Stannis POV
"And tell your mother … no, ask her if … if she would come back inside."
His words were rewarded with a peck on the cheek from his daughter. He watched as Shireen walked out of the room. Our daughter, he thought. Selyse's and mine.
He waited. For his wife to come in. Minutes passed. Perhaps she did not feel like coming back in, after I sent her away. The thought dismayed him to a degree that he found strange and perplexing. He had taken her sitting by his bed for granted, she had done it for days after all.
She walked in after he had given up hope.
"Well." Her word came as soon as she was seated on the chair beside his bed.
"Well, what?"
"It seems that your plan worked after all. Shireen and Devan."
She was talking to Shireen. That was why it took her so long to come back.
He stared at her. "What plan? Shireen decided on her own. I did not do anything."
She merely smiled at him. Selyse did not look displeased with the news. She had never been very cordial towards the Seaworths. He wondered if part of her was still holding a grudge over his decision to make Davos his Hand, instead of her uncle.
"What do you think?"
A shrug from his wife. "She has to marry someone. At least Devan is someone we know."
"Besides," she continued, after a pause, "they are in love. I suppose that will count for something in the long run. We have seen too many political marriages crumbled and all the destruction they caused."
He tried to hide his look of astonishment, but the way she was looking at him, with an amused expression, told him that he had failed.
"You are not the only observant one in this family. She is my daughter too."
"Of course. And you know her better than I do."
"She knows herself better than either one of us."
The silence stretched out again. It was not an uncomfortable silence, the way it used to be before his illness, when it was just the two of them in a room.
Or at least it was not uncomfortable for him. Selyse however seemed restless, her hand kept smoothing over a small crease on her dress.
Perhaps I should tell her I would like to be alone.
"Would you like me to read to you?" She asked, before he had a chance to say anything.
She had started reading to him old letters his parents had sent him. Most of the letters were from his father. His father had always written separate letters to his wife and his sons when he was away. A few had been from his mother, written during that ill-fated trip to find Rhaegar Targaryen a wife.
Rhaegar. Rhaegar. He repeated the name in his head, over and over again. It occurred to him suddenly, out of nowhere, that perhaps the reason for Robert's unquenchable hatred for Rhaegar Targaryen had been more than what happened to Lyanna Stark. Our parents died on a trip to look for a wife for Rhaegar.
That was not Rhaegar's fault, of course. His father the Mad King commanded Steffon Baratheon and his wife to make that trip, not Rhaegar. And it was a storm that killed them, not Rhaegar. But he knew, perhaps better than anyone, how irrational anger and blame and bitterness could be.
Did you hate him because of our parents' death too, Robert? Not just for stealing your beloved Lyanna?
It felt like the most important question in the world at that moment. I must ask Robert, he thought. Where is he? He tried getting up, but only managed to lift his head up slightly. His hands were grabbing the edge of the bed, when he remembered.
Robert is dead. Renly is dead. They are all dead.
The hardest part was not the lapse in memory, but the fact that it would always returned. Reality, crashing him back down to earth.
"What is it? Are you in pain? Should I call Pylos?"
He sighed. "No. And no letters today. Let's just ... sit ... together."
"Well I am sitting. You're lying down."
His laughter seemed to shock her. Which seemed like one of the saddest things in the world to him.
What will her life be like, after his death? It shamed him greatly that he had not thought of this before, even once, since he knew of his impending death. Every thought had been focused on their daughter, on the kingdom.
She could even marry again, he thought. But she would have to leave the castle and Shireen, and he did not think she would do that. Would she feel ... in the way, redundant, after Shireen was married, with a family of her own? No, Shireen would not let that happen.
We don't deserve our daughter. No, he corrected himself. I don't deserve her.
She was still looking at him, waiting for him to say something. She was used to his thoughts wandering these days. The privilege of the dying, he thought. There was not really anything more to say about the arrangements. They had talked about it in details, the arrangements for the funeral, and for Shireen's coronation. The three of them. Davos, Selyse and himself. For once, Davos and Selyse seemed warmer towards each other, more than just cordial. The only one missing from the tableau was Melisandre. She had gone back to Asshai. He did not want to think of her, with his wife sitting next to him.
Did Selyse know? In truth, she was probably closer to Melisandre than he ever was. What did they talk about, when it was only the two of them?
The problem with confessing your sins before you die, he thought, is that it might make you feel better, but it leaves the living with a greater burden to carry.
Or was that only an excuse so he could stay silent? A desperate attempt to ensure he would be remembered in a good light?
No, she knows all there is to know about me, even without knowing that. And his greatest sin, to his marriage, and to his wife, was not that transgression anyway, he realized. It was his conduct in the entirety of the marriage.
If a dying man apologized, you would have no choice but to forgive. Or to say 'no, there is nothing to forgive', even if there actually was something. His thoughts returned to this, over and over again.
"Shireen would do fine. You have prepared her well."
"I know. We did not fail too much as parents, I suppose," he said, with a slight smile.
"I failed to give you a son."
"If we had a son, Shireen would not be where she is today. I would not trade that for a dozen sons. And ... you did not fail on your own."
They left it at that.
"It's raining," she suddenly said.
Not just raining, perhaps a storm was coming too. He heard the sound of thunder. He thought of his parents, and their last moments, as Windproud was sinking. Were they together? Were they holding hands?
He had spent the years since Renly's death thinking of his little brother's last moments, every night before he closed his eyes. Did Renly saw his brother's feature in the shadow? He must have.
But he had never thought of Robert's last moments before. Robert lying in his sickbed after the boar attacked him, thinking about the realm and the kingdom. He had begrudged it then, that Robert, in his last act before dying, thought only of Ned, appointing him Protector of the Realm. But not any more. He understood it now. Robert was only doing what he thought was best for the kingdom, and for the boy he thought was his son.
Let it go. All the lifetime of accumulated resentments, anger and bitterness, of perceived slights and actual slights.
I had Davos, and Robert had Ned.
And he thought of Ned's last moments too. It was never your fault, I begrudged you and hated you for my brother, not for anything you ever did.
"Stannis?"
"I'm still here."
He did not apologize to his wife. Or to the ghosts roaming around in his head.
