“What you speak of with the paper seems wise, as does your desire to travel lightly. I shall see if any of my armsmen have family in Hintergart and I can send the man with the burned farm as well as his family. They are from nearby and this seems as good a use of them as any. If they would slow you down or bloat your party they can be sent separately. It would not do for one of my true sons to accompany you; that would draw attention, but Jon can accompany you?”

"The farmer's family should not accompany me to house Bolton, I think, but will otherwise be useful. If Jon does not have other commitments, though, I would not mind bringing him, and he may learn from the experience. And here, I shall explain the paper trick."

Annatar writes some random letters, and demonstrates how they may be added together to form other letters. A+A=B. C+C=F, and so on, circling around at the end so that Y+B=A. Given a sheet of random letters and a message, each letter in the message is added to the corresponding letter on the sheet, producing a new sheet of random letters. The recipient need only have a copy of the original random letters, and they may subtract each letter in turn from the letters in the random message they receive, to reveal the original message. Even if the process is known by your enemies, there is no way to find the message without the random letters that were selected upfront. Annatar will write a stack of paired random sheets, each labeled. Then if he or Lord Stark needs to send a message, they may simply select a sheet, encode their letter with it, label the letter with the label of the sheet, and send it normally. So long as they keep the random sheets safe, there is no risk in interception.

“A scheme worthy of Littlefinger or The Imp,” Lord Stark replies and it sounds like a complement. Kind of. “Go with my blessing, and take Jon with you. How easily could you have four Valerian steel swords ready by the time you return for the king’s visit?”

"If by this you mean the style of that knife, it will be tricky, but I think doable. I will assemble a larger forge in Hintergart, and should be able to have four ready by the time I return here. I will have little time for finery upon the blades, I warn you, but they will be strong, and the style itself has beauty."

“Then I shall have my forge master here do the grips guards and pommels. Two are intended for gifts, for it is tradition that the host give guest gifts and that would be a grand gift indeed. The Lannister’s are considered the wealthiest in Westeros and the king is the king, but neither has a single Valerian steel sword. If my house held three- my own, one for Rob, and one for Jon, then gave two for gifts, we would earn great standing. Ah Tywin would be forever trying to outdo the gift and all would know it. If Jon is to stay in the town you are erecting though, three blades will suffice.” 

"Would he not wish to meet the king? I suppose I can ask him on the way. Do you wish the swords to be of any specific style? If Rob or the king has a preference of length or shape, I could meet it. I could age the blades as well, if you prefer not to give away their youth. The effect would not be perfect, but might make it more plausible if you prefer to say you found them somewhere."

“Yes, that is the plan. Jon would like to meet the king I’m sure, but it is rarely done to introduce one’s bastard and could be taken as an insult. If he were here perhaps I would anyway, but if he has reason to be elsewhere...”

twisting deep, winding driving down down into the deep. Mysterious things there, yes, the odd old tree is still sending. 

"If if is inappropriate for him to be present, I am sure we can find reason for him to stay. Even if I manage to recruit a Bolton, it may be inadvisable to leave them unmonitored."

Annatar tries taking a different tack in communicating with the tree, and and reflects it's own impression of mysterious metals back at it. Can he guide it into deeper thoughts on that topic?

Deep deep, metals so shiny, so hard, too hard for roots to grow through they must grow around instead... the tree seems to at least be thinking about metals. 

“Yes, this seems a fair plan,” Lord Stark agrees, and stands. “I shall think on it, and see if anything occurs to me in the morning. Is there anything you need to speed your journey or aid you when you arrive? Anything you desire before you leave?” 

"Good horses will be of use, and if you have a sign or mark that might speed our way if interrupted, it would also be of value. Otherwise, only what I have already mentioned. I am pleased to get underway! This will be an interesting endeavor."

To the tree, he tries to direct it to think of the map of its roots, of the location of the metal. Iron is a lovely material, but there are purposes for which he would prefer another, and these Men do not seem to make use of many others.

