George RR Martin - Ice and Fire 2 - A Clash of Kings

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A Clash of Kings V1.0

Book Two of A song of Ice and Fire

By George R. R. Martin

Scanned 3/9/02 by sliph

PROLOGUE

The comet's tail spread across the dawn, a red slash that bled above the crags

of Dragonstone like a wound in the pink and purple sky.

The maester stood on the windswept balcony outside his chambers. It was here

the ravens came, after long flight. Their droppings speckled the gargoyles

that rose twelve feet tall on either side of him, a hellhound and a wyvern,

two of the thousand that brooded over the walls of the ancient fortress. When

first he came to Dragonstone, the army of stone grotesques had made him

uneasy, but as the years passed he had grown used to them. Now he thought of

them as old friends. The three of them watched the sky together with

foreboding.

The maester did not believe in omens. And yet . . . old as he was, Cressen had

never seen a comet half so bright, nor yet that color, that terrible color,

the color of blood and flame and sunsets. He wondered if his gargoyles had

ever seen its like. They had been here so much longer than he had, and would

still be here long after he was gone. If stone tongues could speak . . .

Such folly. He leaned against the battlement, the sea crashing beneath him,

the black stone rough beneath his fingers. Talking gargoyles and prophecies in

the sky. I am an old done man, grown giddy as a child again. Had a lifetime's

hard-won wisdom fled him along with his health and strength? He was a maester,

trained and chained in the great Citadel

of Oldtown. What had he come to, when superstition filled his head as if he

were an ignorant fieldhand?

And yet . . . and yet . . . the comet burned even by day now, while pale grey

steam rose from the hot vents of Dragonmont behind the castle, and yestermorn

a white raven had brought word from the Citadel itself, word long-expected but

no less fearful for all that, word of summer's end. Omens, all. Too many to

deny. What does it all mean? he wanted to cry.

"Maester Cressen, we have visitors." Pylos spoke softly, as if loath to

disturb Cressen's solemn meditations. Had he known what drivel filled his

head, he would have shouted. "The princess would see the white raven." Ever

correct, Pylos called her princess now, as her lord father was a king. King of

a smoking rock in the great salt sea, yet a king nonetheless. "Her fool is

with her."

The old man turned away from the dawn, keeping a hand on his wyvern to steady

himself. "Help me to my chair and show them in."

Taking his arm, Pylos led him inside. In his youth, Cressen had walked

briskly, but he was not far from his eightieth name day now, and his legs were

frail and unsteady. Two years past, he had fallen and shattered a hip, and it

had never mended properly. Last year when he took ill, the Citadel had sent

Pylos out from Oldtown, mere days before Lord Stannis had closed the isle . .

. to help him in his labors, it was said, but Cressen knew the truth. Pylos

had come to replace him when he died. He did not mind. Someone must take his

place, and sooner than he would like . . .

He let the younger man settle him behind his books and papers. "Go bring her.

It is ill to keep a lady waiting." He waved a hand, a feeble gesture of haste

from a man no longer capable of hastening. His flesh was wrinkled and spotted,

the skin so papery thin that he could see the web of veins and the shape of

bones beneath. And how they trembled, these hands of his that had once been so

sure and deft . . .

When Pylos returned the girl came with him, shy as ever. Behind her, shuffling

and hopping in that queer sideways walk of his, came her fool. On his head was

a mock helm fashioned from an old tin bucket, with a rack of deer antlers

strapped to the crown and hung with cowbells. With his every lurching step,

the bells rang, each with a different voice, clang-a-dang bong-dong ring-a-

ling clong clong clong.

"Who comes to see us so early, Pylos?" Cressen said.

"It's me and Patches, Maester." Guileless blue eyes blinked at him. Hers was

not a pretty face, alas. The child had her lord father's square jut of jaw and

her mother's unfortunate ears, along with a disfigurement all her own, the

legacy of the bout of greyscale that had almost claimed her in the crib.

Across half one cheek and well down her neck, her flesh was

stiff and dead, the skin cracked and flaking, mottled black and grey and stony

to the touch. "Pylos said we might see the white raven."

