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“I mean to use your second son as well. He will take Lady Marya across the Narrow Sea, to Braavos and the other Free Cities, to deliver other letters to the men who rule there. The world will know of my claim, and of Cersei’s infamy.” (A Clash of Kings)
Dale would never give his wife the child they had prayed for, and Allard, with his girl in Oldtown and his girl in King’s Landing and his girl in Braavos, they would all be weeping soon. (A Storm of Swords)
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It had gone as Allard’s father had predicted, and had warned KIng Stannis beforehand. “Done in the Light of the Lord,” the phrase included in the letter announcing Stannis Baratheon’s claim to the Iron Throne, had been a point of contention, even here in Braavos, where any and all religions and gods were allowed to flourish, even R’hllor.
Or perhaps especially in Braavos, where no religion is supposed to reign supreme, Allard revised his thought.
“Does he mean to take this Lord of Light as the only religion of the Seven Kingdoms, should he win the Iron Throne?” Allard had been asked that question over and over again while delivering the letters. And this was coming from the people in the Free Cities, who would not be ruled by Stannis Baratheon, should he prove to be victorious in the coming battle. Allard wondered what kind of reaction his father and his brother Dale were receiving from the denizens of the Seven Kingdoms. An even more hostile one, he’d wager.
How does Stannis hope to gain any support for his claim to the throne? Allard groused, as he made his way to Anya’s house. Lady Marya would be sailing back to Dragonstone the next day, and the rest of the ship’s crew were staying at an inn in town.
And then what? When will we sail for King’s Landing? Will I ever see Anya again? War meant death, even for the victorious side. And victory seemed not only out of reach, but also out of sight for Stannis Baratheon.
He resolved to put that vexing thought aside. It was his last night with Anya, and he wanted to relish it as much as possible, while he still could.
She was a widow, and a merchant, trading in garments and fabrics, a trade she had inherited from her late husband. But Anya had made more of a success of the business than her husband ever did. “Allard’s girl in Braavos,” his brother Maric had called Anya, but she was no more a girl than he was a boy. She was a woman, fully and completely, with everything that the word conveyed.
Anya was also the only one of the three who had no interest in marrying him. Her late husband had been a domestic tyrant, and Allard suspected that she loved being her own lord and master too much to risk another husband.
“I could marry you, if you are willing to settle down in Braavos,” she had said one night, after a particularly long and delightful romp in bed. But he knew it was not a serious proposition.
“What would I do here?” he had asked anyway, in the spirit of jest.
“Well, I could always use another seamstress,” she had answered, her teeth nibbling on his earlobe.
“Tempting. Very tempting. But I think I will stick to captaining ships.”
Her only son was of an age with Allard’s youngest brother Steff. He had never met the boy. “My life has many separate parts,” she had said. Allard had always entered her house through a side door, up the stairs into a guest chamber tucked in a secluded corner of the house. He had never set foot inside her actual bedchamber.
“I don’t want my son walking in on us,” she had explained.
It was an airy, comfortable room, looking out to the harbor. His ship Lady Marya was not a big enough galley to be seen from the window, but if Stannis’ ship Fury had been docked there, Allard was certain he would have been able to see it from the room.
She probably had other men here, he thought. And I have other women in other ports. We are not naive, and this is not the Seven Kingdoms.
It did not turn out to be a joyful night after all. His anxiety about the coming war, his apprehension about the fate of his father and brothers in battle, and his anger over the burning of the Seven – they all combined to lead to a less than satisfactory feat in bed from him. He was severely embarrassed, and sorely disappointed. Anya seemed amused more than anything else.
But not sympathetic, or pitying, thank the gods, Allard thought. Pity was death to desire. Amused, on the other hand, could still lead to –
“I have never taken you for a religious man. Why should it matter to you what god Stannis Baratheon decides to worship?” she suddenly asked.
He sighed. “Stannis can take himself as a god, and worship his own prickly self for all I care. The burning of the Seven, the destruction of the septs, the way he is forcing everyone in Dragonstone to take R’hllor as their god and to abandon the gods of their ancestors, those are the real problems.”
