A Storm of Swords

Pylos meant it kindly, but his assurances rang hollow. “It is not at all the same!” Davos had protested. “A kingdom’s not a ship… and a good thing, or this kingdom would be sinking. I know wood and rope and water, yes, but how will that serve me now? Where do I find the wind to blow King Stannis to his throne?”

The maester laughed at that. “And there you have it, my lord. Words are wind, you know, and you’ve blown mine away with your good sense. His Grace knows what he has in you, I think.”

“Onions,” said Davos glumly. “That is what he has in me. The King’s Hand should be a highborn lord, someone wise and learned, a battle commander or a great knight…”

“Ser Ryam Redwyne was the greatest knight of his day, and one of the worst Hands ever to serve a king. Septon Murmison’s prayers worked miracles, but as Hand he soon had the whole realm praying for his death. Lord Butterwell was renowned for wit, Myles Smallwood for courage, Ser Otto Hightower for learning, yet they failed as Hands, every one. As for birth, the dragonkings oft chose Hands from amongst their own blood, with results as various as Baelor Breakspear and Maegor the Cruel. Against this, you have Septon Barth, the blacksmith’s son the Old King plucked from the Red Keep’s library, who gave the realm forty years of peace and plenty.” Pylos smiled. “Read your history, Lord Davos, and you will see that your doubts are groundless.”

“How can I read history, when I cannot read?”

“Any man can read, my lord,” said Maester Pylos. “There is no magic needed, nor high birth. I am teaching the art to your son, at the king’s command. Let me teach you as well.”

It was a kindly offer, and not one that Davos could refuse. And so every day he repaired to the maester’s chambers high atop Sea Dragon Tower, to frown over scrolls and parchments and great leather tomes and try to puzzle out a few more words. His efforts often gave him headaches, and made him feel as big a fool as Patchface besides. His son Devan was not yet twelve, yet he was well ahead of his father, and for Princess Shireen and Edric Storm reading seemed as natural as breathing. When it came to books, Davos was more a child than any of them. Yet he persisted. He was the King’s Hand now, and a King’s Hand should read.

The narrow twisting steps of Sea Dragon Tower had been a sore trial to Maester Cressen after he broke his hip. Davos still found himself missing the old man. He thought Stannis must as well. Pylos seemed clever and diligent and well-meaning, but he was so young, and the king did not confide in him as he had in Cressen. The old man had been with Stannis so long… Until he ran afoul of Melisandre, and died for it.

At the top of the steps Davos heard a soft jingle of bells that could only herald Patchface. The princess’s fool was waiting outside the maester’s door for her like a faithful hound. Dough-soft and slump-shouldered, his broad face tattooed in a motley pattern of red and green squares, Patchface wore a helm made of a rack of deer antlers strapped to a tin bucket. A dozen bells hung from the tines and rang when he moved… which meant constantly, since the fool seldom stood still. He jingled and jangled his way everywhere he went; small wonder that Pylos had exiled him from Shireen’s lessons. “Under the sea the old fish eat the young fish,” the fool muttered at Davos. He bobbed his head, and his bells clanged and chimed and sang. “I know, I know, oh oh oh.”

“Up here the young fish teach the old fish,” said Davos, who never felt so ancient as when he sat down to try and read. It might have been different if aged Master Cressen had been the one teaching him, but Pylos was young enough to be his son.

He found the maester seated at his long wooden table covered with books and scrolls, across from the three children. Princess Shireen sat between the two boys. Even now Davos could take great pleasure in the sight of his own blood keeping company with a princess and a king’s bastard. Devan will be a lord now, not merely a knight. The Lord of the Rainwood. Davos took more pride in that than in wearing the title himself. He reads too. He reads and he writes, as if he had been born to it. Pylos had naught but praise for his diligence, and the master-at-arms said Devan was showing promise with sword and lance as well. And he is a godly lad, too. “My brothers have ascended to the Hall of Light, to sit beside the Lord,” Devan had said when his father told him how his four elder brothers had died. “I will pray for them at the nightfires, and for you as well, Father, so you might walk in the Light of the Lord till the end of your days.”

