The Stag Comes to the Vale

"I will. The Dance of Dragons is really not that different to now, is it? Maybe Mushroom is right."

The Dwarf left little good to say about the Kings and Queens and Princesses of the age. It was perhaps not so different now.

"The Red Lady says that there is only one war that matters, and my father has to win this one to fight the true enemy and save the people."

And yet people died every day. It did not give her any comfort to know they died for something they believed in.

"I suppose I am lucky, even with this."

She gingerly touched the blackened, mottled skin where the greyscale had rotted away at her face.

The Princess blushed and smiled, her large Florent ears glowing hot and red.

"Thank you, Davos. You are a good man, for a smuggler."

She imitates her father's low voice and frowning face with a laugh.

"Lord Davos. Our time in the Vale draws to an end. I feel that we have reached the limit of Lord Baelish's hospitality."

The ghost of a smile passed across the King's face. Stannis knew that Baelish loved him not, but when confronted by Harry Arryn and all his bannermen the man could do little but step aside. He turned to face his Hand.

"We will soon march from the Bloody Gate into the Riverlands and see if Tully is as good as his word. I would have you command the our fleets with the Northmen and hold our ships at Maidenpool when it is open to us."

Word had reached him that some pirate had occupied Dragonstone and was charging tolls on the Narrow Sea. They would have to hold the channel if they were to threaten the capital. The King took a sip from a cup of water.

"I would like to march on the capital and not give this pretender time to warm my seat, but I know that the Northmen and Riverlords have scores to settle with the Freys."

"Aye, take them to the Riverlands. Let the Wolves have their day, and if they want to march to the Twins then so be it."

The King judged that Snow would be capable enough, surrounded by men like Umber and Ryswell who knew a great deal of the ways of war.

"If you could, then do so. But I would not lose the fleet so easily to this up-jumped Pirate Lord, even if he squats on my lordly seat."

Stannis knew not who it was, and did not care. Once the war was over he would send a fleet to scour the Stepstones and hang every pirate and brigand that made a home on those God-forsaken rocks.

"We will use Harrenhal as our base to meet any threat that comes from the south. When the pretender marches north we will crush him with all our strength."

"They ought to have made you king of smugglers, Lord Davos. You would have ruled them well."

Stannis knew that few cared about true justice or the 'right' course, rather they pursued their own vendettas and interests at the expense of all else. It had only been by bending to their concerns that they had followed him, he thought, with more than a little bitterness.

"Be that as it may, the Iron Throne is not won until I am sat on it. He may be a boy, but he's a boy with a host of seasoned mercenaries at his back and Lord Randyll Tarly at his side."

Joffrey had been a boy, but he had lost at the Blackwater to him all the same. There was no room for a mistake.

”They also turned their cloaks to Joffrey and Tommen. I would rather fight with the sellswords.”

The King grimaced in response. The Stormlands were too distant to be a concern, and most of the lords there had deserted him several times over. They held no loyalty, no honour.

”We make do with what we have, as I always have done. I never had the luxury of Robert or Renly had, being given a King’s seat. I was given some ships and a few rocks in the Narrow Sea, that was the reward for my service. Sellswords, free-riders, Onion lords and Codfish knights are all I have to follow my banners.”

He echoed the words of Renly at Storm’s End, during that fateful parley beneath the walls.

”But those who followed me through fire and ice are loyal men, every one. I would take them over twenty thousand turncloaks.”