"Indeed you may," Cressen answered. As if he would ever deny her. She had been

denied too often in her time. Her name was Shireen. She would be ten on her

next name day, and she was the saddest child that Maester Cressen had ever

known. Her sadness is my shame, the old man thought, another mark of my

failure. "Maester Pylos, do me a kindness and bring the bird down from the

rookery for the Lady Shireen."

"It would be my pleasure." Pylos was a polite youth, no more than five-and-

twenty, yet solemn as a man of sixty. If only he had more humor, more life in

him; that was what was needed here. Grim places needed lightening, not

solemnity, and Dragonstone was grim beyond a doubt, a lonely citadel in the

wet waste surrounded by storm and salt, with the smoking shadow of the

mountain at its back. A maester must go where he is sent, so Cressen had come

here with his lord some twelve years past, and he had served, and served well.

Yet he had never loved Dragonstone, nor ever felt truly at home here. Of late,

when he woke from restless dreams in which the red woman figured disturbingly,

he often did not know where he was.

The fool turned his patched and piebald head to watch Pylos climb the steep

iron steps to the rookery. His bells rang with the motion. "Under the sea, the

birds have scales for feathers," he said, clang-a-langing. "I know, I know,

oh, oh, oh."

Even for a fool, Patchface was a sorry thing. Perhaps once he could evoke

gales of laughter with a quip, but the sea had taken that power from him,

along with half his wits and all his memory. He was soft and obese, subject to

twitches and trembles, incoherent as often as not. The girl was the only one

who laughed at him now, the only one who cared if he lived or died.

An ugly little girl and a sad fool, and maester makes three . . . now there is

a tale to make men weep. "Sit with me, child." Cressen beckoned her closer.

"This is early to come calling, scarce past dawn. You should be snug in your

bed."

"I had bad dreams," Shireen told him. "About the dragons. They were coming to

eat me."

The child had been plagued by nightmares as far back as Maester Cressen could

recall. "We have talked of this before," he said gently. "The dragons cannot

come to life. They are carved of stone, child. In olden days, our island was

the westernmost outpost of the great Freehold of Valyria. It was the Valyrians

who raised this citadel, and they had ways of shaping stone since lost to us.

A castle must have towers wherever two walls meet at an angle, for defense.

The Valyrians fashioned these towers in the shape of dragons to make their

fortress seem more fear-

some, just as they crowned their walls with a thousand gargoyles instead of

simple crenellations." He took her small pink hand in his own frail spotted

one and gave it a gentle squeeze. "So you see, there is nothing to fear. "

Shireen was unconvinced. "What about the thing in the sky? Dalla and Matrice

were talking by the well, and Dalla said she heard the red woman tell Mother

that it was dragonshreath. If the dragons are breathing, doesn't that mean

they are coming to life?"

The red woman, Maester Cressen thought sourly. Ill enough that she's filled

the head of the mother with her madness, must she poison the daughter's dreams

as well? He would have a stern word with Dalla, warn her not to spread such

tales. "The thing in the sky is a comet, sweet child. A star with a tail, lost

in the heavens. It will be gone soon enough, never to be seen again in our

lifetimes. Watch and see."

Shireen gave a brave little nod. "Mother said the white raven means it's not

summer anymore."

"That is so, my lady. The white ravens fly only from the Citadel." Cressen's

fingers went to the chain about his neck, each link forged from a different

metal, each symbolizing his mastery of another branch of learning; the

maester's collar, mark of his order. In the pride of his youth, he had worn it

easily, but now it seemed heavy to him, the metal cold against his skin. "They

are larger than other ravens, and more clever, bred to carry only the most

important messages. This one came to tell us that the Conclave has met,

considered the reports and measurements made by maesters all over the realm,

and declared this great summer done at last. Ten years, two turns, and sixteen

days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory."

"Will it get cold now?" Shireen was a summer child, and had never known true

cold.

"In time," Cressen replied. "If the gods are good, they will grant us a warm

autumn and bountiful harvests, so we might prepare for the winter to come."

The smallfolk said that a long summer meant an even longer winter, but the

maester saw no reason to frighten the child with such tales.

Patchface rang his bells. "It is always summer under the sea," he intoned.

"The merwives wear nennymoans in their hair and weave gowns of silver seaweed.

I know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

Shireen giggled. "I should like a gown of silver seaweed."

"Under the sea, it snows up," said the fool, "and the rain is dry as bone. I

know, I know, oh, oh, oh."

