A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

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 fierce. 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.
    â€œOnce you would have woken me,” the old man said.
    â€œOnce 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?”
    â€œI would be of no help to you if I did not,” Cressen said. “I met Davos on
the stair.”
    â€œAnd he told all, I suppose? I should have had the man’s tongue shortened
along with his fingers.”
    â€œHe would have made you a poor envoy then.”
    â€œHe 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
Renly
!” He spat out the name like poison on his
tongue.
    â€œYour brother has been the Lord of Storm’s End these past thirteen years.
These lords are his sworn bannermen—”
    â€œHis,”
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.
    â€œRobert 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.”
    â€œHe 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
?”
    â€œI cannot answer for the