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"Ramsay, these past few days, you're the one who has earned the most merit. This shipment is part of your spoils as well. Properly speaking, you should be rewarded first."
Roose shook his head, keeping his eyes fixed on Ramsay as he praised him with what seemed like sincere approval.
Hearing that, Ramsay immediately answered with a somewhat uneasy look:
"For you, Father, and for House Bolton, no effort is too great for me."
"Mm. Drink."
Roose nodded and tilted his chin slightly toward the cup in Ramsay's hands, signaling for him to do so.
Ramsay put on a moved expression, raised the cup to his lips, and took a long drink.
"Mmm, it really is good wine. Father, I'll pour you another cup."
After swallowing, Ramsay closed his eyes for a brief moment, as if savoring the taste, then offered that praise.
He then picked up another goblet and poured Roose wine from the same barrel.
Roose kept his eyes on Ramsay the entire time. Seeing no strange reaction from him, he slowly accepted the cup being offered.
Still smiling, Ramsay raised the cup he had not yet finished and said to Roose:
"To the Boltons."
"To the Boltons."
Roose raised his own cup in return and lowered his head to take a small sip.
"Hm?"
The moment the wine slid down his throat, Roose let out a faint sound of surprise, then said to Ramsay,
"Arbor wine truly is exquisite."
"It honors the wine that you like it."
"By the way, what about those four Winterfell men?
I want every noble in the North to know that it is the lord they swore themselves to who is plundering them. Even if I suffered a setback this time through carelessness, I won't let that wolf pup walk away unscathed either."
As he tasted the wine, Roose suddenly remembered something and questioned Ramsay.
Ramsay only smiled without answering. Then he turned his head and gave a whistle through pursed lips. One of the soldiers who had entered the castle unarmed understood the signal and nodded.
A few minutes later, Sam and the three wolf guards, their faces swollen and bruised and their bodies tightly bound, were brought before Roose.
"Very good. Ramsay, I'll leave this matter to you. I expect good news by tomorrow."
Roose knew his bastard had a talent for interrogation, so he spoke directly.
"Also, aside from you, every knight who returned will be held for the time being. Once their identities are confirmed, they'll be released. Any objections?"
"As you command, Father. I have no objections."
Ramsay nodded with perfect obedience, wearing the posture of a dutiful son.
Seeing that reaction, Roose merely nodded expressionlessly and headed toward his chambers with his attendants.
Everything had already been arranged.
Without a direct order from him, Ramsay had no way to make the officers of the garrison obey his whims.
It took quite a while before the more than four hundred men Ramsay had brought back were verified, disarmed, and led into the Dreadfort one by one.
The three wagons and the nearly four hundred warhorses were taken to the stables just behind and to the right of the main gate.
Under normal circumstances, that place could hold nearly a thousand horses.
But since House Bolton's cavalry had suffered heavy losses, the stables were almost empty, which made things convenient.
"The wagons can stay in the stables. There's no need to unload them. I'll send someone tomorrow to take everything out.
This is liquid gold. If you clumsy-handed fools spill any of it, not even flaying you would cover the loss."
When Ramsay saw the guards preparing to unload the wine barrels from the wagons, he frowned and rebuked them.
Hearing his voice, the guards stopped what they were doing, displeased but not daring to offend that cruel bastard.
"Take the four of them to the interrogation room."
Once Ramsay saw that the guards would no longer touch his wine, he pointed at Sam and the other three, gave the order, and walked off without waiting for a reply.
Hearing Ramsay's thoroughly disrespectful tone, the guard officer frowned, but he still chose four men.
After quietly giving them a few instructions, he had them take Sam and the other three to the interrogation room.
Of the four hundred horsemen under Ramsay, besides the nearly one hundred men who had followed him for a long time, the other three hundred had originally been left with him by Roose.
As those men were being placed under guard, the officer quietly pulled one rider out from the group and handed him over to a servant who had already been waiting nearby.
