"What we have here is a failure to communicate. North of the Wall, I am your god! Cross me, and you'll never see the sun again. Make me angry, and you'll lose your worthless life on the gallows. YOU ARE LESS THAN VERMIN! Is that clear enough for you?"
- —Arhennius Vogt, High Warden of Van Zandt's Wall[1a]
Arhennius Vogt
Arhennius Vogt is a man of medium height, power-fully built with a barrel chest that is only just starting to turn to fat. His lined, craggy face sports an almost perpetual sneer. With his great mane of white hair, he looks like a prowling lion as he walks through the cell blocks. He has developed spitting into an art form.[1a]
He is cruel and autocratic, a consummate bully. Though he acts like a gentleman around outsiders, he loves to lord his power over the prisoners, and he exercises it in petty and often brutal ways. He also collects death masks of executed convicts, acollection he is most proud of.[1a]
He is concerned with the maintenance of his little kingdom, and the only fear he has is that he will lose control. To this end, he works to minimise the Governor's involvement, something De Beq makes quite easy.[1a]
Arhennius Vogt is not a wealthy man, and it galls him that Governor De Beq grows rich while he, Vogt, does all the work of supervising the prisoners. And he has come to realize that the power he wields over the inmates, however personally satisfying, will not feed him when he is old. Consequently he has begun selling parts from the corpses of executed criminals through a middleman to unknown buyers in Marienburg. Arhennius doesn't do this often, just one in four is all - sometimes a heart, sometimes the an arm or a head, sometimes the whole corpse. His death-mask collecting "hobby" gives him all the cover he needs tocontinue with his sordid trade, and his own brutal reputation is enough to keep the trustees who toss the corpse sacks into the sea from asking why some sacks feel lighter than others.[1a]