"Will it truly snow?" the child asked.

"It will," Cressen said. But not for years yet, I pray, and then not for long.

"Ah, here is Pylos with the bird."

Shireen gave a cry of delight. Even Cressen had to admit the bird made an

impressive sight, white as snow and larger than any hawk, with the bright

black eyes that meant it was no mere albino, but a truebred white raven of the

Citadel. "Here," he called. The raven spread its wings, leapt into the air,

and flapped noisily across the room to land on the table beside him.

"I'll see to your breakfast now," Pylos announced. Cressen nodded. "This is

the Lady Shireen," he told the raven. The bird bobbed its pale head up and

down, as if it were bowing. "Lady," it croaked. "Lady."

The child's mouth gaped open. "It talks!"

"A few words. As I said, they are clever, these birds."

"Clever bird, clever man, clever clever fool," said Patchface, jangling. "Oh,

clever clever clever fool." He began to sing. "The shadows come to dance, my

lord, dance my lord, dance my lord," he sang, hopping from one foot to the

other and back again. "The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay

my lord. " He jerked his head with each word, the bells in his antlers sending

up a clangor.

The white raven screamed and went flapping away to perch on the iron railing

of the rookery stairs. Shireen seemed to grow smaller. "He sings that all the

time. I told him to stop but he won't. It makes me scared. Make him stop."

And how do I do that? the old man wondered. Once I might have silenced him

forever, but now . . .

Patchface had come to them as a boy. Lord Steffon of cherished memory had

found him in Volantis, across the narrow sea. The king-the old king, Aerys II

Targaryen, who had not been quite so mad in those dayshad sent his lordship to

seek a bride for Prince Rhaegar, who had no sisters to wed. "We have found the

most splendid fool," he wrote Cressen, a fortnight before he was to return

home from his fruitless mission. "Only a boy, yet nimble as a monkey and witty

as a dozen courtiers. He juggles and riddles and does magic, and he can sing

prettily in four tongues. We have bought his freedom and hope to bring him

home with us. Robert will be delighted with him, and perhaps in time he will

even teach Stannis how to laugh."

It saddened Cressen to remember that letter. No one had ever taught Stannis

how to laugh, least of all the boy Patchface. The storm came up suddenly,

howling, and Shipbreaker Bay proved the truth of its name. The lord's two-

masted galley Windproud broke up within sight of his castle. From its parapets

his two eldest sons had watched as their father's ship was smashed against the

rocks and swallowed by the waters. A hundred oarsmen and sailors went down

with Lord Steffon Baratheon and his lady wife, and for days thereafter every

tide left a fresh crop of swollen corpses on the strand below Storm's End.

The boy washed up on the third day. Maester Cressen had come down with the

rest, to help put names to the dead. When they found the fool he was naked,

his skin white and wrinkled and powdered with wet sand. Cressen had thought

him another corpse, but when Jornmy grabbed his ankles to drag him off to the

burial wagon, the boy coughed water and sat up. To his dying day, Jornmy had

sworn that Patchface's flesh was clammy cold.

No one ever explained those two days the fool had been lost in the sea. The

fisherfolk liked to say a mermaid had taught him to breathe water in return

for his seed. Patchface himself had said nothing. The witty, clever lad that

Lord Steffon had written of never reached Storm's End; the boy they found was

someone else, broken in body and mind, hardly capable of speech, much less of

wit. Yet his fool's face left no doubt of who he was. It was the fashion in

the Free City of Volantis to tattoo the faces of slaves and servants; from

neck to scalp the boy's skin had been patterned in squares of red and green

motley.

"The wretch is mad, and in pain, and no use to anyone, least of all himself,"

declared old Ser Harbert, the castellan of Storm's End in those years. "The

kindest thing you could do for that one is fill his cup with the milk of the

poppy. A painless sleep, and there's an end to it. He'd bless you if he had

the wit for it." But Cressen had refused, and in the end he had won. Whether

Patchface had gotten any joy of that victory he could not say, not even today,

so many years later.

"The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord " the fool

sang on, swinging his head and making his bells clang and clatter. Bong dong,

ring-a-ling, bong dong.

"Lord," the white raven shrieked. "Lord, lord, lord."

