Storm's End was likely the biggest castle ever constructed. In truth, it looked a bit haunted, like a giant structure with a theme of daunting towers that were made of stone, a smaller stone brick tower built atop a larger one below, but with a giant of a rook plunged deep in the middle, towering over all. You had to respect its sheer size and impossibility. It was built at the edge of a cliff overlooking the northern tip of Blackwater Bay. When you stood at its giant curtain wall, you had to crane your neck until it felt like to snap before you could see the top. You could not even see the top during the hour of the wolf. But during this hour, not seeing is exactly the thing I need from the patrol guards.
His boat was small, a sturdy girl off his own ship Black Betha, which was a quick thing but too large. Luckily, it was stealth Davos required, not speed, and an escape boat was the perfect size and shape to fit into the sewers. I hope their hungry mouths can wait a few more minutes. Better to be cautious and safe, then be discovered and lose all. Inside the boat, Davos had filled every space he could find with bags of onions. When there were no more onions, Davos began filling in the spaces with small crates of salt beef and other crates of food he could grab, without being discovered. It was very risky work. Most of this food, he had gotten from the main belligerents of the Siege of Storm's End; Mace Tyrell and Lord Redwyne.
During scouting missions, Davos realized that stealing from the southern lords, who supported the dragon, would be rather easy, especially since their supply of food was so abundant. This night, however, there were less men around the supplies and Davos felt he was easy to spot. His cover as a cook assistant worked most nights, but, once in awhile, Davos ran into a suspicious patrol officer or a drunk soldier that left his heart pounding and praying to the Light of the Seven.
The final night before he felt he had enough supplies, he took a rather risky mission to the northern walls of Storm's End. Tyrell had bought a months supplies of onions and salted beef from some scoury merchant from the Fingers. Davos realized that he would be able to fit more bags of onions than anything else on the small boat that could pass underneath. Every castle has its secrets Davos was not spotted once and many men that passed him by seemed to think he belonged there. Davos caught a few of their words and realized they knew him for the cook's assistant. Highborn lords rarely knew the names of the servants in their employ.
Tyrell's arrogance might have just cost him a siege, but they'd never ask me.
It depended of course, depended on the actions of Davos this night. A smuggler born and raised, with no hope for titles or ranks, Davos was accustomed to this sort of mission.
Darkness and only a castle wall in my way. Easy work.
He would have never been in a position to needs save a great Lord and a brother to the king at that, but Stannis Baratheon was no ordinary Lord. The most just man Davos had ever heard about, Stannis never balked, nor did he do anything that had no honor in it. Of course, Stannis probably did not remember the lowborn smuggler, passing as an honest lowborn man, whom he met only once, and that the lowborn man had been so taken aback at the justice of this Lord. As long as Davos lived, he would do all he could to aid Stannis, the man who gave Davos hope in his people and in his brother, the soon to be King Robert Baratheon.
Nearing the sewer opening at the bottom of the castle, the enormity of the great structure was lost in the small crevasse that limited Davos' view. Tunnel Vision. Davos knew his eyes would adjust, as they always did during these smuggler jobs. But this is no mere smugglers work. Davos grabbed the top of the brick sewer entrance and, with proficient skill, guided his smugglers boat into the opening, and under Storm's End. The tunnel was mostly pitch black, other than the few inches around the opening. Davos could not see, but the moment he was swallowed by the darkness, his ears pricked up, and his fingers of his left hand always stayed in contact with the dark brick sewer wall of Storm's End.
Davos began counting under his breath. One..two.. He passed by other sewer tunnels, opening left and right. Davos knew the sewers down here probably formed a giant maze, but he also knew it was his own course that would take him to the only path into the actual castle.
Six..seven.. in a heart-stopping moment, Davos went to scratch his nose, and he lost his footing. Mother have mercy! The whole boat shifted violently and the bow knocked into the right of the sewer wall. Luckily, the boat steadied herself from the momentum and angle of the knock. Davos did not think there was enough space for the boat to truly turn over, but the water here was short in supply and the jagged rocks underwater could seriously damage Davos and the boat both.
Davos shifted some of the bags of onions under his legs and rump so that, instead of crouching above the food, he was sitting on a sort of onion seat.
They should call this the Onion Throne. He chuckled lightly.
The rest was the darkness, the quickened heart thumping in Davos' chest, the soft splashes the water made against the boat, and the waiting. Davos counted, the seconds passing, under his breath. forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven.. Finally, thump.
