At Dragonstone…
King Daveth I Baratheon donned his black armor and gold cloak, dismounting his stallion on the steps of Dragonstone with two of his Kingsguard knights: Ser Lucius Blackmyre and Ser Boros Blount.
He had sent a raven to Dragonstone and received a reply.
His uncle, Lord Stannis Baratheon, agreed to meet with him outside the gates.
“Are you sure this is wise, Your Grace?” Ser Boros asked.
“We’ve already received reports about suspicious activities taking place here.
Some of them are… unsettling.”
Daveth did not look at him.
“I’ve heard the same, Ser Boros.
But that doesn’t concern me at the moment.
Stannis always went on about having a sense of duty and responsibility.
He wasn’t at King’s Landing to attend either Jon Arryn’s funeral or my coronation.
And with Renly starting his damned, pointless rebellion, I’ll need ships, and Stannis is a military commander.
Last I heard he was busy building new ships.
And we’ll need him on our side.”
Ser Lucius noted this.
“Still, it’d be best to remain on guard.”
“Very well.”
The faster they got this business over with, the faster they could return to King’s Landing to prepare to put down the insurrection.
The carved gateway began to slowly open, revealing Lord Stannis Baratheon, Ser Davos Seaworth, and the red priestess Melisandre.
The trio stepped forward as Stannis and Daveth stood facing each other, but only Davos was the one who bent to one knee.
“Nephew,” Stannis said with a chill courtesy.
“Uncle Stannis,” Daveth returned.
Davos rose to his feet.
“Your Grace, you honor us with your presence,” he greeted, causing Daveth to look directly at him.
“And you are…?”
“Ser Davos, Your Grace, of House Seaworth.”
Before Daveth could open his mouth to speak, he was cut off.
“You needn’t ask about my house, Your Grace.
It’s… rather new.
Your uncle, Lord Stannis, knighted me after the rebellion.”
“It’s rude to interrupt the King when he’s talking, Ser Davos of House Seaworth,” said Ser Boros.
Daveth turned to his Kingsguard.
“A minor mistake, Ser Boros.
He knows his place, and he will not let it happen again.
Do I make myself clear?”
Ser Boros bowed his head slightly.
“My apologies, Your Grace.”
“I had not thought you had it in you to find your way here,” Stannis said.
“Last I heard, you were at King’s Landing, sitting on the Iron Throne.”
Daveth noticed how deep-set Stannis’s eyes were and how stern his facial expression looked.
It was obvious his uncle was not a man made for easy courtesies.
“What brings you to Dragonstone?” he finally asked.
“Renly has betrayed House Baratheon and has risen up in revolt against the Iron Throne, calling himself king with the intent on taking the throne for himself.
Our last reports informed us that the Reach has declared for him, sealing it with a marriage alliance to Lord Mace of House Tyrell’s daughter, Lady Margaery.
The scouts tell us Renly has amassed an army of over 100,000 men and plans to march on the capital.
I came here to enlist your aid in putting down this pointless rebellion.”
Stannis looked closely at Daveth, analyzing his words bit by bit as his face remained stern.
It was at this point that Melisandre spoke up.
“We don’t need to ask this lord or that lord for aid.
The Lord of Light stands behind us.”
Daveth scoffed as he raised an eyebrow.
“And you must be the infamous fire priestess I’ve heard so much about… Tell me, how many ships does your god command?”
“He doesn’t need armies,” Melisandre calmly replied.
“But we do,” Daveth pointed out before returning his gaze to Stannis.
“For the first time since the Greyjoy Rebellion, we are at war.
And pointless, unnecessary wars benefit no one but those who continue to spout such ignorance.”
“But you’re still a boy.
Never fought in a war like your father and I have.”
“Have you forgotten your duties, Uncle Stannis?” Daveth replied rather sternly, deciding to get straight to the point.
Stannis frowned at this perceived insult to his code of honor, yet he was slightly amused at his nephew standing his ground—refusing to budge even an inch.
He said nothing as he let Daveth continue.
“I have Baratheon blood running through my veins, just the same as you do.
As did Father, as does Renly.