They had spoken of this in the days since his arrival in Braavos on the mission commanded by Stannis Baratheon. He had no wish to bore her with his various resentments. This was a time that could be better spent on a different matter.
They tried again, and this time, he was even more unsuccessful, his flaccid manhood making a cruel mockery of his strenuous effort.
“Sleep, and rest. Perhaps in the morning …” Anya said, before kissing him on his forehead.
A kiss on the forehead. Not on the lips. Not even a peck on his cheek. Like kissing her son goodnight, probably.
Well, that should bode well for tomorrow, Allard despaired.
He woke up before dawn the next morning. Watched her sleeping face next to him, looking calm and untroubled. His ship was not leaving until noon. Plenty of time, he thought. Plenty of time still to please her and to please himself.
And plenty of time still to bid farewell. There was no telling when, or if, they would see each other again, after this day.
He pondered her question the night before. Why should it matter to him which god Stannis decided to worship?
For one thing, it matters because Dale, Maric, Matthos and I prayed to the Seven, every night when Father was at sea. And Father always came home. Safe and sound.
Except for the time he came home with four fewer finger joints. The fingers Stannis Baratheon had taken as punishment for his years of smuggling. Allard’s father had kept the finger bones with him always.
For luck. For my four sons. One for each of them.
This was when Davos and Marya only had four sons. Before they were Seaworths. Before Davos was knighted, his reward for smuggling onions and salted fish to Storm’s End and saving Stannis and his men from starving to death. Stannis Baratheon. The giver and the taker. The reward-giver and the punisher.
There had been four Seaworths sons, and then there were seven. Devan, Stanny and Steff were Seaworths, from birth. The sons of a landed knight, from birth. They had never known any other life.
It was more complicated for Dale, Allard, Maric and Matthos. We were the sons of a smuggler, and then we were the sons of a knight. It was like a family cleaved into two parts: before, and after.
He pondered how different the experience growing up had been between the four of them and the three younger boys. And wondered too, if that was the way things were, with Stannis and his younger brother Lord Renly. The much younger Lord Renly, growing into adulthood after his eldest brother had become king, appointed as the Lord of Storm’s End when he was only a boy of eight.
Dale had thought it strange that the Baratheon brothers could not work it out between themselves, that they could not join forces to defeat the Lannisters, their true enemy.
“They are not brothers the way we are brothers,” Allard had replied.
“Lord Renly is in the wrong. He has no lawful claim to the throne over his older brother,” Dale had continued.
Allard was not so certain. The Baratheons were never meant to be kings. The late King Robert had led a rebellion. Where was his lawful claim then?
“If it was not for the rebellion, and for King Stannis, Father would not have been knighted. You and Dale would not be captaining ships right now,” said Matthos, the quiet one, the one people called their father’s shadow, and not just because he served with Davos on Black Betha.
“You are only repeating Father’s words,” Allard snapped.
“But it is true,” chimed Maric.
Allard stared at Maric incredulously. “Oh, not you too! It’s bad enough that Devan is a one-man Stannis Baratheon worshipping army. Now you and Matthos too?”
The four older sons of Davos Seaworth had always retained a sense of unease and skepticism towards Stannis Baratheon. Towards the man who held so much of their father’s loyalty, who took so much of his time and energy.
Or at least they all did, in the beginning.
Maric’s conversion had felt like the worst betrayal of all. Maric had been the brother who never took things too seriously, who had been the most scornful of Stannis Baratheon’s joyless rigidity. Dutiful, responsible Dale; brash, reckless Allard; earnest, melancholic Matthos; funny, joyful Maric. That was how others saw them, superficially at least. And it was not far from the truth, even if it was not the entire truth.
But Maric had changed, ever since he had been assigned to serve as the oarmaster of Fury, Stannis’ ship. Maric and Dale had worked their way up together on Wraith, but after Dale was given his captaincy of Wraith, Stannis Baratheon had taken Maric off that ship, presumably because he thought that one brother commanding another brother would cause discord.
We are not all like the Baratheon brothers, my lord. Some brothers can, and do, get along.
