The young girl rode ahead, then slowed down and separated from Raff and the others, waiting by the roadside for Gregor and Maester Harry.
Gregor silently kept his eye on the girl.
He forced himself not to think about what she had endured up in the mountains. If he had gone through something similar, especially as a young girl, it would have felt like the end of the world. Yet this girl, Julie, was as tough as the black stones of Silverhill.
As her lord, Gregor realized he had had no impression of this girl before, Julie had been just another face in the background.
"Father." the girl said.
Gregor felt a little awkward.
In his past life, he had been an unmarried student, dumped by his girlfriend, just an ordinary guy. Now he'd fused with Gregor's soul and inherited Gregor's body. Inherited his body, even the phrase felt strange, as if two men had shared some bizarre, cross-temporal relationship. It made him uncomfortable.
"Mm." Gregor grunted in reply.
"Father, kill me." the girl said.
"…What?" Gregor was stunned. "I'm not your father."
Maester Harry was just as surprised. "Julie, address him properly, as 'milord.'"
"Father, my lord, please kill me." she repeated.
Gregor suddenly felt a headache coming on. "I won't kill you."
"You won't?"
"I won't." Gregor said, firm this time.
Why should I kill you? You're the source of a whole storm of trouble, but I'm not the same Gregor as before.
"If Father won't kill me, then I'm staying with you." she declared. She nudged her horse forward, casually forcing Maester Harry to fall behind, lining up her mount next to Gregor's. It was a subtle move, proof she could ride and that she knew how to maneuver people.
Gregor looked down at her from above. Her blond hair was dry and thin, her chin sharp, her face narrow, eyes monolidded with amber irises, lips thin. There was no trace of childhood left in her features, only a calmness and composure far beyond her years.
She reminded Gregor of another northern girl: Arya Stark, that wild wolf pup of House Stark. If Julie had been born into a noble house, would she have become someone like Arya, or even more dangerous?
A phrase came to Gregor's mind: "Are lords and kings born any different from us?"
"Julie, have you trained with the sword?"
"No. But I've watched people use one."
"Have you used a knife?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"To kill chickens, ducks, pigs, and goats. Killing people can't be all that different."
"You're too young to be talking about killing." Gregor said, suddenly chilled.
Julie gave him a sideways glance. "Is the Mountain afraid of killing?"
Gregor gave a sheepish grunt. "You're just a child."
"I'm not a child. I'm a woman." She turned to Maester Harry behind them. "Maester, once we get back to Clegane Keep, I want moon tea."
Moon tea, a woman's herbal remedy for terminating pregnancy.
Maester Harry stammered, "J-Julie… are you… pregnant?"
He was shocked by the girl's calmness, or perhaps it was her complete lack of shame.
"I don't know." she said matter-of-factly.
Gregor felt even more awkward.
Maybe he hadn't rescued a little Arya Stark after all, but another young version of himself.
At Julie's age, the original Gregor had already burned his brother Sandor's face and snapped their father's neck in the woods.
None of us are normal, he thought.
Birds of a feather flock together. Was his reputation as Westeros's most brutal killer only destined to draw similarly twisted people and events into his life?
Gregor didn't know much about moon tea, only that it was used for abortions.
Up ahead, Raff the Sweetling was singing bawdy songs from Gregor's previous life with the ever-cheerful Scribe. Their tunes were vulgar and shameless "The Lady's Dinner." and others like it. Even Dunsen, who rarely sang, and the grunting Polliver joined in.
Aldo Serrett, their noble hostage riding in the middle, ended up humming along too, an odd smile on his stiff face.
Noble or common, it seemed men were men, shared a dirty song and they'd all get along.
Only the cavalryman Thomasson looked deeply worried and out of place.
…
Nightfall.
Maester Harry couldn't settle his nerves.
Upon returning to Clegane Keep, they had sent off a raven, and it had returned. But there was no reply from Lord Tywin.
This made Harry anxious. He had no idea what Lord Tywin might have thought of the letter he had written.
Lord Tywin had placed him beside Gregor not only to treat his headaches, but also to serve as Tywin's eyes and ears.
Clegane Keep was less than a hundred miles from Casterly Rock, and ravens flew fast.
At dinner, Ado Serrett was already laughing and joking with Raff the Sweetling, a testament to Raff's charm. As for Julie, she had not returned home. She sat kneeling by Gregor's side, cutting his meat, spreading honey on his bread, ladling bacon soup, pouring his wine, just like a dutiful daughter doting on her father.
Her real father, Thomasson, sat lower down the table. Julie never spoke to him.
That afternoon, Raff had taught her court manners. Dunsen, the executioner, had shown her how to hold a sword sideways. Ado Serrett had taught her archery. Gregor, meanwhile, had taken a long nap in his bedroom, not waking until Polliver came to summon him for dinner.
He needed the rest. After detoxing and traveling half the night and day, his body was drained.
Food in this world was plentiful, meats of all kinds were common. Hunting yielded delicacies unknown in his former life: wolf, bear, wild boar, and even shadow cats the size of tigers. But the meat was coarse. Seasonings were gritty and poorly refined. Even the salt was chunky and full of sand.
Despite being near the sea, everyone here used rock salt.
Gregor found himself missing the pure white iodized salt of his previous life; fine-grained, snow-like, and often packaged beautifully.
Maybe salt could become a profitable business' refined, sand-free, bitter-free, packed like fine gifts to be sold to nobles.
It seemed doable. Salt here was bought loose from open salt pans, with workers standing barefoot in the brine. Both nobles and commoners measured salt with wooden scoops. Everything was bulk.
Refining it into snow-white crystals didn't require chemistry, just a simple process of high-heat filtration, followed by cooling and crystallization. Sea salt could be boiled down as well.
But Gregor didn't want salt to be his main business.
He wanted to mine, gold mines.
To be in the Westerlands and not think about mining gold? You'd have to be brain-dead.
But Gregor's own lands had neither gold nor silver mines.
His territory was pitifully small.
The Westerlands were rich in mountains, gold, and silver but every mountain had an owner.
Only two mining areas were currently abandoned: those once belonging to the exterminated noble houses of Castamere (House Reyne) and Tarbeck Hall (House Tarbeck). Their mines had been left untouched for thirty-eight years.
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