***
The smithies were located outside the Dreadfort's main walls, a cluster of stone buildings that belched smoke and rang with the sound of hammers on metal.
Castor could hear them from a hundred yards away—the rhythmic clanging that had been background noise to castle life for as long as anyone could remember.
What had changed was the rhythm itself. Before, it had been chaotic—individual smiths working at their own pace, each hammer blow independent of the others.
Now there was pattern to it. Synchronization. The sound of multiple men working in coordinated sequence rather than parallel isolation.
Assembly line. They don't know what to call it, but that's what it is.
Walton met him at the entrance to the main forge, the grizzled sergeant's face streaked with soot. "M'lord. Wasn't expecting you today."
"Inspection. Want to see how the new organization is working."
"Aye, m'lord. This way."
The heat hit immediately when they entered. Ten forges blazing, each tended by a smith stripped to the waist and sweating in the inferno. But unlike before, when each smith would work a piece of metal from raw stock to finished product, now they were specialized.
The first three forges were manned by blade forgers—men who did nothing but heat metal and hammer it into sword-shaped blanks. No detail work, no finishing, just rough shaping. Fast, repetitive, efficient.
Like a production line in a factory. Except the factory is medieval and the workers don't realize they're part of an industrial process.
"Output?" Castor asked, watching one smith pull a glowing blank from the forge and begin hammering it into shape on an anvil.
"Tripled, m'lord," Walton said, voice carrying pride. "Used to be one man made maybe two swords in a week if he worked hard. Now with specialization, we're getting six finished blades per man per week."
Three hundred percent productivity increase just from division of labor. Adam Smith would be proud. Or horrified that it took until the Industrial Revolution for anyone on Earth to figure this out.
Castor moved deeper into the forge. The next station was grinding and shaping—men with whetstones and files, taking rough blanks and refining them into proper blade geometry.
After that, heat treatment—carefully controlled tempering that gave steel its hardness and flexibility. Then edge grinding, where the actual cutting surfaces were created.
Final station was assembly—hilts, crossguards, pommels all fitted by men who did nothing but put finished pieces together.
Components that had been made by other specialists, all standardized so they could be swapped interchangeably.
Interchangeable parts. That's the real revolution here. Not that each man does one task, but that the tasks produce standardized components that fit together regardless of which specific worker made them.
"Problems?" Castor asked.
Walton hesitated. "The men grumble some, m'lord. Say it's not proper smithing, doing the same task over and over. Some of the older ones especially—they learned to make a whole sword, start to finish. This new way feels... wrong to them."
"And yet output tripled."
"Aye, m'lord."
"Then they can grumble all they want as long as they keep working." Castor stopped at the assembly station where a smith—older, maybe fifty—was fitting a leather-wrapped hilt onto a finished blade. "You. Name."
The smith straightened immediately, eyes down. "Mikken, m'lord."
"You're one of the ones who grumbles about the new way?"
Mikken's face paled. "M'lord, I didn't mean—I just—the old ways—"
"Produced two swords per week. The new way produces six. Mathematics don't care about tradition." Castor picked up a completed sword from the rack, examining the blade.
The quality was actually better than before—each specialist focused on their specific task became more skilled at it than generalists who did everything. "This is good work. Better than most swords I've seen from Northern smiths."
"Thank you, m'lord." Mikken's voice was uncertain, like he didn't know if this was praise or prelude to punishment.
Probably both. Keep them off-balance. Never let them feel too secure or too threatened.
"Keep working," Castor said, setting the sword down. "You're part of something bigger than just making weapons. Whether you understand it or not."
"Aye, m'lord."
Castor moved to the far end of the forge complex where a new building had been constructed. Smaller, different ventilation, specialized furnaces that burned hotter and cleaner than the smithing forges.
Glass production.
Inside, four men worked around a furnace that glowed white-hot. Sand and kelp ash mixed in precise ratios, melted at temperatures that pushed the limits of what medieval technology could achieve.
One man fed the furnace, maintaining exact heat. Another worked the molten glass on a blowpipe, shaping it with breath and tools and practiced motion. Two more were grinding and polishing finished pieces.
