"Husband," I caught Ned's attention over breakfast the following morning. "If you're not too busy, I have some things I would like to show you "
"I'm afraid I have much to catch up on," he deferred. "I've been gone for nearly two years."
"Both I and Benjen have kept Winterfell running smoothly while you were away," I pressed. "And both Steward Poole and Maester Luwin have been a great help. The castle and its affairs are well in hand and shouldn't require your immediate attention."
Ned raised an eyebrow. "Then what is so pressing that you absolutely must show me today?"
"My workshop, and my farm," I replied.
Ned stared at me for a moment, idly taking another bite of sausage as he considered my words. "I presume your workshop is where you're making the cloth that is selling so well in the South?" he asked.
I nodded.
"And… your farm?"
"I had Maester Luwin look through the historical records to see if crops other than wheat had been grown in the past here in the North," I answered. "Prior to the Andals, the staple grain crop used to be barley."
Ned raised an eyebrow and made a gesture, encouraging me to continue.
"The largest reason why the South can grow more food than the North is because they can plant and harvest two crops per year in each field," I explained. "Wheat takes too long to grow this far North. However, I've set up a few fields with other crops to see if it is possible to grow two harvests of a faster growing crop each year."
"I see," he said, his face contemplative. "And you want to show me this farm?"
"More than that," I said with a pleased smile. "Three of the four crops I had planted there are ready to harvest this week. I wanted you to come see them."
Ned silently chewed another bite of sausage. Eventually, he nodded. "Very well. If Winterfell is as well managed as you say, then I can afford to put it off for a day, but no more than that," he answered.
"Excellent," I said, pleased. "We can go to the First Keep as soon as we're finished with breakfast."
"Well?" I quietly asked as Ned and I watched Harri dye a bolt of cloth Winter Blue.
Ned had grown more and more thunderstruck as I guided him around my workshop. The main hall in the First Keep was already, just as I had suspected, dedicated solely to washing, drying, and carding wool. All of the spinning machines and looms had been moved to rooms on the first floor, and Garalt was hard at work making more. He had two apprentices helping him now, and he expects he'll need at least one more to keep up with my orders. I'd reserved the second floor for future expansion, but the third and fourth floors housed a number of my widows and their children. The rest of my workers lived in Winter Town.
Ned had stared in bewilderment as Adrya and a few of her helpers worked at extracting essential oils or made batches of my lanolin skin cream. He had seemed a bit upset when he noticed how many winter roses she was using to make rosewater, but I'd assured him that I only harvested what the gardener allowed me to. Though I hadn't mentioned it out loud, one of my long-term goals was to construct a second glasshouse to grow more Winter Roses and other herbs specifically for my cosmetic products.
His brain was practically dribbling out of his ears by the time we made it to the dyeworks.
"How… how did you manage all of this?" He asked, his voice hoarse.
"Carefully, one step at a time," I joked. At his unamused look, I elucidated. "Maester Luwin noticed that sales of raw wool were dropping, with so many men called away to fight in the war. Since that's one of our major exports, I knew we couldn't take the financial hit that lower prices would cause, so I decided to make a weaving workshop."
"I understand that part," he replied. "But what about those… machines? Where did you come up with the idea?"
"As a young girl, I toured a spinner and weavers workshop, so I could learn about where the thread and cloth I used for embroidery came from," I said, giving him the same cover story I'd come up with previously. "After that, I sometimes wondered how I could make the spinning wheels or looms better. I just never tried it, until the whole issue with wool came up."
Ned sighed and shook his head in both wonder and disbelief.
"From there, I knew dyed cloth would sell for a higher price, so I searched for dyes that could be made here in the North," I explained.
"And the… skin cream?" he asked.
"I noticed that the women who were washing the wool had exceptionally soft hands, despite the heat and the work," I smoothly lied. "It wasn't difficult to figure out that the natural oils in the wool were causing it. I just had to figure out how to make it smell nicer. That's why I hired Adrya; her knowledge of herbs helped me fix that little issue."
"I see…" he murmured, still looking dazed. "And all of this… you're bringing in how much again?"
"Well, let's see," I hummed, running through the numbers in my head. "Last moon's sales amounted to around 300 gold dragons, give or take. After paying for labor and materials, I got to keep about 200 dragons."
"That much?" He asked, eyebrows raised.
"That little," I replied, shaking my head. "My merchant contacts are bringing in more wool than we can deal with currently; our storerooms are practically overflowing with the stuff. I'm having the carpenter build as many spinning machines and looms as he can, and I'm hiring new workers almost daily, but I can barely keep up. Due to the low prices, I think a few shepherds haven't been selling their wool until I came along, so there's plenty of wool available. However, based on the number of sheep pastures on House Stark's lands, once I can actually keep up with the amount that is produced, I'll probably be making around a thousand gold dragons each moon, give or take a hundred in either direction."
"I… I think I need to sit down," Ned said, sounding faint.
A thousand gold dragons was a significant amount. In terms of my old life, a thousand gold dragons was worth somewhere around twelve million dollars. However, I knew that amount could be higher; right now, I was really only buying wool from the area around Winterfell; Castle Cerwyn, Torrhen's Square (which was on land owned by House Stark, and House Tallhart was a Masterly house sworn to House Stark), and White Harbor. The Umber and Karstark lands and the Rills, given their wide open pasturelands, produced much more wool than Rickard the merchant was able to supply to me. But before I could worry about that supply of wool, I needed to be able to work with the wool I already had.
Even so, 1000 gold dragons was not a small amount here in the North. House Stark's revenue mostly came from taxes and rents on the land it held, with a smaller amount coming from tolls and tariffs. Adding in the modest amount received as taxes from the other lordly houses of the North, and House Stark's annual income was worth around forty thousand dragons each year. However, the majority of that income was in the form of crops and herd animals, of which most was kept in reserve for winter. A significant portion of the coin that was brought in went to paying soldiers, maintaining armories, and upkeep on castles and roads. The North's tax obligations to the Iron Throne amounted to around twenty five thousand dragons each year, depending on how the harvests went; this was levied as a separate tax, and had been since the rule of Jaehaerys the Conciliator.
The reason why Ned was so shocked was because, after all expenses, House Stark added between 500 and 2000 gold dragons to its treasury each year, depending on the outcome of the harvests. House Stark, unfortunately, spent more money than it made during the long winters. Ned's father, Rickard, wasn't particularly frugal, but nor was he a lavish spender; the treasury didn't grow much under his rule, but it held steady. Ned, unfortunately, depleted a significant amount of the available coin to help fund the Rebellion, and his share of the spoils in the recent war hadn't fully recouped his costs. Hearing that my profits for each moon, about 400 dragons, was close to the minimum of what he could expect to put in Winterell's treasury each year of summer was certainly a major shock to him.