The thin wooden dock was small and low on the receding waters of Storms End's sewer system. Eventually, the waters will reach such low levels that the boardwalk must either be removed or renovated to balance on top of the uneven rocks. Davos tied his boat to the dock and began walking up and down the length of the boardwalk, searching for something to carry the entire load, preferably something with wheels. Davos couldn't find much of anything, only dust and cobwebs, so he decided to venture up the iron rungs carved into the wall, beside a large oil lantern that was dark and dusty from lack of use. Step by step he climbed, perhaps twenty steps until, THWACK the grate struck his head. Davos cursed loudly and noticed the confined noise of his scream, and then realized it was still pitch black.
No stars, no sky. It's a closed room that hasn't seen light in years.
Davos tried to rattle the bars above his head that felt so much like a prison cell. It wouldn't budge no matter how hard he pushed. He tried banging the grate with his hands and heard a chain rattle. He tried again but all that did was hurt his right palm. Frustrated, Davos climbed down again and went back to his small boat and grabbed a sack of onions.
It was difficult enough trying to climb the iron rungs in the pitch black darkness, but it was near impossible with a sack of onions in his right hand. The climb was slower this time, but Davos knew how many steps to take before it was safe. Davos thanked The Seven for the wall that enclosed the ladder. It allowed Davos to lean back and comfortably rest his back on the brick wall that was only a few brick length down. He kept his feet on the rung, so he was no more than lying on a vertical bed of brick bathed in darkness. He reached up to make sure the grate was in his range before grabbing the hempen rucksack and holding it, with both hands, between his legs. He began swinging it up and down, using the momentum to swing faster and, when he felt the speed was enough, brought the onions up with all the force and strength he could muster.
CRACK! The sound brought a sigh of relief from him as the chain fell from above and landed on the wooden dock below. Davos climbed up and took a whiff of the air. It smelled vaguely and lightly of shit. It had been a privy, perhaps, a millennia past, but had been converted into a sewer exit. It looked to be forgotten for years. The moonlight came from a crack under what looked like just more brick stone.
Davos walked two steps and knelt to look through the crack. The underside of the door proved his theory true. The brick door was disguised as wall, probably to disguise the exit of the ancient Storm King's that birthed the House of Baratheon and most of the Houses of the Stormlands. Davos stood himself straight and pushed against the wall, yet it didn't budge. He sighed and knelt again and grabbed the brick under the crevasse and between the shining moon lit ground.
It's always the other way with these trick doors. Easier to get in then to go back out.
This time the door easily shifted and Davos pulled it inwards, towards the now broken sewer grate behind him. Well, it's much more straightforward now, thank the Crone.
Davos put the lock breaking onion sack outside, against a house in the lowborn village were peasants or sorts like himself lived. It took several minutes to carry the rest of the load of eighteen more sacks of onions and crates of salt beef and salt fish, one-handed, up the iron ladder. The crates were the hardest to get up the rungs. Davos had to lean forward and hold each crate on his back, climbing with his left hand and holding the crate that leaned against his own body. Finally, Davos, with an accomplished feeling, stretched the kinks out of his body and exhaled in the slightly salty air.
Shipbreaker Bay was very far below the cliff that Storm's End was built on, but Davos could still smell the salt that he was so accustomed to during his previous smuggling work, more than a few working with a Lyseni pirate named Saan. Stannis, who was a known commander on both land and sea, had previously looked into Saan's more famous smuggling operations around Shipbraker. Davos also knew that Stannis had found out about Saan's irregular partner, a lowborn smuggler named Captain Seaworth. Stannis is a hard man, but just. I must get them the provisions and think on the dangers to myself later.
Davos walked towards the blacksmiths shop and found a well-sized wheelbarrow and brought it back. Loading the provisions was faster than he expected and in a few seconds he was ready to wheel the cart up towards the Keep. Something made him look back, perhaps it was the count in his head while loading the barrow, eighteen sacks of onions and a crate of salt beef and salt fish, but the lock breaking onion sack was missing. Davos cursed again and went down to the alley towards the lowborn village. He walked down, his ears listening to every step he took, and heard something so strange it made him stop in his tracks.
There was crying, more than one voice, more than ten ..
Davos turned a corner and found himself in a large square surrounded by more slums. The moonlight painted the tragic scene in front of him. A group of very skinny men and women were sobbing hysterically holding the onions from the eleventh bag, now discarded and lost. They were biting, ripping at the things, not even caring about the dry crackled layers outside. They ate it all, and they cried, for probably hundreds of reasons, and they laughed too sometimes, if they could. There was one older woman who lay upright beside a corpse of a man she must have known well. She cried as she tried to feed the dead man, the shells of the purple vegetable lying peacefully on the man's face. It was there when Davos decided how this would go.
