The Best is Yet to Be

By littlelights

I'm making it a point to dedicate more time to writing chapters, as I know regular updates are appreciated. I always look forward to your reviews, as your feedback really fuels my writing.

Disclaimer: I am not making any money, blah, blah, blah.

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Chapter 14

There was something amiss with the Westerosi. A tension he could feel which put all the hairs on his neck upright, even the grey hairs which refused to conform to any one direction. A man who ignored the change in the air or the little hairs of his neck deserved whatever end fate had in store for him.

Salladhor Saan, captain of one of the greatest pirate fleets in this century had attained his wealth, status, and prowess with strength, intimidation, observation, and from time to time, those little hairs on the back of his neck. The prickling skin on his neck began at an unwelcome time, just as his negotiations with the thorny Olenna Tyrell were getting interesting. They had exchanged volleys over tea, wine, cheese and cake, for about an hour and moved from lighthearted and albeit back-handed compliments to the real negotiations which motivated them both. It surprised him how a woman old enough to be his grandmother could stroke his ego and smash his logic in the same cutting sentence. In truth, it delighted him to spar with words rather than swords. It had been an entertaining hour of jabs and cuts with better food and no blood staining the smooth wood of his main deck.

"I am a pirate, madam, not a Pentoshi cheese monger you can crook your finger at and scold." There was a bit of bite to his words, just enough to enough to bare his teeth and show the well-dressed lady there was still the wildness of the sea in his veins. "My men and I take what we want. If you want protection, there are men with slower ships and bigger guns who will take your gold."

Olenna Tyrell swatted his words down like they were fat lazy flies. "And just how much longer can you get away with plundering whatever ship you please? Queen Daenerys is directing resources from the cities she conquered to rebuild Westeros by shipping food, goods, and gold across the Narrow Sea. Yours is the biggest fleet of ships which can provide the strength and speed needed to keep an entire country fed through the winter. Surely you can see the easy profit in ensuring those shipments arrive unscathed."

"It doesn't interest me to guard the ships of a beautiful queen when I'd rather fuck her." There was bitterness in his words. The fallen lion queen Cersei may have slipped through his fingers during the ill-timed Battle for Blackwater Bay, and it ate at him he hadn't buried himself between the legs of a beautiful royal woman yet. He'd built himself a floating army, and still couldn't claim to take a queen of any country as a prize.

Lady Olenna didn't bother to blink at his response. "The queen asked me to negotiate a protection contract with you and your men, not field complaints about which services you wish to offer."

"Your storm king Stannis hired my fleet and never paid."

"He was never my king," the lady deflected. "And Daenerys never acknowledged him either. Take your lack of payment up with the late lord himself. I heard tales of his body being found frozen near a tree northeast of here. If he's as tight lipped in death as he was in life, I doubt he'll have very little to say which would interest you."

The fate of the stormlord didn't matter to Salladhor now. Dead men rarely paid their debts from beyond the grave. "From what I see, your dragon queen will need to do more than speak pretty promises for what she asks now." He shot a saucy grin. "I've heard she is the most beautiful woman in Westeros, and she is still not married. That is good for me, there's no husband to get in the way. I want what is between her legs more than whatever gold she can offer."

The bemused thin smile of his dining companion gave away nothing. "If the queen wishes to utilize your services in that capacity, she will ask for them. Until that time, the crown is more concerned with keeping people from starving. I won't waste my time trying to convince you to use your men and your ships for some altruistic crusade. The fact is, you're getting old, and one day there will be someone younger and more agile waiting to slit your throat and sit in the very chair you're occupying in now. How do you wish to spend your final days at sea, captain? Using all the military might at your disposal to earn a lordship and a chance to woo the queen you claim to admire, or meandering around the Narrow Sea taking what you wish until someone else takes it all from you?"

"I said nothing of wooing." Salladhor retorted, his tone muted with disgust.

Olenna shrugged her shoulders. "Wooing or fucking, it's all the same thing in the end, really. So, what are your terms?"

They were in the middle of volleying demands back and forth across the table when an ominous loud knock landed on the door. Judging from the expression on the lady's face, the interruption was inconvenient. Rather than rise and open the door on her own, she simply bade the summoner to enter. The little hairs on the back of Salladhor's neck cautioned him again, and his fingers consciously weighed the time it would take to reach for his sword or throw a dagger should this negotiation end abruptly.

The bulky guard entered the room, the rough uniform and ill-shaped helmet affirming his service to the royal northern house of Stark. "The Hand of the King sent me to find you, Captain Saan. It's urgent."

So, his friend Davos the smuggler was in need of rescuing again. It was a habit his pale-faced friend had gotten into, and Salladhor was too fond of the man to see him drowned without at least throwing him a line first.

