; their grain bins scraped empty months ago. The North's stores were—at best—thin.
Rodrik Cassel joined him on the watchtower, the wind carving red lines across his face.
"Robb's already ridden south to Winterfell," the old knight said. "He plans to raise supplies, but our buyers bring troubling news. Grain prices are up nearly twenty percent across the North. Merchants are hoarding stock. They've guessed what we're doing."
"Trying to make war profit off famine," Lynn muttered coldly. "Parasites."
"They're merchants," Rodrik sighed. "They buy low and sell high. That's their creed. The problem is—we can't afford the 'high.'"
Lynn drummed his fingers against the frozen stone, doing the math in silence. "One penny short, and the hero starves," he murmured.
Coins were blood in this world, he thought—and the North was already bleeding dry.
Robb needed his Army fed. The Wall needed rebuilding. The Watch was destitute.
And the wildlings—his new allies—had brought nothing but hungry mouths.
He needed money. Fast.
He stared at the dark horizon.
"Well," he muttered, "if novels back home are right, this is where the transmigrator gets rich with gunpowder, glass, or soap."
Except he didn't remember the exact formula for black powder, the ratios between saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur.
The glassmaking process required heat and tools beyond this age's reach.
And soap? The North's folks had already been washing with ash and tallow for centuries.
He needed something rarer—something cheap to make but valuable enough for nobles to fight over.
Luxury.
For the next three days, Lynn all but vanished.
He told Robb and Rodrik only that he "needed materials." Then he rode into the forests and marshes beyond the Gift, returning each night with strange armfuls of loot:
Clusters of purple‑flowered bog plants. Crystallized pine resin. Bark shavings that smelled faintly of honey and ash. Dried wild mint. Even bundles of grassland blossoms traded from Free Folk women for a few iron nails.
Back inside one of the ruined cellars below a deserted fort, he built his tiny "lab."
If anyone asked, it looked like madness.
Pots and jars scavenged from the kitchen. A cracked copper pan from the blacksmith. A bent pipe hammered into a makeshift condenser. And over it all, the smell of smoke, sap, and half‑burned herbs.
A few curious brothers from the Watch crowded around.
"What're you cooking?" one asked, wrinkling his nose.
"Not cooking," said Lynn, eyes locked on the flicker of the flame. "Extracting."
The first batch was an assault on human dignity. The mix of bog flowers and pine tar reeked like rotting wood steeped in cheap perfume. Half the watchers stumbled out of the cellar gagging.
The second batch was better—but too heavy on mint. It smelled like someone had melted an entire mint field into a bottle. He labeled it "mosquito repellent" for future use.
The third batch—after adjusting the ingredients and distillation—came out perfect.
When he opened the bottle, a cool, intricate fragrance filled the air: sharp pine and spruce at first, fading into soft meadow blossoms, with a final whisper of warmth like sun‑dried amber.
He corked it gently, heart pounding.
He had created… perfume.
By the time Robb Stark and Ser Rodrik arrived, a long oak table was lined with five tiny glass vials and a dozen stitched sachets.
Rodrik frowned. "What in the Seven Hells have you done?"
Robb picked up one of the vials, popped the cork, and inhaled carefully.
"That," said Lynn, "is perfume. You apply it here"—he tapped his wrist—"or here, at the throat. The scent lasts half a day. As for the sachets—keep them in chests or hung from belts. They scent clothing, repel moths, and keep pests away."
The young Stark inhaled again, blinking in surprise. "It smells… different. Not like any I've known."
"I avoided roses and jasmine," Lynn explained. "Too costly, too foreign. Instead—pine, spruce buds, wild mint, and prairie flowers. The scents of the North. Scents no one else has."
Rodrik turned the sachet over in his calloused hands, tracing the crude embroidery of a wolf stitched into the cloth.
"The sewing's rough," he muttered. "Northern women make their own lavender pouches already. Why pay for this?"
"Because," said Lynn, smiling faintly, "this isn't a pouch of herbs. It's the North. A forest you can carry. A piece of cold wind and green wood."
He lifted the vial again. "And this—this doesn't exist anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms."
Robb began to pace, eyes lit with thought. Through the window outside, Free Folk women were teaching Watch recruits to tan hides with a wildling trick using mountain moss.
"My father used to say the North must find its own strength," Robb said slowly. "Not just through war, but through trade. But who would buy…" He paused mid‑sentence.
Then he smiled. "The ladies of King's Landing would."
Rodrik blinked. "The capital's women? They'd rather hoard gold and silk."
"Exactly." Robb's grin widened. "Sansa's letters speak of the court women competing for novelties—the newest dress, the rarest jewel, the strangest perfume. 'The Scent of the North'—they'd wear it at feasts just to prove they've smelled something no one else has."
He held the vial up to the firelight; the pale green liquid gleamed like captured frost. "This isn't just perfume. It's a story—and a status symbol."
Rodrik still looked doubtful. "And how will we sell it? Lady Catelyn won't stoop to trade. And your sisters…"
"They won't have to," Robb said. "Mother still knows merchants in the capital. We ship the goods south under their banners, let them take the profit share."
He looked between them, determination setting in. "And if it does take off—if the court starts speaking of it—we'll have changed how they see the North: not as a frozen wasteland, but as a place that makes fine, costly things. That means respect—and coin."
Lynn smiled quietly. The boy had vision. He wasn't just thinking of trade—he was thinking of the future.
Rodrik nodded reluctantly. "Perhaps. But spring grain won't grow from perfume. Food remains short."
"Which is why we start with the sachets," Lynn said. "They're simpler. Gather Free Folk women with sewing skills—pay them by piecework with food or copper. I'll supply the designs and mixtures. It feeds families, produces stock, and teaches cooperation."
Robb's eyes lit. "Agreed. As for the perfume itself…" He looked at the vials again, calculating aloud. "We'll make a small shipment—one hundred sachets, fifty bottles. Send them to the capital for trial."
"Good," Lynn said. "But there's one more problem—presentation. We can't sell in clay jars and rough cloth. The capital buys with its eyes."
Robb thought for a moment, then chuckled. "I know where to find what we need. House Manderly just unloaded cargo from the south—fine glass bottles and spare silk scraps from the Reach. I'll write to Lord Wyman. Tell him we'll trade him something sturdier for his silks."
He looked back at Lynn, grin still boyish but the weight of command behind it. "You said you were looking for a way to make dragons out of thin air. Here's your chance."
Lynn laughed softly, rubbing the scar on his shoulder. "Where I come from, we had a saying—'Learn your math and science, and you'll survive anywhere.'"
He looked out toward the pale light beyond the Wall.
"Seems that school lesson's finally paying off."