Davos began calling out, "Lords, ladies, lowborn men and women both, come, I have provisions, enough for all." "Lord Stannis", he called as he ran up the alley, towards the Keep, "Lord Stannis, I have brought food! Onions and salted beef. Come, bring your empty bellies and see them filled. I have food!"
The shouts echoed across the old stone and rang out across the entirety of the castle. The others, from the village closest to him, were the first to be roused by his call. They came in groups but were wary at first, looking around for some Tyrell trap. The drawbridge for the Keep lowered and Stannis came, alone and without guard to see who hailed his very name. He was skinny too, his face was skeletal, the skin pressing to bone tightly, but he walked with his back straight all the same. He approached Davos slowly and stopped in front of him, looking around at those brave enough to grab an onion sac and upend the fifteen or so onions inside. The cries and shouts of laughter and prayer filled the dark quiet night, and Stannis Baratheon's voice added to the music, "I know not why you've come only help me bring some to the Keep with haste, my entire council and their families have been without food too long I fear. Quickly now."
"What about you, my lord?"
"The food goes to the women and children in the Keep first! I will have men fed and see to it the same is organized in the villages. Only, I saw Maester Cressen fall not moments ago. Quickly."
Stannis grabbed four sacks of the onions, two in each hand, so Davos opted to take the crates of salt beef and fish and was able to balance an onion sack on top and they ran as fast as their legs could take them across the drawbridge and into the Keep. There was moaning and sounds that reminded Davos of a woman in labour coming from the right castle hallway, probably quarters. Stannis dropped the onions on the silver, gem embroidered longtable in the Grand Hall. He called out first, "CRESSEN, wake up you old wise fool, honorable as you are for giving up food for the others," but decided to grab some of the salt fish and two onions and rush to the Grand Hallway to the ancient Storm Kings quarters and Maester's quarters.
They found Cressen on his bed with his own squire fidgeting over the different bottles on the shelves, but none could alleviate starvation. Davos waited in the doorway while Stannis and the squire boy roused the poor Maester and gave him slices of onion and pieces of the salt fish. Even then, the Maester insisted that Stannis eat his fill first, but Stannis made sure Cressen was fed before he stood and ate with a great urgency.
Stannis sat on the silver throne around the equally silver dais and closed his eyes. He sounded a few satisfied hums before opening them and turning his head towards Davos still standing, close to the entrance of the Maester's Quarters. "I assume you are a smuggler because..," Stannis grabbed an empty sack and upturned it, showing a golden rose on a green field, "So I assume you must be one of Saan's men? He heard about the bounty I placed on his head and decided to help his fellow man?"
Davos looked down at that but his eyes met Stannis' a second later, "No, m'lord. I may know Salladhor Saan by reputation, but I do not know him as a friend." That was a lie and Davos knew it. Not a good start. "My name is Davos and I came because I know of you, m'lord. I know of some of the decisions you made in the past, your actions are true and just, more so than I have seen in most men, and I expect no less when it comes to me." Davos pointed to his chest with his right hand.
Stannis allowed him to continue, "The reason I came here is simple. You have lasted almost a year with low provisions. You have never given up, never yielded. I heard what you did to those knights, three of them, that tried to escape and surrender to Mace Tyrell. I was there. Posing as a chef's assistant. Taking each day what I could and hoping that your strength would continue to keep an entire castle without food alive. I could never let a man like that die. Not before I had a chance to break bread and salt with him first."
Stannis looked at him then, the top of his head slightly angled to the left, and a sort of smile crossed his lips, a little bemused smile as he looked to Cressen who had sat up on the bed during the speech. "Well, today has been quite an unusual day. I am saved by an admiring smuggler whose complements are actually humbling for once and not a want for status." Stannis turned and walked towards Cressen, "People are fools smuggler and the ones who are not can be mercilessly cruel."
Davos looked down at his feet and then up again, "Some can be. Though there are some who fit another description, one of faithless work for men and women who deserve it, not inherit it."
Davos looked at Maester Cressen too then and a laugh escaped from his old withered mouth, "Ah, My Lord Stannis. I thank the Mother and the Crone that they have brought this honest smuggler to save this castle. I haven't seen a smile such as that cross your face since Robert used to pick up and spin Renly in the air when you were all but a child."
Stannis wasn't smiling anymore, "Yes I remember," he said swiftly, "You said your name was Davos. Is Davos your full name?" Stannis got up from the seat, using the silver dais to help his frail body rise.
