Shireen was in the sept when the messengers came to summon her. "But I always struggled with this passage," she said, ignoring the knocking on the door. Ser Richard would have prevented them from knocking, but he was inspecting the castle defences. "I've heard three different explanations from three different septons, and even the High Septon couldn't clarify it fully for me."

"Like as not all of the explanations you received were true. Even after thousands of years, the Seven-Pointed Star's texts are interpreted in different ways by different men. That is more true for the Book of the Crone than any of the other books," Alwyn assured her. "Perhaps there is a lesson in that as well." Shireen nodded. The years since Uncle Robert's death had been filled with different men looking at the same thing and seeing different truths. To some her father and brother were nefarious traitors who sought power. To her, they were the very best of men. The knocking continued. "It is unwise to ignore those who are clearly looking for you, my queen." Alwyn smiled at her. "We are reading the Book of the Crone."

"She who we pray to for wisdom," Shireen sighed and made the sign of the star on her chest before getting to her feet. "I thought if I gave commands they should be obeyed. I commanded that they leave me to pray."

"But if someone is calling for a queen, should a queen ignore them?" Alwyn held out his hand and helped her to her feet. "It may be that they are calling for you because what they need only you can provide."

Outside a messenger asked her to come to the Hand of the King and Shireen followed silently to the chamber of the painted table. Ser Davos and her uncle waited inside.

"At your command, we have a plan of attack for you, your grace."

Shireen swallowed. This was it, her first command in war as a queen. "What is it?"

"Here," drew a line with his finger Dragonstone deep into Blackwater Bay.

"King's Landing! You want us to attack the capital?"

"Not the city itself, but Ser Davos has inspected the boom chain towers."

"They have not been repaired, your grace, and hold no garrisons," Ser Davos said. "My crew were able to enter and destroy what's left of the mechanisms without challenge. Our proposal is an attack on the King's Landing docks."

Shireen wanted to shout that idea down out of hand, an attack on the King's Landing docks would be suicide surely, the Blackwater Rush was narrow and from what she knew the enemy armies were still camped around the city. But for every reason for pause she gave, ser Davos and Uncle Bryce had an answer. The army was not based in the docks but around the walls to the east and north, expecting a land attack. Ser Davos would lead the fleet in darkness and let the attack fall at dawn. They would burn the Lannister ships at anchor and the Fury would use its catapults to hurl sacks over the walls, filled with letters proclaiming her return in the name of the Seven, and then they would withdraw. When Davos told her he would need no more than fifty ships to launch his attack she wanted him to take more, but he argued that the tight confines of the Blackwater Rush meant that more ships would only hinder him. Their crews were hardened and experienced, while the Lannister crews had been docked for a year, all the advantages would be theirs. "Very well, I give you permission to launch this attack, ser Davos, you may take the Fury as your flagship, as well as forty ships of the main fleet and ten ships crewed by myrish exiles." They can report on our victory to their wavering compatriots when they return. "You go as soon as the wind allows."

"Of course, my queen."

"And uncle, ensure the entire fleet is ready to sail."

"The whole fleet?"

She nodded. "Yes, the whole fleet. I will need it."

"For what purpose."

Shireen bit her lip. "I will tell you when I have made my final decisions."

She tried to ignore the look that Davos and Bryce gave each other as she left the room. I need to know first, I can't give an order and then rescind it, I will look weak.

Her mother was in her chambers, sitting by the window looking out over the bay. Shireen told her that she had authorised the attack on the King's Landing harbour.

"Good, let Joffrey be reminded that he is false."

"I also told Uncle Bryce to have the fleet readied."

Her mother raised a thin eyebrow. She shouldn't look that way at her queen. "For what purpose."

Shireen took a breath. "I want to move the court to Storm's End."

"Storm's End. Why?"

Shireen twisted her hands before her. "I have allayed Lord Tarleton's concerns, but there are others who have their doubts about me while fighting under my banner."

"They are your subjects."

"And how have I treated them? All I have done since… I became queen is huddle here on Dragonstone, surrounded by Lyonel's archers and my fleet while the Lannisters push against our front in the south. My lords fight and die for a woman they have never seen wear a crown. I hide while they die. I need to show them that I am worth fighting for and to do that I have to go to them."

"But move the whole court?"

"Dragonstone is safe and will remain a place to which we can return if the war turns against us, but I am hardly showing my support for them by visiting during a lull in the fighting only to leave again."

"And the exiles?"

Shireen hadn't thought about them. "They would come with us… no, no they would remain here, at least at the start, I need to remind my lords that I am one of them. I can't bring a whole court of foreigners there."

Her mother approved of that, but not of her meeting with Davos and Bryce. "I know I should have come to you first, but they summoned me."