It had amazed Allard that spending more time in the company of Stannis Baratheon would make his brothers grow fonder of the man. It was true of Devan since he became Stannis’ squire, and it was true of Maric since he started serving on Stannis’ ship. How could proximity to such a man inspire fondness, of all things? What kind of sorcery was this?
“Don’t be too hard on Maric for defending King Stannis,” Dale said, after the burning of the Seven on the beach of Dragonstone.
“What happened to him? And what happened to us? We used to pray to the Seven, all four of us, for Father. Pray that he would come back safely. Pray that he was safe from harm. Pray that he was not caught and sent to the Wall, or worse.”
“It wasn’t the prayers that kept Father safe. It was his own effort and ingenuity, and perhaps also luck. You have always known that, because neither of us was ever a true believer.”
Allard stared at Dale. He had always suspected this about his older brother, but the confirmation was a surprise nonetheless.
“But you were the one who made sure we prayed every night, who led us in prayers as we held hands,” Allard said.
“Because my brothers needed the comfort. Some of them needed the comfort of the words and the four of us being together,” Dale stared pointedly at Allard, before continuing, “and some of them truly believed in the power of the gods. Who am I to take that faith away from them?”
“Stannis has no trouble taking away other people’s faith, to impose his own,” Allard grumbled.
“I don’t think it is his faith, this Red God.”
“Then what is he doing?”
“He is doing what I was doing.” Dale spoke as if he had considered the question long and hard before this. “Using the gods, or the god, in this case, to achieve a purpose. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say, using other people’s belief in that god to achieve his purpose.”
“You used it to comfort your brothers, not to squabble over a throne.”
“A throne that is his by law, as the late king’s heir,” Dale said. That had ended the conversation.
Allard had never much liked Stannis Baratheon, but he knew he was not the only one. “Not a man to inspire love and loyalty,” he had told his mother.
“Love? No, certainly not,” his mother had agreed. “Not many could love him, kin or no kin, sworn bannermen or no sworn bannermen. But loyalty? He could inspire that, to be sure.”
“By fear, you mean?” he had asked her.
“Yes, that, but also by example. If he is hard on others, he is hardest on himself.”
But what was the point of it, Allard wondered? All that self-negation and denial of pleasure. Outlawing whoring, gambling and excessive drinking on Dragonstone, even when it was an island filled with sailors far from the comfort of home.
Easy for Stannis, Allard scoffed. He seemed like the kind of man with no appetite for any type of pleasure. A hard man who derived pleasure from denying pleasures to others. A cold, unfeeling man? Or perhaps a man who preferred to be thought of as cold and unfeeling, to inspire fear in the hearts of others.
Allard remembered his father telling his mother about the young man holding Storm’s End for more than a year. Not yet twenty, yet fiercely determined. The young man who did not flinch as he brought down the cleaver on Davos’ hand.
Allard had nightmares about it afterwards, imagining what it was like for his father. “Did it hurt?” he had asked once.
“No, not at the time the cleaver fell,” his father had replied. It was a clean cut, and the blade was sharp, Davos had explained to his son. The maester at Storm’s End had given him milk of the poppy for the pain afterwards, and carefully tended to the wound. Davos had stayed in a guest chamber inside the castle, because Lord Stannis had insisted on it. “If you die because the wound is not cared for properly, I will be blamed for it. You are staying here, whether you wish it or not.”
His father had laughed while recounting the story, but Allard thought that it was horrible.
“He didn’t really care about you, Father. He was just worried about what people might think of him, if you had died.”
Davos smiled. “I don’t believe so. He is not the kind of man who puts too much stock in the opinion of others. Such a man would not have made a low-born smuggler like myself his sworn knight and his most trusted man, over the objections of many.”
Stannis appointing Devan Seaworth as his royal squire had been another source of discontent among his sworn lords, provoking whispers that King Stannis’ court was drowning in a sea of Seaworths. It was not just the fact that Davos was a low-born man who became a knight. There were other men in that same position, elevated to a knighthood because of some great service tendered to a lord. It was because Stannis considered Davos as one of his closest advisors, despite Davos’ humble origin. Davos Seaworth the onion knight might not have a place at the table when Stannis Baratheon met with his lordly lords, but Stannis always demanded his presence later, to seek his counsel, to speak with him as he rarely spoke with others. The lords whispered among themselves that Stannis barely listened to their counsel, and only took the onion knight’s words into consideration.