The results sat on shelves along the wall—clear glass that rivaled anything from Myr. Not the greenish, bubbled, barely-transparent stuff that most Northern keeps made do with, but actual quality glass that could be used for windows, lenses, decorative items.
Dreadfort Crystal. That's what we're calling it. Sounds fancy, justifies premium prices, and nobody questions how we suddenly got good at glassmaking.
"Production rate?" Castor asked the foreman—a thin man named Josson who'd been recruited from White Harbor specifically because he had experience with glassmaking.
"Twenty panes per week currently, m'lord. Could increase to thirty if we add another blower and expand the annealing oven." Josson's voice was eager, proud of his work.
"Quality's consistent now. Had some issues with bubbles in the first batches, but we've refined the process."
"And the specialized pieces? Lenses, curved glass?"
"Harder, m'lord. Takes more skill. But I've got one man—Torren there"—he pointed at a young worker carefully grinding a piece of glass into a curved shape—
"who's got the touch for it. Give him another few months and he'll be able to make anything you need."
Lenses. That's the real prize. Simple magnifying glasses, reading glasses for aging lords, basic optical instruments. Tiny things that sell for fortunes and establish Bolton as a source of valuable goods.
Plus they're impossible to reverse-engineer without understanding optics, so we maintain monopoly.
Castor examined some finished panes. Perfectly clear, even thickness, minimal distortion. Better than what most Southern castles had, and those came from Myrish imports at premium prices.
"I want a full window's worth sent to Winterfell as a gift," Castor said. "Tell Lord Stark it's a sample of new production capabilities from Bolton lands. Establish that we can produce quality goods, make him think of us for future orders."
"Aye, m'lord." Josson beamed. "It'll be the finest glass north of the Neck."
Soft power. That's what this is. Can't just have military strength—need economic influence too. Make ourselves valuable, indispensable, the source of goods people want. Then they depend on us, and dependence is its own kind of leverage.
The soap production was in another new building, this one reeking of lye and animal fats. Less sophisticated than glass, but potentially more profitable. Everyone needed soap, from lords to peasants, and quality varied wildly.
Three workers were stirring massive vats of rendered fat mixed with lye, heating it carefully while adding herbs and oils that made the finished product smell less like chemical death and more like something people might actually want to use.
"Output?" Castor asked the woman overseeing production—Dalla, recruited because she'd been making soap for her village for twenty years and actually understood the chemistry even if she couldn't explain it in those terms.
"Hundred cakes per week, m'lord." She stirred the vat with a long paddle, checking consistency. "Could double that if we had more vats and workers. Demand's there—even smallfolk are buying because the price is fair."
Economics of scale again. Make it cheap enough that everyone can afford it, make it good enough that even rich people want it, and suddenly you're selling to the entire market instead of just luxury segment.
"Where's it being sold?"
"Market towns mostly, m'lord. Winter Town, Widow's Watch, even some going south to White Harbor. Merchants like it because it travels well—doesn't spoil, doesn't break, takes up little space for the value."
"Good. Increase production. Build more vats, recruit more workers. I want Bolton soap in every market north of the Neck within a year."
Dalla's eyes widened. "That's... m'lord, that would require dozens of workers, maybe a hundred—"
"Then recruit them. Pay fair wages, use the new workers' housing near the walls. Make this operation big enough to matter."
"Yes, m'lord." She looked stunned, like she couldn't quite believe someone was taking soap production this seriously.
Because nobody else does. They think soap is peasant work, beneath noble attention.
They're idiots. Soap is recurring revenue, high margins, easy production, universal demand. It's a cash cow waiting to be milked.
Castor spent another hour touring the production facilities, examining each operation in detail. Every workshop, every forge, every specialized station was a node in a network that was slowly but steadily increasing Bolton's economic output.
The numbers were staggering when you actually calculated them.
Swords at triple production rate.
Glass that previously had to be imported now being made locally.
Soap being produced at scale and sold across the North.
Add in the grain from improved farming techniques, the furs from expanded trapping, the lumber from managed forests...
This is what real wealth looks like. Not gold bars in a vault—that's just potential energy.
This is kinetic energy. Actual production, actual goods, actual value being created and sold and generating sustainable income.
And none of it looked revolutionary. Each individual change was modest, explainable, the kind of thing a competent young lord might implement. Better organization, slightly improved techniques, modest expansion. Nothing that screamed "industrial revolution."