This it it. May the Seven protect me. "No, m'lord. My name is Davos Seaworth, Captain of the Black Betha. I have been smuggling since my youth. " Cressen's smile had drooped off his face and he turned to look to Stannis, perhaps hoping he would not do the things he would do, but they both knew he must. Stannis' thick eyebrows narrowed, his head glowing from the light reflecting off it.
"Yes. I thought as much, Captain Davos Seaworth. You have saved this castle and the people protecting it for my brother, Robert. Yet, you have spent most of your life smuggling and robbing this storage or this surplus of provisions. Still though, you are an honest, humble man and I do not doubt your intentions. I need more men like you and less like Ser Wylde. I think the term I am seeking is bloody fool, " Stannis' eyes narrowed as he looked Davos up and down. "Can you tell me truths when others only seek to flatter? I would seek a test. How well do you know your fellow Salladhor Saan?"
Davos looked at Stannis, never losing eye contact, "I am very lucky to have known such an honest of a smuggler as Saan."
Stannis' head tilted up, his chin surging forward, "I asked how well? I won't ask again smuggler."
Davos answered as best he could, "Not so well as I'd like, I suppose."
Stannis scowled, "Indeed. So the honest smuggler is caught as a liar. Yet, you stand there as if he isn't one of your most loyal partners, why? And please say my. lord. I never understood why a lowborn must say m'lord as if he is exempt from understanding simple language."
"There was no lie, my.. my lord. I wanted to see whether you knew me enough before I named myself. You know that, unlike most smugglers, we only take provisions and not lives. You know that most of those we steal from are overwhelmingly wealthy and you also know who Saan has been known to give food out too. The poor and the sick and the helpless and forgotten. I came here because I knew that I would receive the justice I would deserve and what makes me stand here, still as a board? Well, its simply the idea that you will do what is just and I give myself to that justice, all of myself."
Stannis looked at him again, long and hard but the last few moments his face softened and there was a hint of a smile as he turned to his Maester, "Cressen. Have a few more bites of salt beef and fetch me my Greatsword and a bucket, filled with cold water. I wish to take you into my service Davos Seaworth. I have never met anyone quite like you and I think your council will be, strangely noteworthy. I wish to knight you tonight, Davos so that you will be known henceforth as Ser Davos Seaworth, the savior knight holding his onions."
"Well that would make me the Onion Knight. I suppose that would be a well enough sigil for a lowborn man such as yourself." Stannis walked over to Davos, "lowborn in the past perhaps, but what can be said of your future, and the turn it has taken this night." Davos had the question lingering in his mind the entire time since Stannis had spoken the words, "My Lord, what is the purpose of the bucket of water and the sword."
Stannis turned his back to Davos and walked to one of the many windows that lined the Storm Kings ancient throne room. "You came to me a lowborn smuggler tonight," Stannis raised four fingers, "four fingers for four kingdoms that I know you worked years of smuggling work." Stannis clenched those fingers into his fist. "A knighthood and a want for council from this half-starved Lord. I expect you will continue to bring in food from Tyrell after this."
Davos nodded, "with or without my fingers."
Stannis nodded curtly, "You are saving our lives here and again, but that doesn't make the stealing right. Whether or not Tyrell has a surplus, he has every right to fight for a completely madman of a King. What am I to do? Shout war tactics to him from top the battlements? He calls us rebels, then we are rebels, rebels and usurpers, no? We are all usurpers until Robert takes the Throne. But enough on that, you understand why I must do this?"
Davos looked down at his fingers, all of them, "I do," Davos nodded," and I honestly expected a more severe consequence, m..my lord."
Stannis smiled at that as well, "You saved us Ser Davos, you have no idea how close we were too..." Stannis smile turned into a grimace, "You saved our skin and souls both, Ser Davos."
Maester Cressen had his squire carry the wood bucket into his quarters and placed it in front of Davos, Cressen carried the sword himself and handed it to Stannis, hilt first. It was sheathed in a dark green and red velvet scabbard with a single green emerald embroidered on the tip of the hilt.
Davos kneeled but suddenly worried he spoke without thinking, "only, Maester Cressen, if you could preserve my fingers. I wish to keep the bones on my own person if it please my Lord."
Stannis had a face of curiosity etched on his face, "I will only cut the tips of the four on your right. One for each of the part of the realm you worked in. Why keep the useless bones?"
Davos looked up at his man, Lord Stannis Baratheon, the Iron Justice, and replied, "Simply for luck, My Lord."