"A fool sings what he will," the maester told his anxious princess. "You must

not take his words to heart. On the morrow he may remember another song, and

this one will never be heard again." He can sing prettily in four tongues,

Lord Steffon had written . . .

Pylos strode through the door. "Maester, pardons."

"You have forgotten the porridge," Cressen said, amused. That was most unlike

Pylos.

"Maester, Ser Davos returned last night. They were talking of it in the

kitchen. I thought you would want to know at once."

"Davos . . . last night, you say? Where is he?"

"With the king. They have been together most of the night."

There was a time when Lord Stannis would have woken him, no matter the hour,

to have him there to give his counsel. "I should have been told," Cressen

complained. "I should have been woken." He disentangled his fingers from

Shireen's. "Pardons, my lady, but I must speak with your lord father. Pylos,

give me your arm. There are too many steps in

this castle, and it seems to me they add a few every night, just to vex me.

Shireen and Patchface followed them out, but the child soon grew restless with

the old man's creeping pace and dashed ahead, the fool lurching after her with

his cowbells clanging madly.

Castles are not friendly places for the frail, Cressen was reminded as he

descended the turnpike stairs of Sea Dragon Tower. Lord Stannis would be found

in the Chamber of the Painted Table, atop the Stone Drum, Dragonstone's

central keep, so named for the way its ancient walls boomed and rumbled during

storms. To reach him they must cross the gallery, pass through the middle and

inner walls with their guardian gargoyles and black iron gates, and ascend

more steps than Cressen cared to contemplate. Young men climbed steps two at a

time; for old men with bad hips, every one was a torment. But Lord Stannis

would not think to come to him, so the maester resigned himself to the ordeal.

He had Pylos to help him, at the least, and for that he was grateful.

Shuffling along the gallery, they passed before a row of tall arched windows

with commanding views of the outer bailey, the curtain wall, and the fishing

village beyond. in the yard, archers were firing at practice butts to the call

of "Notch, draw, loose." Their arrows made a sound like a flock of birds

taking wing. Guardsmen strode the wallwalks, peering between the gargoyles on

the host camped without. The morning air was hazy with the smoke of cookfires,

as three thousand men sat down to break their fasts beneath the banners of

their lords. Past the sprawl of the camp, the anchorage was crowded with

ships. No craft that had come within sight of Dragonstone this past half year

had been allowed to leave again. Lord Stannis's Fury, a triple-decked war

galley of three hundred oars, looked almost small beside some of the big-

bellied carracks and cogs that surrounded her.

The guardsmen outside the Stone Drum knew the maesters by sight, and passed

them through. "Wait here," Cressen told Pylos, within. "It's best I see him

alone."

"It is a long climb, Maester."

Cressen smiled. "You think I have forgotten? I have climbed these steps so

often I know each one by name."

Halfway up, he regretted his decision. He had stopped to catch his breath and

ease the pain in his hip when he heard the scuff of boots on stone, and came

face-to-face with Ser Davos Seaworth, descending.

Davos was a slight man, his low birth written plain upon a common face. A

well-worn green cloak, stained by salt and spray and faded from the sun,

draped his thin shoulders, over brown doublet and breeches that matched brown

eyes and hair. About his neck a pouch of worn leather hung from a thong. His

small beard was well peppered with grey, and he

wore a leather glove on his maimed left hand. When he saw Cressen, he checked

his descent.

"Ser Davos," the maester said. "When did you return?"

"In the black of morning. My favorite time." It was said that no one had ever

handled a ship by night half so well as Davos Shorthand. Before Lord Stannis

had knighted him, he had been the most notorious and elusive smuggler in all

the Seven Kingdoms.

"And?"

The man shook his head. "It is as you warned him. They will not rise, Maester.

Not for him. They do not love him."

No, Cressen thought. Nor will they ever. He is strong, able, just . . . aye,

just past the point of wisdom . . . yet it is not enough. It has never been

enough. "You spoke to them all?"

"All? No. Only those that would see me. They do not love me either, these

highborns. To them I'll always be the Onion Knight." His left hand closed,

stubby fingers locking into a fist; Stannis had hacked the ends off at the

last joint, all but the thumb. "I broke bread with Gulian Swann and old

Penrose, and the Tarths consented to a midnight meeting in a grove. The

others-well, Beric Dondarrion is gone missing, some say dead, and Lord Caron

is with Renly. Bryce the Orange, of the Rainbow Guard."