“Horses you shall have.” Lord Stark replies. “And I shall have the Maester draft a non-specific writ for you bearing my seal. If there is nothing else, I think Jon will appreciate a little warning so he can pack.”

the tree seems... confused? It doesn’t understand the idea of a map, and cannot even properly comprehend of a “place” other than “here,” and “not here”. 

Does the tree have a concept of length? Of the further roots from the nearer, of the roots from the trunk?

"Then that seems sufficient. Let us inform Jon that I wish to leave tomorrow after breakfast, there is no need to leave tonight."

Lord Stark agrees and leaves to see to his duties. The godswood is a public part of the castle and Annatar is not encouraged to leave. 

The tree doesn’t really understand length. There are some resources “here” which it has roots that can access, and some resources “not here” which it grows roots outwards to find. Some of the older trees it talks with have root networks stretching nearly a mile. 

Annatar will remain in the godswood for a while, but he expects he can keep in contact with the tree from further away, now that he has noticed it. Are there trees of this type outside of the godswood, then? Are they linked to this tree by their roots, or are they communicating remotely?

Yes, the godswoods are a feature primarily of the North, commonly referred to as the “old gods.” There are not enough of them for root networks as the tree was pondering to connect them all. 

Interesting! Not necessarily useful, but this world may not be as impoverished of diversity as at first it seemed. All the more reason to begin amassing power so he can split his efforts sooner. For the moment, Annatar will spend a while longer trying to tease out what the tree knows about the history and of this land and its races, and then turn in at nightfall.

 Annatar spends the evening working on preparing for additional bodies. Not only does he have to carefully partion his attention and increase the sensory allocation, he has to set up a lossless merger system for memory development, decide which local skill clusters to handle remotely versus duplicate locally, and reorient his decision functions to account for the self-communication channel. Not to mention the body itself, which even with his current form as a template will still take days of carefully tuning molecules to fall into place as a working piece of biology. He can reuse most of his organs, humans won't be able to tell and he likes their current setup. But he should probably have a more local bone and skin structure, and that'll take time.

The tree knows things about the history of the people, but nothing about the land. It knows that the fair folk were at war with the first men long ago. I knows that the men were winning. It knows that the fair folk made the white walkers. It knows that the white walkers are coming. It is difficult to keep the tree thinking quickly though, and Annatar gets little else of use. 

Shortly after he returns to his quarters, a small recognizable head appears at his third story window. It is Bran Stark, eyes bright with adventure. 

Useful knowledge to Annatar. He'll have to seek out some of these other races. The humans don't seem in close contact with them, and if they have power but it didn't save them, he would prefer to fine out why.

"Hello again, child. How is your wolf?"

“Wolf’s good. He bit me, but it wasn’t very hard. I didn’t tell father.” 

"Reasonable. Training animals sometimes means small injuries, and you should not take them badly. You must be sure not to be afraid of him, or else he will decide he should be the leader. Have you a reason for your visit?"

“I just like climbing. Mom says I shouldn’t because I might fall but I never fall and it’s dark so she can’t see and if she can’t see I’m doing it then she won’t worry. You made Valerian steel. I’m not afraid of Summer. That’s my wolf’s name; Summer. I’m not afraid of him. I think he was just playing. Ghost- that’s Jon’s- killed one of the kennel dogs, but we’re not telling father about that either. I’m a little afraid of Ghost.”

"Hah! They will be good companions, if you raise them well. And your father seems to think I made this steel, yes. We call it something different in my land, of course, and I have not closely examined your father's sword. You should be cautious with that knowledge, your father might make enemies if it were well known, and I do not think he would appreciate the stress."

“I’m good at keeping secrets. I don’t think everyone is, or else father could have talked to you outside of the godswood and trusted the people who heard to keep their secrets. Father thinks you’re good at secrets. He also thinks you’re good at advice. That’s why he wants you here when the king visits.”

"Your father honors me with such praise, but I do not think it is false. Secrets are a useful skill to have, going through life."

“Then I have a secret and I need advice.”