You once told me a long time ago that we don’t always get to choose our destinies, but we must simply do our duty.
‘Great or small, we must do our duty.’ Those were your words.
I understand that as King I must do what needs to be done, but I’m just one man.” Daveth stepped forward to stare directly into Stannis’s eyes and issued an ultimatum.
“And so I stand here before you now, Lord Stannis Baratheon of Dragonstone.
Bend the knee and swear me an oath of fealty… and in return,” he spoke more calmly and calculatingly, “I will undo the greatest act of dishonor that my father inflicted on you, undo much wrong he did to you, and see that your proper rights to the Stormlands are restored.
But only if you bend the knee.”
Stannis looked at his nephew, not saying anything.
Daveth was young, Stannis would admit, but he had the same fighting spirit as he and Robert did in their youth.
And his proposal seemed to reopen old wounds.
His face continued to show no emotion and remain stern.
After a long moment, Stannis finally turned to his page and Davos’s son, Matthos.
“Fetch my quill and paper.”
Meanwhile, in the Stormlands…
A large tournament was staged near Bitterbridge, where the road crossed the Mander.
Smoke from numerous camp fires was made apparent.
Then the sound came drifting across farm and field and rolling plain, indistinct as the murmur of some distant sea but swelling as they rode closer.
By the time the Mander’s muddy waters were glinting in the sun, voices of men were hollering rather loudly, as was the clatter of steel clashing against steel and the whinny of horses.
A forest had surely been felled to make the tall staffs that held the green banners of Houses Baratheon and Tyrell.
Great siege engines were lined on the grassy verge of the rose road: mangonels and trebuchets and rolling rams mounted on wheels taller than a man on horseback.
The steel points of pikes flamed red with sunlight, as if already bloodied, while the pavilions of the knights and high lords sprouted from the grass like silken mushrooms.
Renly Baratheon’s own customized banner flew the highest of all, depicting a gold stag on a green field.
He had long since fled King’s Landing and traveled to Highgarden, where he declared himself the claimant king of the Andals and the First Men, lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and protector of the realm in opposition to his nephew King Daveth I Baratheon.
It didn’t take long for the Oathkeeper to denounce Renly and attaint him for treason.
Yet despite the charges, Renly Baratheon stood tall and proud and was confident in his chances after rallying an estimated 100,000 men—the combined forces of the Stormlands and the Reach—when he married Margaery Tyrell, daughter of Lord Mace Tyrell and his lover Ser Loras’s sister, two weeks ago, although his wife was aware of her husband’s relationship with her brother and saw no problem with it.
Margaery is said to be as beautiful as she is clever by many, having a slender but womanly figure with smooth, unblemished pale skin and small breasts.
Her dress included a sheer gown of ivory silk, Myrish lace, and seed pearls.
Today her dress was green with a cloak of autumn flowers and a pale green samite gown with a tight-laced bodice that bared her shoulders and the top of her bosom.
Renly stood on a high pedestal with Margaery at his side, watching Loras compete in the final round of the melee against a rather large competitor, holding up a shield containing yellow suns on rose quartered with white crescents on an azure field—indicating Loras’s opponent hailed from House Tarth of Evenfall Hall.
*BAM* *SLAM* *GRUNT.* *GROAN* *SWING* *SMACK*
Margaery stood up from her seat.
“Loras!
Highgarden!” she clapped her hands together in excitement.
Ser Loras continued raining blow after blow against his opponent garbed in gold and blue armor.
When the longaxe caught the blue knight’s hand on the backswing and sent the morningstar flying from their grasp, the crowd screamed like a rutting beast.
The Knight of the Flowers raised his axe for the final blow.
The blue knight charged into it; the blunted axehead smashed against the scarred blue breastplate… but somehow the blue knight had the haft locked between steel-gauntleted fingers and tackled the Knight of the Flowers before slamming him to the ground.
*THUD!*
Loras grunted as the crowd gasped in silence, including his sister.
His opponent stood over Loras, flicked open the Knight of the Flowers’s visor, and pulled out a long dirk before pointing it in his face.
“Yield!
