A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

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.”
    â€œIt 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.
    â€œSer Davos,” the maester said. “When did you return?”
    â€œIn 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.
    â€œAnd?”
    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?”
    â€œAll? 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.”
    â€œThe Rainbow Guard?”
    â€œRenly’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