Chapter Text
280 AC
“You must marry, my lord,” the maester croaked at him once more while Stannis stared at the waters of Shipbreaker Bay. “You are the Lord of Storm’s End, and already seven and ten and yet you remain unmarried.”
Stannis was silent. Marriage.
“My brother has a bastard daughter, did you know that?” he suddenly asked and Cressen looked at him with a hint of guilt. “Of course you did, you know everything that happens with Robert and Renly. Mya Stone, her name is, born near the Bloody Gate. Robert was there for a week, praising her to the skies before abandoning her and her mother.”
Stannis turned swiftly, his cloak following him along. “He wrote to me, you know, about Mya. Black hair with blue eyes, older brother. She looks like mother, if mother had black hair and blue eyes.And yet he left her without a single goodbye. At least when my lord father and lady mother left, they said goodbye, with the promise of seeing us again.” Though we never saw them again. The Gods did not deem it fit to spare a mother and father from the cruelties of this world. “He wonders why I disapprove, why I scold him whenever he comes to Storm’s End. Why brother, he asks me, why do you hate me so? Renly loves him more than he loves me, simply because he brings gifts while I bring you, a book, or a bath.”
He stared out his solar window once more, looking at the spot where he and Robert had stood when the Windproud had been destroyed. Shipbreaker Bay lived up to its name. “I don’t blame the boy, for he is only a boy. Robert however...I love them both, even if Robert is a fool. He’s sixteen, a knight, and he wants to bed every single wench from Dorne to the Wall. Then he wonders why the Lady Lyanna doesn’t want a betrothal. “Why brother?” He cries to me in his letters, demanding that I somehow convince Lyanna Stark to marry him.”
Maester Cressen looked with concerning eyes. I don’t need your pity old man. Yet the old maester had stuck by his side as Robert drank and whored his way through the Vale, a reluctant Ned Stark by his side.
Second sons sticking by each other, Stannis mused, though he also suspected that Robert would have a better time with Brandon Stark. Brandon Stark took Barbrey Ryswell’s virtue, it was whispered in the North, though nobody outside of the Riverlands even had an inkling of whoever this Barbrey Ryswell was and why they should care.
Still, the man is betrothed to Catelyn Tully. He should treat his betrothal with some respect. Men had needs, Stannis knew, something he had discovered when he had tried to outlaw prostitution in his lands. He had almost faced a full-fledged revolt and the whores themselves had petitioned heavily.
Robert himself had added his name to their cause.
He had relented. Still, Robert avoided the brothels of the Baratheon lands when he was visiting. Weeping Town’s brothels are better or so I’ve heard, Stannis thought, before grinding his teeth.
“My lord, pardon my interruption, but we were discussing your marriage prospects,” Maester Cressen reminded him before Stannis had gone off on a tangent about his brother. “You’ve received several offers from the Reach, the Stormlands, the Vale, and even the North.”
“The Florents, the Tyrells, the Redwynes, all of them seeking to further their influence and dig their roots. The Florents want additional strength in the Reach. They want Highgarden or at least Warden of the South,” Stannis muttered, knowing the Florents have always craved more power, believing they were the rightful rulers. “But they’re not half as bad as the jackals that are the Tyrells. The roses want their blood on the Iron Throne, but Prince Rhaegar is married to a Martell. So the next best thing is the grandson of a Targaryen princess as Viserys Targaryen is much too young for Lady Janna Tyrell. Or is he? And not even the Seven know what the Redwynes want.”
He looked at another marriage offer, this one from House Cerwyn. What does Lord Cerwyn want? Their words, honed and ready, and yet he scoffed at them. Lady Jonelle Cerwyn was an option, but he did not want to marry.
But he had a duty. A duty to continue his line, to continue House Baratheon. We do not always get what we want, his father had told him before he had left on the Windproud. Great or small, we must all do our duty. That sense of duty had led to his father’s death and a fourteen year old boy being thrust into ruling and raising two younger brothers.
You did your duty to the king and now I must do mine, he thought as the maester fussed with some papers.
“You are a man grown, my lord. As the maester of Storm’s End, it is my duty to counsel you. To guide you,” Cressen said softly though it was more fatherly. You’re the father that helped me raise Renly and Robert. “You must marry. You are seven and ten, a man who must carry on the Baratheon line. To do your duty. I understand your animosity towards the Reach, truly I do, my lord, but you must marry. Perhaps Lady Jeyne Swann?”