But taken together? Coordinated and scaled up? It was the foundation of something unprecedented.
"Walton," Castor said as they walked back toward the Dreadfort proper, "I want detailed production logs from every workshop. Daily counts of units produced, materials consumed, workers employed. I need to understand the full economic picture."
"Aye, m'lord. Should I report to Maester Tybald or—"
"No. Report to me directly. Keep separate ledgers from the official records. These numbers are strategic information."
Walton's expression showed he understood. Secret accounting, hidden from even the castle's maester. Another layer of operational security.
"Understood, m'lord."
They walked in silence for a bit, the sounds of production fading behind them.
Castor's mind was already running calculations—production rates times market prices times distribution costs equals... a fucking lot of money.
Legitimate money that could be openly spent without raising questions because it came from documented sources.
This is the other half of the equation. Printing press and coin minting give us the ability to fake wealth. But actual production gives us real wealth to back it up.
Combine the two and you get a financial system that's unassailable—even if someone questions the documentation, the actual goods prove Bolton lands are prospering. And if someone questions how we're affording expansion, the documentation proves we have the income to support it.
It's a closed loop. Each part reinforces the others. Perfect system design.
"M'lord," Walton said as they approached the gates, "can I ask... why? Why all this focus on production and trade? You're a lord, not a merchant. Most nobles leave this to their stewards."
Because most nobles are fucking idiots who think wealth just magically appears from peasants working their land. They don't understand that production capacity IS power.
That economic strength enables military strength. That you can't field armies or build ships or buy dragons without sustainable revenue streams.
But he couldn't say that.
"Because the North is poor," Castor said instead. "We're the largest kingdom in Westeros but the weakest economically. The South has better land, better trade, better everything. If we want to matter—if the North wants to be respected rather than pitied—we need to build wealth. Real wealth, not just noble titles and ancient bloodlines."
It was partially true. The part about strengthening the North. The part about what he'd do with that strength... well, Walton didn't need those details.
"You think like a Southerner, m'lord. Begging your pardon."
"I think like someone who wants to win. The Southerners understand money and trade because they have to—their power depends on it. The North has been able to ignore economics because we're so isolated.
But that isolation is ending. Trade routes are expanding, the Iron Throne's influence is growing, and if we don't adapt, we'll be left behind."
Walton absorbed this, his weathered face thoughtful. "And all this—the workshops, the new methods, the organization—this is adaptation?"
"This is survival. The world's changing, Walton. The question is whether we change with it or get crushed by it."
Dramatic. But true enough.
The War of Five Kings is coming, winter is coming, the White Walkers are eventually coming.
Having strong economic foundations might not stop any of that, but it sure as hell helps when you're trying to fund armies and feed populations and build the infrastructure that keeps civilization from collapsing.
They entered the Dreadfort proper. Inside the walls, activity continued as always—soldiers training, servants working, the daily routines that had sustained the castle for generations.
Everything looking perfectly normal while outside those walls, in workshops and forges and production facilities, the future was being built one standardized unit at a time.
And they don't even know it. The workers think they're just following new procedures. The merchants think they're just buying quality goods.
The other Northern houses think Bolton's just having a run of good fortune. Nobody sees the system. Nobody connects the dots. They see trees, not the forest.
That's exactly how I want it.
Castor headed toward his solar where ledgers waited—numbers to review, production schedules to optimize, the endless details of building an empire disguised as administrative competence.
Three machines, he'd thought weeks ago. Furnace, press, minting. But it's more than that now. It's an entire integrated system—resource extraction, production, documentation, distribution.
Each component feeding into the next, creating value at every stage, generating wealth that looks legitimate because most of it actually is legitimate.
The gold mine just accelerates everything. Provides capital for expansion, funds the infrastructure, buys the materials and workers and equipment.
But the real wealth?
That's being created by the system itself. By specialization and standardization and scale. By understanding principles of industrial production that won't be discovered for centuries.
This is how you change the world.
Not with magic or prophecy or noble intentions.
With economics and engineering and careful, patient, systematic building of capability that compounds over time.
He smiled as he climbed the stairs, already planning tomorrow's improvements.
***
CHAPTER END