“Good morrow to you, Father,” the boy greeted him. He looks so much like Dale did at his age, Davos thought. His eldest had never dressed so fine as Devan in his squire’s raiment, to be sure, but they shared the same square plain face, the same forthright brown eyes, the same thin brown flyaway hair. Devan’s cheeks and chin were dusted with blond hair, a fuzz that would have shamed a proper peach, though the boy was fiercely proud of his “beard.” Just as Dale was proud of his, once. Devan was the oldest of the three children at the table.

Yet Edric Storm was three inches taller and broader in the chest and shoulders. He was his father’s son in that; nor did he ever miss a morning’s work with sword and shield. Those old enough to have known Robert and Renly as children said that the bastard boy had more of their look than Stannis had ever shared; the coal-black hair, the deep blue eyes, the mouth, the jaw, the cheekbones. Only his ears reminded you that his mother had been a Florent.

“Yes, good morrow, my lord,” Edric echoed. The boy could be fierce and proud, but the maesters and castellans and masters-at-arms who’d raised him had schooled him well in courtesy. “Do you come from my uncle? How fares His Grace?”

“Well,” Davos lied. If truth be told, the king had a haggard, haunted look about him, but he saw no need to burden the boy with his fears. “I hope I have not disturbed your lesson.”

“We had just finished, my lord,” Maester Pylos said.

“We were reading about King Daeron the First.” Princess Shireen was a sad, sweet, gentle child, far from pretty. Stannis had given her his square jaw and Selyse her Florent ears, and the gods in their cruel wisdom had seen fit to compound her homeliness by afflicting her with greyscale in the cradle. The disease had left one cheek and half her neck grey and cracked and hard, though it had spared both her life and her sight. “He went to war and conquered Dorne. The Young Dragon, they called him.”

“He worshiped false gods,” said Devan, “but he was a great king otherwise, and very brave in battle.”

“He was,” agreed Edric Storm, “but my father was braver. The Young Dragon never won three battles in a day.”

The princess looked at him wide-eyed. “Did Uncle Robert win three battles in a day?”

The bastard nodded. “It was when he’d first come home to call his banners. Lords Grandison, Cafferen, and Fell planned to join their strength at Summerhall and march on Storm’s End, but he learned their plans from an informer and rode at once with all his knights and squires. As the plotters came up on Summerhall one by one, he defeated each of them in turn before they could join up with the others. He slew Lord Fell in single combat and captured his son Silveraxe.”

Devan looked to Pylos. “Is that how it happened?”

“I said so, didn’t I?” Edric Storm said before the maester could reply. “He smashed all three of them, and fought so bravely that Lord Grandison and Lord Cafferen became his men afterward, and Silveraxe too. No one ever beat my father.”

“Edric, you ought not boast,” Maester Pylos said. “King Robert suffered defeats like any other man. Lord Tyrell bested him at Ashford, and he lost many a tourney tilt as well.”

“He won more than he lost, though. And he killed Prince Rhaegar on the Trident.”

“That he did,” the maester agreed. “But now I must give my attention to Lord Davos, who has waited so patiently. We will read more of King Daeron’s Conquest of Dorne on the morrow.”

Princess Shireen and the boys said their farewells courteously. When they had taken their leaves, Maester Pylos moved closer to Davos. “My lord, perhaps you would like to try a bit of Conquest of Dorne as well?” He slid the slender leather-bound book across the table. “King Daeron wrote with an elegant simplicity, and his history is rich with blood, battle, and bravery. Your son is quite engrossed.”

“My son is not quite twelve. I am the King’s Hand. Give me another letter, if you would.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Maester Pylos rummaged about his table, unrolling and then discarding various scraps of parchment. “There are no new letters. Perhaps an old one…”

Davos enjoyed a good story as well as any man, but Stannis had not named him Hand for his enjoyment, he felt. His first duty was to help his king rule, and for that he must needs understand the words the ravens brought. The best way to learn a thing was to do it, he had found; sails or scrolls, it made no matter.

“This might serve our purpose.” Pylos passed him a letter.

Davos flattened down the little square of crinkled parchment and squinted at the tiny crabbed letters. Reading was hard on the eyes, that much he had learned early. Sometimes he wondered if the Citadel offered a