A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

the maester urged. “Dragonstone
is a grim home for a child. Let her fool go with her, so she will have a
familiar face about her.”
    â€œFamiliar and hideous.” Stannis furrowed his brow in

thought. “Still . . . perhaps it is worth the
trying . . .”
    â€œMust the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms beg for help from widow women
and usurpers?” a woman’s voice asked sharply.
    Maester Cressen turned, and bowed his head. “My lady,” he said, chagrined
that he had not heard her enter.
    Lord Stannis scowled. “I do not beg. Of anyone. Mind you remember that,
woman.”
    â€œI am pleased to hear it, my lord.” Lady Selyse was as tall as her husband,
thin of body and thin of face, with prominent ears, a sharp nose, and the
faintest hint of a mustache on her upper lip. She plucked it daily and cursed
it regularly, yet it never failed to return. Her eyes were pale, her mouth
stern, her voice a whip. She cracked it now. “Lady Arryn owes you her
allegiance, as do the Starks, your brother Renly, and all the rest. You are
their one true king. It would not be fitting to plead and bargain with them for
what is rightfully yours by the grace of god.”
    God,
she said, not
gods.
The red woman had won her, heart
and soul, turning her from the gods of the Seven Kingdoms, both old and new, to
worship the one they called the Lord of Light.
    â€œYour god can keep his grace,” said Lord Stannis, who did not share his
wife’s fervent new faith. “It’s swords I need, not blessings. Do you have an
army hidden somewhere that you’ve not told me of?” There was no affection in
his tone. Stannis had always been uncomfortable around women, even his own
wife. When he had gone to King’s Landing to sit on Robert’s council, he had

left Selyse on Dragonstone with their daughter. His letters had been few, his
visits fewer; he did his duty in the marriage bed once or twice a year, but
took no joy in it, and the sons he had once hoped for had never come.
    â€œMy brothers and uncles and cousins have armies,” she told him. “House
Florent will rally to your banner.”
    â€œHouse Florent can field two thousand swords at best.” It was said that
Stannis knew the strength of every house in the Seven Kingdoms. “And you have
a deal more faith in your brothers and uncles than I do, my lady. The Florent
lands lie too close to Highgarden for your lord uncle to risk Mace Tyrell’s
wrath.”
    â€œThere is another way.” Lady Selyse moved closer. “Look out your windows, my
lord. There is the sign you have waited for, blazoned on the sky. Red, it is,
the red of flame, red for the fiery heart of the true god. It is
his
banner—and yours! See how it unfurls across the heavens like a dragon’s
hot breath, and you the Lord of Dragonstone. It means your time has come, Your
Grace. Nothing is more certain. You are meant to sail from this desolate rock
as Aegon the Conqueror once sailed, to sweep all before you as he did. Only say
the word, and embrace the power of the Lord of Light.”
    â€œHow many swords will the Lord of Light put into my hand?” Stannis demanded
again.
    â€œAll you need,” his wife promised. “The swords of Storm’s End and Highgarden
for a start, and all their lords bannermen.”
    â€œDavos would tell you different,” Stannis said. “Those

swords are sworn to Renly. They love my charming young brother, as they once
loved Robert . . . and as they have never loved me.”
    â€œYes,” she answered, “but if Renly should die . . .”
    Stannis looked at his lady with narrowed eyes, until Cressen could not hold his
tongue. “It is not to be thought. Your Grace, whatever follies Renly has
committed—”
    â€œ
Follies?
I call them treasons.” Stannis turned back to his wife.
“My brother is young and strong, and he has a vast host around him, and these
rainbow knights of his.”
    â€œMelisandre has gazed into the flames, and seen him dead.”
    Cressen was horrorstruck. “Fratricide . . . my lord, this is
evil,
unthinkable . . . please, listen to
me.”
    Lady Selyse gave him a measured look. “And what will you tell him, Maester?
How he might win half a kingdom if he goes to the Starks on his knees and sells
our daughter to Lysa