"I look forward to your answer, captain," Lady Olenna chirped in farewell, leaving him wary of any more negotiations. These Westerosi were strange, strange people. Just as likely to offer you supper as often as threatening to take a man's balls and livelihood in the same stroke.

While his hand flexed at the ready for his sword, it was wiser to simply follow the guard and bide his time. There was little in the way of distraction as the clinking of the guard's chainmail beat a steady rhythm through the corridors and to the informal solar of the King in the North.

In his experience, there was little difference between storming a ship and entering the chamber of a powerful man. One must always have his sword ready, his wits about him, and an awareness that both friend and foe would have a knife aimed at your back.

The thick door was a barrier to muffled voiced raised, not quite in anger, but certainly urgency. The door opened, and a flood of tension rolled from the room like waves during a storm. The dark-haired King in the North stood across from Davos the Smuggler, the table used to conduct business acting as a wide bridge between the two of them. The queen, with her red hair and furs, remained seated but her eyes were bright with anxious concern. The outlier of the group was the blacksmith, the young man who had seized a title with a hammer and service to the dragon queen. He was still quite young, his hair chopped short and no wrinkles could be seen on his face. It didn't look like he had smashed through an army of the undead like his little wild wolf wife had claimed. This new storm lord could break skulls, but didn't seem to have much to say when in the company of his men.

The discussion in the room ended and all eyes in the room locked on him. His grey-haired friend looked flushed, his jaw set in defiance and Salladhor had only seen a few times. This was not the amiable acceptance he had come to enjoy, for what little honor there was among thieves could dissolve in a moment. There was something else there, a hard look when their situation was quite dire. In deference and with the ease gained from treating with unscrupulous men, Salladhor greeted, "Have I come to save my friend from another king of Westeros? From your loud voices and worried faces, has the hospitality of Winterfell run its course?"

"Are any of your men ill?" The question posed by the Onion Knight was low and slightly feral, leaving Salladhor to wonder if it was influenced by the wolves in the room.

"Drunk, yes. Cold, yes. But ill? No." Salladhor replied. "Sick men have no place among my crew."

"Not before they landed, after." His friend's words were fast and gruff. "Sick from handling the cargo you brought from the south."

"If they are ill, I would have heard of it. Of what plague do you speak?"

"A fever which swings between burning heat and chills. Might be the Sweating Sickness, maybe something else. I don't know. But we have two houses of sick people in Wintertown who are already afflicted and we can't risk it spreading to anyone else."

Salladhor breathed through his nose, nostrils twitching as his hand flexed away from his sword. Sickness swept through the port towns of the coasts. He was always keen to sail away, dumping the bodies of those who had been stupid enough to die overboard to prevent their disease from spreading. Landlocked and far from his ship, the prospect of being trapped in the walls of a frigid stone castle while everyone dropped like flies was potently unappealing.

"None of my men reported such things, before or after their journey here. If there is an illness burning through your people, I'll return to my ships." It wouldn't have been the first time he and his men had run away from the dangers of a city rotting from within.

The King in the North's somber face remained stern and cold. "No one leaves. The disease will spread with the men who bring it."

"I am Salladhor Saan, Dragon Wolf King." Fire burned in the pirate's belly. "I am not Salladhor the Beggar who obeys a king without coin. This illness in your land is not mine, nor do my men suffer from it. We will leave now before this sickness grows teeth and gnaws on the bones of my crew."

"The North cannot risk a plague spread by retreating men." The king countered, his voice low and dangerous.

"You do not rule me." Saan spat, looking the bastard who became king up and down as if he was appraising a sworn enemy.

Ser Davos the smuggler placed himself between the king and the pirate lord. "This is not a debate of who will stay or leave," he barked, before breathing deeply in an effort to calm himself. "This is a matter of confining the sick away from the healthy. I've seen it done before in Flea Bottom, and it saves lives. The Stewardess is of the same mind, or she wouldn't be nursing those afflicted on her own. Keep those who are sick away from everyone else, and the disease dies with those who are already ill."

"Medda has no help, then?" From her seat before the fire, the queen's voice defused what anger was left in the room. The red-haired queen sat apart from the others. Her body may have been heavy with child, but her fierce intellect and compassion shone in her eyes.

Ser Davos shook his head. "None but those in the houses of the sick, and when I saw her this morning, all those in her hut were ill. She will need more than sheer grit and determination to see those safely through their fevers."

The queen was thoughtful for a moment, and in an effort to defuse a potentially dangerous plan to keep a pirate army confined against their will, she offered a boon to her guest. "Captain Saan, we could grant you and your crew safe passage back to your fleet, provided they can meet you on a remote shore away White Harbor. It sounds as if you already have a plan to treat any sailors under your banners who fall ill."

