A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

gods.”
    â€œYou 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?”
    â€œIt 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.
    â€œYour 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?”
    â€œYour true enemies are the Lannisters, my lord,” Maester Cressen answered.
“If you and your brother were to make common cause against
them—”
    â€œI will not treat with Renly,” Stannis answered in a tone that brooked no
argument. “Not while he calls himself a king.”
    â€œNot 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.”
    â€œA green boy,” said Stannis, “and another false king. Am I to accept a
broken realm?”
    â€œSurely half a kingdom is better than none,” Cressen said, “and if you help
the boy avenge his father’s murder—”
    â€œWhy 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.”
    â€œBe 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—”
    â€œThe 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.”
    â€œThen you must send Shireen to the Eyrie,”