"The Rainbow Guard?"

"Renly's made his own Kingsguard," the onetime smuggler explained, "but these

seven don't wear white. Each one has his own color. Loras Tyrell's their Lord

Commander."

It was just the sort of notion that would appeal to Renly Baratheon; a

splendid new order of knighthood, with gorgeous new raiment to proclaim it.

Even as a boy, Renly had loved bright colors and rich fabrics, and he had

loved his games as well. "Look at me!" he would shout as he ran laughing

through the halls of Storm's End. "Look at me, I'm a dragon," or "Look at me,

I'm a wizard," or "Look at me, look at me, I'm the rain god."

The bold little boy with wild black hair and laughing eyes was a man grown

now, one-and-twenty, and still he played his games. Look at me, I'm a king,

Cressen thought sadly. Oh, Renly, Renly, dear sweet child, do you know what

you are doing~ And would you care if you did? is there anyone who cares for

him but me~ "What reasons did the lords give for their refusals?" he asked Ser

Davos.

"Well, as to that, some gave me soft words and some blunt, some made excuses,

some promises, some only lied." He shrugged. "In the end words are just wind."

"You could bring him no hope?"

"Only the false sort, and I'd not do that," Davos said. "He had the truth from

me."

Maester Cressen remembered the day Davos had been knighted, after the siege of

Storm's End. Lord Stannis and a small garrison had held the castle for close

to a year, against the great host of the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne. Even the

sea was closed against them, watched day and night by Redwyne galleys flying

the burgundy banners of the Arbor. Within Storm's End, the horses had long

since been eaten, the dogs and cats were gone, and the garrison was down to

roots and rats. Then came a night when the moon was new and black clouds hid

the stars. Cloaked in that darkness, Davos the smuggler had dared the Redwyne

cordon and the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay alike. His little ship had a black

hull, black sails, black oars, and a hold crammed with onions and salt fish.

Little enough, yet it had kept the garrison alive long enough for Eddard Stark

to reach Storm's End and break the siege.

Lord Stannis had rewarded Davos with choice lands on Cape Wrath, a small keep,

and a knight's honors . . . but he had also decreed that he lose a joint of

each finger on his left hand, to pay for all his years of smuggling. Davos had

submitted, on the condition that Stannis wield the knife himself; he would

accept no punishment from lesser hands. The lord had used a butcher's cleaver,

the better to cut clean and true. Afterward, Davos had chosen the name

Seaworth for his new-made house, and he took for his banner a black ship on a

pale grey field-with an onion on its sails. The onetime smuggler was fond of

saying that Lord Stannis had done him a boon, by giving him four less

fingernails to clean and trim.

No, Cressen thought, a man like that would give no false hope, nor soften a

hard truth. "Ser Davos, truth can be a bitter draught, even for a man like

Lord Stannis. He thinks only of returning to King's Landing in the fullness of

his power, to tear down his enemies and claim what is rightfully his. Yet now

. . ."

"if he takes this meager host to King's Landing, it will be only to die. He

does not have the numbers. I told him as much, but you know his pride." Davos

held up his gloved hand. "My fingers will grow back before that man bends to

sense."

The old man sighed. "You have done all you could. Now I must add my voice to

yours." Wearily, he resumed his climb.

Lord Stannis Baratheon's refuge was a great round room with walls of bare

black stone and four tall narrow windows that looked out to the four points of

the compass. In the center of the chamber was the great table from which it

took its name, a massive slab of carved wood fashioned at the command of Aegon

Targaryen in the days before the Con-

quest. The Painted Table was more than fifty feet long, perhaps half that wide

at its widest point, but less than four feet across at its narrowest. Aegon's

carpenters had shaped it after the land of Westeros, sawing out each bay and

peninsula until the table nowhere ran straight. On its surface, darkened by

near three hundred years of varnish, were painted the Seven Kingdoms as they

had been in Aegon's day; rivers and mountains, castles and cities, lakes and

forests.