I yield!” Loras called out, holding up both his arms in surrender.
The gold and blue knights climbed unsteadily to their feet as squires dashed onto the field to help Ser Loras Tyrell up to his feet.
When they got his helm off, Loras’s hair was a mess.
“Well fought,” King Renly called to the champion.
“Rise.
Remove your helm.”
The knight complied, revealing herself to be a woman.
She stood unusually tall and muscular for a woman by Westerosi standards.
A Beauty!” but most were silent.
She knelt before the rival king.
“You are all your father promised and more, my lady.” Renly’s voice carried over the field.
“I’ve seen Ser Loras bested once or twice, but never quite in that fashion.”
“Now, now, my love.
My brother fought valiantly for you,” Margaery spoke up.
“That he did, my queen.
But there can be only one champion.
Brienne of Tarth, you may ask anything of me you desire.
If it is within my power, it is yours.”
“Your Grace,” Brienne answered.
“I ask the honor of a place in your kingsguard.”
“What?!” Loras exclaimed.
Others in the crowd were quick to join in.
“I will be one of your seven, pledge my life to yours, and keep you safe from all harm.”
“Brienne the Beauty,” “The Maid of Tarth”—that’s what they called her mockingly.
The hair beneath the visor was a squirrel’s nest of dirty straw, and her face… Brienne’s eyes were large and very blue, a young girl’s eyes, trusting and guileless, but her features were broad and coarse, her teeth prominent and crooked, her mouth too wide, and her lips so plump they seemed swollen.
And yet, Renly looked at her with such warmth and compassion.
“Done,” he announced.
“Rise, Brienne of the Kingsguard.”
*APPLAUSE!*
As Renly, Margaery, and other attendees clapped for Brienne of Tarth as the champion of the melee, Loras didn’t join in.
He felt humiliated, for he had lost twice now: once to Daveth Baratheon in the Hand’s Tourney joust last year, and now to a woman.
An ugly woman, he’d say.
But because Brienne was inducted into the Kingsguard, he felt no choice but to reluctantly do so, as he was Renly’s Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
One of Renly’s bannermen, Ser Colen of Greenpools, swung off his horse to approach the gallery.
“Your Grace!
“I beg your leave.” He went to one knee.
“A raven arrived moments ago from King’s Landing.”
Renly shifted slightly.
“Show it to me,” he commanded.
Ser Colen rose and handed Renly a letter, waxed with a gold stag.
Renly undid the seal and opened the letter and began to read aloud:
“To the traitor Renly Baratheon,
It has come to my attention that you have raised your banners in rebellion against the Crown with the sole intent to claim the Iron Throne for yourself.
Years ago you swore a solemn vow to faithfully serve the realm with dignity and loyalty, the same pledge you yourself swore to my father and your brother the late King Robert Baratheon.
Yet not long after my coronation, you commit treason by unlawfully declaring yourself king despite being fifth in line of the royal succession.
In doing so you’ve named yourself an enemy of the Crown and a traitor to the realm.
Not once in a thousand years would I have to punish my own flesh and blood.
But your actions have forced my hand.
Because we share the same blood of the Baratheon stag, this will be the last warning I’ll be sending.
Lay down your arms, come to me at King’s Landing within the fortnight, and maybe I’ll consider pardoning you.
Refuse, however, and your house will be destroyed, root and stem.
None will be shown any mercy.
On that you have my word.
I’ll be sending an envoy to meet you on the border between the Crownlands and Stormlands to hear your reply.
Signed,
Daveth of the House Baratheon, First of His Name
The rightful King of the Andals and the First Men • Lord of the Seven Kingdoms • Protector of the Realm”
Renly finished looking over the letter, looking blatant as many assembled heard the words detailed in the letter.
Most were worried; others wanted to fight.
‘He speaks like a Lannister,’ Renly thought.
He stood up from the gallery and made his way down to the arena.
” Ser Colen, have the men ready and prepare to move out.
It appears we’ll be getting an armed response soon.
But first…” Renly smirked with pride.
“I’d really like to hear what my nephew’s ‘envoy’ has to say.”