“The Swanns are brave and true, but no. Lord Swann has always been an ambitious man and I do not mean to award his ambition,” Stannis answered. But Lord Swann was a loyal man and did not ask for much from Stannis. Robert. His brother needed to settle down. “But I would maybe wed her to Robert. It is time he settled down. The Starks would never marry their daughter to a second son, but the Swanns will. It’s the closest they will get to what they want. Write to Robert, to see what he thinks. No doubt he will curse at me and the Gods, but it will do him no good. And prepare a letter to Lord Swann, telling him of my offer.”
He would give his brother land. Maybe make him Lord of Weeping Town? And maybe convince the whores to move somewhere else.
“Of course, my lord,” Cressen bowed. “There is also the matter of Harrenhal. Lord Whent is celebrating the birth of his daughter and has invited every lord in Westeros to attend a tourney. Your brother will be going and it will be a good way to meet with potential brides.”
“To be swarmed by women only looking to further their family’s ambition,” Stannis muttered. “But I must do my duty, no? Father married for love, but he died for duty. Robert thinks he’s in love with the Stark girl, but he must do his duty. Thank you, maester, for your wise words. Send a raven to Lord Whent that I will be there in order to celebrate his daughter’s birth.”
“As you wish, my lord,” and the old maester bowed before scurrying off to do what maesters did. Stannis sat down in his chair and sighed. The weight of ruling, his father had once said to him. It will get to you. I ruled Storm’s End ever since my father died in my arms and though my mother never loved him, she did grieve for him.
He wondered what his father would do or betrothe him to.
Stannis had never fallen in love with anyone unlike his father or brother. Robert thought himself to be in love, but Lyanna Stark was fourteen and barely a woman. His father had returned from the War of Ninepenny Kings a knight and Lord of Storm’s End when he asked for his mother’s hand in marriage.
Love that lead to three sons. His father had spoken to him once of betrothing him to Lady Janna Tyrell, but that had been before the Seven had ignored his parents’s pleas for mercy and dashed Windproud against the rocks.
The Gods are cruel, Cressen had said.
The Gods don’t exist, Stannis had replied.
The two never spoke about religion afterwards. Even so Stannis had made sure Renly was raised in the faith of the Seven.
It’s what Father would have done, Stannis had reasoned, though he suspected the true reason was that he did not want his little brother to be as bitter as he had become.
“Cousin?” Ser Andrew Estermont, his sworn shield and closest confidant other than maester Cressen asked. He was fifteen, a year younger than Robert but just as tall, and he was still growing. “Renly has been asking for you again.”
“He is three. He would ask for the sun if he could,” Stannis said. But Andrew’s face told him that he should go. “Where is he?”
“In his rooms,” Andrew answered.
“Accompany me, cousin. You must tell me of your day so that I may forget these betrothal offers.”
“Oh no, women are throwing themselves at you. What ever will you do?” Andrew said with a bit of mocking in his tone, but one look from Stannis made him change his tone very quickly. “I trained with Ser Cortnay and his squire, that Horpe lad. He’s only twelve, but he’s a good fighter. Loyal as well.”
“Good. Loyal men are needed in times such as these,” Stannis said as they left his solar towards Renly’s rooms. “Mad King Aerys, the Prince who loves to sing songs in Summerhall instead of being at Dragonstone, and the fact that Lord Tywin has resigned from the Handship. Troubling times are ahead, cousin, and I fear war might come upon us soon.”
“War?”
Stannis grimaced. “Prince Rhaegar has always been a friend of mine and he calls me cousin like you do. But he has been speaking with lords major and minor about his father, the man who burns traitors alive with wildfire and rapes his wife, if the rumors are true. He has yet to approach me, but one day, I know he might. And on that day, Andrew, that day is when we may have to choose.”
“Choose what?”
“Blood or honor. Rhaegar is a dear friend and a cousin, though distant. A good man, if not entranced by prophecies and dreams of dragons. Yet he is of my blood and is family, just like you or Robert. There might come a day where we will have to choose between Rhaegar and Aerys. And I do not know who I would choose.”
Rhaegar is my friend, my cousin, and the man who helped me grieve when Robert was off with Ned Stark in the Vale and Renly was too young. But Aerys rules by every law in Westeros and is the rightful king, he thought. But at the same time, he is a mad king. A man who defiles his wife without her consent, burns people alive…
“Come. My younger brother awaits.”