There was a single chair in the room, carefully positioned in the precise

place that Dragonstone occupied off the coast of Westeros, and raised up to

give a good view of the tabletop. Seated in the chair was a man in a tight-

laced leather jerkin and breeches of roughspun brown wool. When Maester

Cressen entered, he glanced up. "I knew you would come, old man, whether I

summoned you or no." There was no hint of warmth in his voice; there seldom

was.

Stannis Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone and by the grace of the gods rightful

heir to the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, was broad of

shoulder and sinewy of limb, with a tightness to his face and flesh that spoke

of leather cured in the sun until it was as tough as steel. Hard was the word

men used when they spoke of Stannis, and hard he was. Though he was not yet

five-and-thirty, only a fringe of thin black hair remained on his head,

circling behind his ears like the shadow of a crown. His brother, the late

King Robert, had grown a beard in his final years. Maester Cressen had never

seen it, but they said it was a wild thing, thick and flerce. As if in answer,

Stannis kept his own whiskers cropped tight and short. They lay like a blue-

black shadow across his square jaw and the bony hollows of his cheeks. His

eyes were open wounds beneath his heavy brows, a blue as dark as the sea by

night. His mouth would have given despair to even the drollest of fools; it

was a mouth made for frowns and scowls and sharply worded commands, all thin

pale lips and clenched muscles, a mouth that had forgotten how to smile and

had never known how to laugh. Sometimes when the world grew very still and

silent of a night, Maester Cressen fancied he could hear Lord Stannis grinding

his teeth half a castle away.

"Once you would have woken me," the old man said.

"Once you were young. Now you are old and sick, and need your sleep." Stannis

had never learned to soften his speech, to dissemble or flatter; he said what

he thought, and those that did not like it could be damned. "I knew you'd

learn what Davos had to say soon enough. You always do, don't you?"

"I would be of no help to you if I did not," Cressen said. "I met Davos on the

stair."

"And he told all, I suppose? I should have had the man's tongue shortened

along with his fingers."

"He would have made you a poor envoy then."

"He made me a poor envoy in any case. The storm lords will not rise for me. It

seems they do not like me, and the justice of my cause means nothing to them.

The cravenly ones will sit behind their walls waiting to see how the wind

rises and who is likely to triumph. The bold ones have already declared for

Renly. For R enly! " He spat out the name like poison on his tongue.

"Your brother has been the Lord of Storm's End these past thirteen years.

These lords are his sworn bannermen-"

"His, " Stannis broke in, "when by rights they should be mine. I never asked

for Dragonstone. I never wanted it. I took it because Robert's enemies were

here and he commanded me to root them out. I built his fleet and did his work,

dutiful as a younger brother should be to an elder, as Renly should be to me.

And what was Robert's thanks? He names me Lord of Dragonstone, and gives

Storm's End and its incomes to Renly. Storm's End belonged to House Baratheon

for three hundred years; by rights it should have passed to me when Robert

took the Iron Throne."

It was an old grievance, deeply felt, and never more so than now. Here was the

heart of his lord's weakness; for Dragonstone, old and strong though it was,

commanded the allegiance of only a handful of lesser lords, whose stony island

holdings were too thinly peopled to yield up the men that Stannis needed. Even

with the sellswords he had brought across the narrow sea from the Free Cities

of Myr and Lys, the host camped outside his walls was far too small to bring

down the power of House Lannister.

"Robert did you an injustice," Maester Cressen replied carefully, "yet he had

sound reasons. Dragonstone had long been the seat of House Targaryen. He

needed a man's strength to rule here, and Renly was but a child."

"He is a child still," Stannis declared, his anger ringing loud in the empty

hall, "a thieving child who thinks to snatch the crown off my brow. What has

Renly ever done to earn a throne? He sits in council and jests with

Littlefinger, and at tourneys he dons his splendid suit of armor and allows

himself to be knocked off his horse by a better man. That is the sum of my

brother Renly, who thinks he ought to be a king. I ask you, why did the gods

inflict me with brothers?"

"I cannot answer for the gods."

"You seldom answer at all these days, it seems to me. Who maesters for Renly?

Perchance I should send for him, I might like his counsel better. What do you

think this maester said when my brother decided to steal my crown? What

counsel did your colleague offer to this traitor blood of mine?"

