A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

ship, and to the Mother whenever his wife grew great with
child. He felt ill as he watched them burn, and not only from the
smoke.
    Maester Cressen would have stopped this.
The old man had challenged
the Lord of Light and been struck down for his impiety, or so the gossips told
each other. Davos knew the truth. He had

seen the maester slip something into the wine cup.
Poison. What else could
it be? He drank a cup of death to free Stannis from Melisandre, but somehow her
god shielded her.
He would gladly have killed the red woman for that, yet
what chance would he have where a maester of the Citadel had failed? He was
only a smuggler raised high, Davos of Flea Bottom, the Onion Knight.
    The burning gods cast a pretty light, wreathed in their robes of shifting
flame, red and orange and yellow. Septon Barre had once told Davos how they’d
been carved from the masts of the ships that had carried the first Targaryens
from Valyria. Over the centuries, they had been painted and repainted, gilded,
silvered, jeweled. “Their beauty will make them more pleasing to R’hllor,”
Melisandre said when she told Stannis to pull them down and drag them out the
castle gates.
    The Maiden lay athwart the Warrior, her arms widespread as if to embrace him.
The Mother seemed almost to shudder as the flames came licking up her face. A
longsword had been thrust through her heart, and its leather grip was alive
with flame. The Father was on the bottom, the first to fall. Davos watched the
hand of the Stranger writhe and curl as the fingers blackened and fell away one
by one, reduced to so much glowing charcoal. Nearby, Lord Celtigar coughed
fitfully and covered his wrinkled face with a square of linen embroidered in
red crabs. The Myrmen swapped jokes as they enjoyed the warmth of the fire, but
young Lord Bar Emmon had turned a splotchy grey, and Lord Velaryon was watching
the king rather than the conflagration.
    Davos would have given much to know what he was thinking, but one such as
Velaryon would never confide in him. The Lord of the Tides was of the blood of
ancient Valyria, and his House had thrice provided brides for Targaryen
princes; Davos Seaworth stank of fish and onions. It was the same with the
other lordlings. He could trust none of them, nor would they ever include him
in their private councils. They scorned his sons as well.
My grandsons
will joust with theirs, though, and one day their blood may wed with mine. In
time my little black ship will fly as high as Velaryon’s seahorse or Celtigar’s
red crabs.
    That is, if Stannis won his throne. If he lost . . .
    Everything I am, I owe to him.
Stannis had raised him to knighthood.
He had given him a place of honor at his table, a war galley to sail in place
of a smuggler’s skiff. Dale and Allard captained galleys as well, Maric was
oarmaster on the
Fury,
Matthos served his father on
Black
Betha,
and the king had taken Devan as a royal squire. One day he would be
knighted, and the two little lads as well. Marya was mistress of a small keep
on Cape Wrath, with servants who called her
m’lady,
and Davos could
hunt red deer in his own woods. All this he had of Stannis Baratheon, for the
price of a few finger joints.
It was just, what he did to me. I had
flouted the king’s laws all my life. He has earned my loyalty.
Davos
touched the little pouch that hung from the leather thong about his neck. His
fingers were his luck, and he needed luck now.
As do we all. Lord Stannis
most of all.
    Pale flames licked at the grey sky. Dark smoke rose,

twisting and curling. When the wind pushed it toward them, men blinked and wept
and rubbed their eyes. Allard turned his head away, coughing and cursing.
A taste of things to come,
thought Davos. Many and more would burn
before this war was done.
    Melisandre was robed all in scarlet satin and blood velvet, her eyes as red as
the great ruby that glistened at her throat as if it too were afire. “In
ancient books of Asshai it is written that there will come a day after a long
summer when the stars bleed and the cold breath of darkness falls heavy on the
world. In this dread hour a warrior shall draw from the fire a burning sword.
And that sword shall be Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes, and he who
clasps it shall be Azor Ahai come again, and the darkness shall flee before
him.” She lifted her voice, so it carried out over the gathered