Allard was jolted by a sudden realization, remembering how the king’s men, all those who had not embraced R’hllor, including himself and his brothers, had talked about Melisandre whispering in Stannis’ ear, and how Stannis only listened to her words and her counsel to the exclusion of all others.
It was the exact same thing those lordly lords had been saying about Davos Seaworth for years and years. Allard laughed out loud. Father was Melisandre in the eyes of those lords long before Melisandre ever reached the shores of Dragonstone. How ironic. How deliciously and painfully ironic.
His laughter was loud enough to wake Anya. He started kissing her, but she pushed him away.
Her words came out in a rush. “Stay here with me. Marry me, or don’t. You can find work with one of the trading ships. I know the owners, I have made inquiries.”
Where was this coming from? She had never spoken of wanting him to stay before.
“And it will not be a ship fighting a war,” she continued.
Ahhh … she does not want me to die.
“Why should you die for a cause you do not believe? For a man you hold in contempt?”
“I might not die. I think you’re underestimating my skills as a fighter,” he said, with a smile, trying to tease a smile from Anya.
“This is not the time for jest,” she snapped, angrily.
He kissed her hand to make amends. Her expression softened. She asked, “Will you stay?”
He was tempted. So very, very tempted. “I can’t,” he finally said, with regret. “My father, my brothers, they will never abandon Stannis Baratheon’s cause. And I cannot abandon them.”
“So you are willing to die for second-hand loyalty? Not loyalty to Stannis Baratheon himself, but loyalty to those loyal to him.”
“Loyalty to my family, to my blood. That is reason enough to risk death.”
“It doesn’t change the fact that your loyalty to Stannis Baratheon is second-hand loyalty.”
Is that all there is to it? Allard wondered. Second-hand loyalty? Surely there was more. There had to be more binding him to Stannis Baratheon other than second-hand loyalty. Otherwise –
“He named it Lady Marya, the ship I captain,” he blurted out.
“Who?”
“Stannis. It was a reward for my father, for helping him defeat the Greyjoy rebellion. Choose the name of my new war galley. My father chose Marya, my mother’s name.”
“So it was your father who named the ship, not Stannis.”
“He told my father that Marya would not be appropriate. Because my mother is the wife of a knight, and it should be Lady Marya.”
“So you’re going to war for a cause you don’t believe because this king once named a ship after your mother, with the proper title?” Anya asked, sounding incredulous.
He did not know how to make her understand, because he did not fully understand it himself. There was something in that small gesture, something defining, reflecting the measure of a man.
And there was something else as well, something more concrete and less nebulous than a mere gesture. “Dragonstone has been closed for a year,” said Allard. “No ships are allowed to leave. Stannis needs all the ship he can get, and he could not trust that any ship allowed to leave would ever return to Dragonstone. But three ships did leave Dragonstone: my father’s, my brother Dale’s, and mine. Only those three, and no other.”
“Because he needed those ships to deliver the letters announcing his claim to the throne,” Anya pointed out.
“Yes, but do you not see? Of all the ships and men he commands, he trusts us three to return. Only us, and no one else. I cannot betray that trust.”
Anya sighed, finally resigned to the inevitable. “If you die in battle, will I even know? You will just stop coming.”
“I could stop coming because I am finally married.”
“That’s what I will imagine then, if you stop coming. That you are alive, married, and happy. Perhaps with children of your own. I’ll curse you for your happiness, but I’ll be glad that you are alive.”
“I could … I could ask my mother to send you a letter. If …”
She laughed. “And how many letters would your mother have to send? To how many women? In how many ports?”
He blushed red.
Her expression turned solemn. “No, there is no need. It will be hard enough for your mother. And she might lose more than one son in the war.”
Anya is a mother too, Allard suddenly remembered.
“Is this goodbye?” she asked.
“For now.”
The morning ended on a more successful note than the previous night.