This was the queen he should have bedded, Salladhor thought. Beautiful and remote. The frozen blue eyes and calm demeanor ensured she handled all the challenges of ruling seemingly effortlessly. It was too bad she had taken a dragon-wolf to her bed first.

"Aye, that suits me," the pirate replied, anger still striking in his voice. The tales of the Northern king's swordsmanship was legend, and it was easier to walk away from the conflict and retreat back to his beloved ship. "Send a rider to the harbor with a message to meet us at the inlet north of Oldcastle. My men will leave on the morrow."

The king's angry glare slid from the pirate's gaze, and turned in favor to the graying knight by his side. His demeanor softened when he asked, "What does the stewardess need?"

His Hand did not hesitate to reply. "Food, water, and firewood for the hearths. Whatever small ale we can spare to nurse the sick, and a way to carry away the dead safely to be burned."

"I can help with the carrying," the younger Storm lord offered. "I had the sweating sickness when I was young. We can harvest more wood for pyres and burn them every few days. That should keep the sickness away from anyone else."

The queen nodded in approval. "I'll ask the servants to gather what Medda needs and ensure it is delivered at a safe distance away each day. If there is anything else required, she can leave a note there."

There was a consensus of action, but it left one person in the room with a final thought. Ser Davos looked between the king and queen of the north, his tone one which they had only heard during dire situations. "Then, I would ask both of you for your leave, as I've a mind to stay with the stewardess and assist her in nursing the sick."

Gendry was taken aback. His face was one of shock but he said nothing. The king locked eyes with his advisor, the years of comradery, common cause, and friendship flowed between them. "We need you here," Jon said softly. "You've been through this before and you know what to do."

"Beggin' your pardon, yer grace, but so do the two of you." Davos replied. "Keeping the rest of Wintertown away from the sick and providing what is needed to heal those who are ill is the best we can expect in times like these. The rest boils down to keeping folk calm and focused on surviving one day at a time. Young Lord Baratheon here can act as Hand in my stead."

"You're joking." The younger lord startled. The thought of taking up such weighty matters so quickly was astonishing.

Ser Davos didn't appear harsh as much as he seemed fatherly in his response. "You're a high lord who has the brains and sense to keep others safe and away from danger." The older man countered not too gently. "If you can remove bodies and burn them, and bring the food and provisions needed, it would be a great help."

"There has to be a better way," The king countered, his continence was calm, but his words were agitated. This was the man who had seen and fought too much when he was young, and his battle-ready mind was whirling with the implications of a wide-spread disease. "You're our Hand," He looked over at his wife, catching her eye before continuing "And you were the closest advisor we had before we ever took back Winterfell."

It was true, and Sallhador could see the emotions playing out on his friend's face. The need to stay and help battling against what he needed to see through.

"Aye, y'grace," The graying knight replied. "I've done the best I can, given what we all went through. But this is different. I lost my wife when the Lannister queen burned Kings Landing to the ground. You know that. There I was, miles away, and was of no use to her. First our son, then her." Ser Davos trailed off, his eyes growing foggy for a moment as the past swept through him. "Both of them gone, both of them lost to the green fire that consumed them. It was all over for me then. I had nothing to go back to. No lands, no family. Just my knucklebones in a bag and a leaky boat. The last time I served a king, I lost what mattered most. Stannis never wanted me to stray from his side, either. At least, not when it suited him. But this time is different. I'm not hundreds of miles from the person I care for, and she's put herself in harm's way to save the people under her care. I can't abandon her. Not now. Not when I have the means and ways to help her if I can."

In all the years they had been friends, Sallhador Saan had rarely heard such an outpouring of emotion from the mouth of Davos Seaworth. There had been grumbles, pithy retorts, and the no nonsense statements of fact and command. Even when his men had fished the Onion knight out of the grimy sea after the disastrous attack on the Westerosi capital, his friend had been stalwart in his mourning. Sharing his grief only with a slump of shoulders and bottomless sad eyes, there had been no tears. Now, there was something else there in those blue eyes which had been missing before. A crackle of fire ready to burst into flame and action.

"Don't ask me to stay." Davos said, his plain speech weighted with emotion. "Not when she's there, all alone. Not when I can be there by her side. Don't ask me to stay."

The king nodded, flashes of understanding and his own painful losses played out upon his face. The heavy mantle of responsibility and reign was on his head, but in the end, the King in the North proved to meet this lowly crabber's son on the terms of man to man.

"Go," The king said softly, "Take what provisions you need. We'll send more, and whatever else in the coming days."

Already feeling the pressing need to leave, Saan broke away and turned his back from the drama unfolding in the room. It was time to return to the sea.

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