Without exchanging a word, the servant and the man made their way through the damp, winding corridors of the Dreadfort. The only sound was the echo of their footsteps.
After walking for quite some time through the turns and passages of the castle, the servant finally brought the man to Roose's chambers.
"My lord Roose!"
The moment the door closed, the rider immediately bowed in greeting.
"Mm. What did Ramsay do during this time? Was there any unusual behavior?"
Seated and clearly already expecting him, Roose nodded and got straight to the point.
"My lord, during that time, Lord Ramsay only raided a merchant caravan and obtained that shipment of wine. Perhaps because the wine was so valuable, he was in an excellent mood and released all the merchants."
Hearing the question, the rider thought for a moment before answering.
"Other than that, there was nothing unusual. But he spoke often with the four Winterfell men, and from the way they acted, they seemed to get along very well."
"Mm. And where did you seize that caravan?"
Roose absorbed the report carefully, and seeing nothing obviously strange at first glance, asked another question.
"My lord Roose, it wasn't recent. It was before the Dreadfort sent the raven saying House Stark had declared war."
"What? You mean Ramsay carried that wine with him the entire way back while hurrying to reinforce the castle?"
"Yes. Lord Ramsay would rather have traveled more slowly than abandon such an expensive shipment of wine."
"Idiot! Why didn't you say that first?"
Roose, who almost always maintained his composure, seemed to catch the scent of a conspiracy. He slapped a hand onto the table, rose abruptly to his feet, and spoke in a sharp voice:
"Something is wrong with Ramsay. And something is wrong with that wine as well. Come."
In the Dreadfort's interrogation room, Sam and the other three were bound to X-shaped racks. Four guards stood beside Ramsay.
"All right. Now it's time for me to have some fun. You can leave."
With his left hand, Ramsay idly sorted through the bloodstained torture tools laid out on the table. With his right, he made a dismissive gesture at the guards.
"Lord Ramsay, Lord Roose ordered us to keep him informed of everything, so…"
Hearing that, the four guards exchanged looks. One of them, seemingly uneasy, spoke up.
"Fine. You can stay and report back afterward. The others can leave. When I'm having fun, I hate being watched."
Ramsay raised an eyebrow and answered impatiently.
"Yes…"
The four guards exchanged glances again. The one who had spoken before appeared to be their leader. He nodded to the others, and the remaining three filed out one after another.
"Did you know? This kind of weapon is the best for killing someone."
After rummaging around on the table for a bit, Ramsay found a thin iron spike, about the length of a dagger and no thicker than a twig. Turning it playfully in his hand, he spoke to the guard beside him.
"I don't know… mmph, mmph!"
The guard had barely begun to answer.
Ramsay suddenly lunged with his left hand, clamping a hand over the man's mouth hard enough to twist it into a grotesque shape, while with his right he began stabbing the iron spike savagely into his neck.
"Mmph! Mmph!!!"
By pure instinct, the guard seized Ramsay's left arm with both hands, trying to wrench himself free and cry out.
But as the spike punched hole after hole through his neck, his pupils widened in terror. His arms gradually lost all strength and began to fall away, while the sounds coming from his mouth grew weaker and weaker.
"That's why I'm saying, if I tell you to leave, you should just leave."
As he felt the life draining out of the guard, Ramsay drove the spike one final time into that neck, which now looked like a honeycomb of bloody, horrifying holes, and this time did not pull it back out.
Using both hands, he wiped the blood from his fingers on the linen lining of the guard's clothes as he spoke with a smile, in a tone almost like advice.
Sam and the others, though gagged and tied down, had no choice but to watch Ramsay kill a man right in front of them. At that moment, all four felt a chill run straight down their spines.
After cleaning most of the blood from his hands, Ramsay let go of the guard's corpse and allowed it to collapse to the floor.
Then he opened his arms toward Sam and the other three, smiled broadly, and said:
"Gentlemen, Lord Robb's fireworks plan begins now."
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