"It would surprise me if Lord Renly sought counsel, Your Grace." The

youngest of Lord Steffon's three sons had grown into a man bold but heedless,

who acted from impulse rather than calculation. In that, as in so much else,

Renly was like his brother Robert, and utterly unlike Stannis.

"Your Grace," Stannis repeated bitterly. "You mock me with a king's style, yet

what am I king of? Dragonstone and a few rocks in the narrow sea, there is my

kingdom." He descended the steps of his chair to stand before the table, his

shadow falling across the mouth of the Blackwater Rush and the painted forest

where King's Landing now stood. There he stood, brooding over the realm he

sought to claim, so near at hand and yet so far away. "Tonight I am to sup

with my lords bannermen, such as they are. Celtigar, Velaryon, Bar Emmon, the

whole paltry lot of them. A poor crop, if truth be told, but they are what my

brothers have left me. That Lysene pirate Salladhor Saan will be there with

the latest tally of what I owe him, and Morosh the Myrman will caution me with

talk of tides and autumn gales, while Lord Sunglass mutters piously of the

will of the Seven. Celtigar will want to know which storm lords are joining

us. Velaryon will threaten to take his levies home unless we strike at once.

What am I to tell them? What must I do now?"

"Your true enemies are the Lannisters, my lord," Maester Cressen answered. "If

you and your brother were to make common cause against them-"

"I will not treat with Renly," Stannis answered in a tone that brooked no

argument. "Not while he calls himself a king."

"Not Renly, then," the maester yielded. His lord was stubborn and proud; when

he had set his mind, there was no changing it. "Others might serve your needs

as well. Eddard Stark's son has been proclaimed King in the North, with all

the power of Winterfell and Riverrun behind him."

"A green boy," said Stannis, "and another false king. Am I to accept a broken

realm?"

"Surely half a kingdom is better than none," Cressen said, "and if you help

the boy avenge his father's murder-"

"Why should I avenge Eddard Stark? The man was nothing to me. Oh, Robert loved

him, to be sure. Loved him as a brother, how often did I hear that? I was his

brother, not Ned Stark, but you would never have known it by the way he

treated me. I held Storm's End for him, watching good men starve while Mace

Tyrell and Paxter Redwyne feasted within sight of my walls. Did Robert thank

me? No. He thanked Stark, for lifting the siege when we were down to rats and

radishes. I built a fleet at Robert's command, took Dragonstone in his name.

Did he take my hand and say, Well done, brother, whatever should I do without

you? No, he blamed me for letting Willem Darry steal away Viserys and the

babe, as

if I could have stopped it. I sat on his council for fifteen years, helping

Jon Arryn rule his realm while Robert drank and whored, but when Jon died, did

my brother name me his Hand? No, he went galloping off to his dear friend Ned

Stark, and offered him the honor. And small good it did either of them. "

"Be that as it may, my lord," Maester Cressen said gently. "Great wrongs have

been done you, but the past is dust. The future may yet be won if you join

with the Starks. There are others you might sound out as well. What of Lady

Arryn? If the queen murdered her husband, surely she will want justice for

him. She has a young son, Jon Arryn's heir. If you were to betroth Shireen to

him-"

"The boy is weak and sickly," Lord Stannis objected. "Even his father saw how

it was, when he asked me to foster him on Dragonstone. Service as a page might

have done him good, but that damnable Lannister woman had Lord Arryn poisoned

before it could be done, and now Lysa hides him in the Eyrie. She'll never

part with the boy, I promise you that. "

"Then you must send Shireen to the Eyrie," the maester ' urged. "Dragonstone

is a grim home for a child. Let her fool go with her, so she will have a

familiar face about her."

"Familiar and hideous." Stannis furrowed his brow in thought. "Still . . .

perhaps it is worth the trying . . .

"Must the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms beg for help from widow women

and usurpers?" a woman's voice asked sharply.

Maester Cressen turned ' and bowed his head. "My lady," he said, chagrined

that he had not heard her enter.

Lord Stannis scowled. "I do not beg. Of anyone. Mind you remember that,

woman."

"I am pleased to hear it, my lord." Lady Selyse was as tall as her husband,

thin of body and thin of face, with prominent ears, a sharp nose, and the

faintest hint of a mustache on her upper lip. She plucked it daily and cursed

it regularly, yet it never failed to return. Her eyes were pale, her mouth

stern, her voice a whip. She cracked it now. "Lady Arryn owes you her

allegiance, as do the Starks, your brother Renly, and all the rest. You are

their one true king. It would not be fitting to plead and bargain with them

for what is rightfully yours by the grace of god."

God, she said, not gods. The red woman had won her, heart and soul, turning

her from the gods of the Seven Kingdoms, both old and new, to worship the one

they called the Lord of Light.

"Your god can keep his grace," said Lord Stannis, who did not share his wife's

fervent new faith. "It's swords I need, not blessings. Do you have an army

hidden somewhere that you've not told me of?" There was' no affection in his

tone. Stannis had always been uncomfortable around

women, even his own wife. When he had gone to King's Landing to sit on

Robert's council, he had left Selyse on Dragonstone with their daughter. His

letters had been few, his visits fewer; he did his duty in the marriage bed

once or twice a year, but took no joy in it, and the sons he had once hoped

for had never come.

"My brothers and uncles and cousins have armies," she told him. "House Florent

will rally to your banner."

"House Florent can field two thousand swords at best." It was said that

Stannis knew the strength of every house in the Seven Kingdoms. "And you have

a deal more faith in your brothers and uncles than I do, my lady. The Florent

lands lie too close to Highgarden for your lord uncle to risk Mace Tyrell's

wrath."

"There is another way." Lady Selyse moved closer. "Look out your windows, my

lord. There is the sign you have waited for, blazoned on the sky. Red, it is,

the red of flame, red for the fiery heart of the true god. it is his banner-

and yours! See how it unfurls across the heavens like a dragon's hot breath,

and you the Lord of Dragonstone. It means your time has come, Your Grace.

Nothing is more certain. You are meant to sail from this desolate rock as

Aegon the Conqueror once sailed, to sweep all before you as he did. only say

the word, and embrace the power of the Lord of Light."

"How many swords will the Lord of Light put into my hand?" Stannis demanded

again.

"All you need," his wife promised, "The swords of Storm's End and Highgarden

for a start, and all their lords bannermen."

"Davos would tell you different," Stannis said. "Those swords are sworn to

Renly. They love my charming young brother, as they once loved Robert . . .

and as they have never loved me."

"Yes," she answered, "but if Renly should die . . ."

Stannis looked at his lady with narrowed eyes, until Cressen could not hold

his tongue. "it is not to be thought. Your Grace, whatever follies Renly has

committed-"

"Follies? I call them treasons." Stannis turned back to his wife. "My brother

is young and strong, and he has a vast host around him, and these rainbow

knights of his."

"Melisandre has gazed into the flames, and seen him dead."

Cressen was horrorstruck. "Fratricide . . . my lord, this is evil, unthinkable

. . . please, listen to me."

Lady Selyse gave him a measured look. "And what will you tell him, Maester?

How he might win half a kingdom if he goes to the Starks on his knees and

sells our daughter to Lysa Arryn?"

"I have heard your counsel, Cressen," Lord Stannis said. "Now I will hear

hers. You are dismissed."

Maester Cressen bent a stiff knee. He could feel Lady Selyse's eyes on his

back as he shuffled slowly across the room. By the time he reached the bottom

of the steps it was all he could do to stand erect. "Help me," he said to

Pylos.

When he was safe back in his own rooms, Cressen sent the younger man away and

limped to his balcony once more, to stand between his gargoyles and stare out

to sea. One of Salladhor Saan's warships was sweeping past the castle, her

gaily striped hull slicing through the greygreen waters as her oars rose and

fell. He watched until she vanished behind a headland. Would that my fears

could vanish so easily. Had he lived so long for this?

When a maester donned his collar, he put aside the hope of children, yet

Cressen had oft felt a father nonetheless. Robert, Stannis, Renly . . . three

sons he had raised after the angry sea claimed Lord Steffon. Had he done so

ill that now he must watch one kill the other? He could not allow it, would

not allow it.

The woman was the heart of it. Not the Lady Selyse, the other one. The red

woman, the servants had named her, afraid to speak her name. "I will speak her

name," Cressen told his stone hellhound. "Melisandre. Her." Melisandre of

Asshai, sorceress, shadowbinder, and priestess to R'hllor, the Lord of Light,

the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow. Melisandre, whose madness must

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