"No!" Her mother replied her hands curling into her fists in frustration and Shireen's felt shame coil inside her. "Shireen, you do not need to come to me first and they did not 'summon' you, they cannot summon you. You are the queen."

"I know," she whispered.

"Then speak like it, act like it!"

"I will." Her lip started to quiver.

"And don't cry!"

Shireen sniffed and brushed the tears from her eyes with her sleeve. "Can you draw up a list of who you think should accompany us to Storm's End, we need to go in the next few days."

Her mother bowed her head. "Of course, my queen."

Shireen turned and fled the room.

She made it to her own room before she broke down completely, sobbing by the window. Why did the crown fall to this weak woman whose own mother could send her to tears? She sucked in long deep breaths and looked out of the window at the dark waters of Blackwater Bay breaking around the rocky outcroppings on Dragonstone. Seeing the water thrashing white filled her head with memories of salt and darkness and she gagged turning and sliding down the walls remembering it coiling around her, dragging her into its depths.

"Why me…" she whispered through her whimpers. "Why does it all fall to me…"

Eventually a knock at the door made her look up. She opened her mouth to shout at them to go away but remembered Alwyn's words from that morning. "Who… who is it?" She asked, coughing to clear her throat and then repeating the words.

"It's me, my queen, are you alright?"

Shireen didn't answer instead, she asked. "Amalia, what are you doing here?"

Now it was Amalia's turn to ignore the question. "May I speak to you? The matter is urgent."

Shireen got to her feet. If they are asking for the queen… Amalia was outside her eyes full of concern. "My queen."

Shireen wiped her eyes again. "You have an urgent matter for me?"

"Yes, you."

"Me?"

"You look terrible, my queen."

"You shouldn't speak to a queen that way."

"And queens shouldn't look this way, may I come in?"

Shireen wanted to say no, she wanted to send her brother's consort away so she could cry alone, but she stepped aside and allowed her to enter.

As soon as the door was closed Amalia wrapped Shireen up in a hug. "What are you doing?" Shireen asked.

"You look like you need a hug, I can stop if you want."

Shireen squeezed Amalia back. "Don't." Amalia was a friend and knew how much Shireen loved hugs, she could trust Amalia. She felt Amalia stroke her back softly and guide them to Shireen's bed until they were both sat on the mattress. "Thank you," Shireen whispered when they pulled apart.

"My pleasure," Amalia said, reaching up and brushing away the tears on Shireen's cheeks.

"What was it you wanted to discuss?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

Amalia shook her head. "I was passing your rooms when I heard you crying and wanted to see if there was anything I could do for you. I should have known you would need a hug." Shireen smiled. "But in truth, is there anything I can help you with?"

"There is one matter." She explained to Amalia that she was planning on moving to Storm's End but that the myrish exiles would not be coming immediately and how to best assuage them and Amalia promised that she would keep them on side for now.

"But are you sure you don't want me to come with you? I could provide you company?"

Shireen wanted to, Amalia never failed to make anyone smile. Even the lords who wavered most in their support, Amalia would be able to charm with her natural talent.

"How do you do this?" Shireen asked.

"Do what?"

"How is it that you can charm anyone into liking you. I didn't like you before I met you."

"You didn't know me and you disliked me?"

"You were Lyonel's consort, of course I didn't like you. But in one conversation you made me a friend. How?"

Amalia shrugged. "It's a natural talent."

"Please tell me, Amalia!" Shireen begged, taking Amalia's hands and squeezing. "I need to know how you do it. The lords at Storm's End, I need to make them like me."

"I thought you needed them to obey you? Those are very different things."

"But how will they obey me if they dislike me?"

"You are fighting to be queen of a continent, you will have to get people who dislike you to obey you at some point."

Shireen let Amalia's hand go. She was right of course. "I have to find a way. But these men are knights, soldiers. Westeros is ruled by these men, and I am not one."

"Men…" Amalia mused. "Now there I might be able to help you."

"Help me?"

Amalia nodded and stood, turning to lean back on the desk and fixing Shireen with her dark and alluring eyes. "I can help you get through to men."

"Make men do what I want? Like a seductress from the songs."

The beauty scoffed and waved away Amalia's words. "Men are not so simple as the stories say. What I can teach you will help you, but will not make men fall down and obey you without question. If you are willing."

Shireen swallowed. Was Amalia going to suggest she bed them? No, she would surely know that Shireen would enver do that. And it was shameful that she think that of Amalia, she was no harlot to lure men with lewdness. "I… might be willing."

"Wonderful!" Amalia said, clapping her hands together and pushing off the desk.

"There are three ways a woman can persuade a man to fall in line with their way of thinking, I call them the three esses."

"Esses?"

Amalia continued without listening to Shireen's interruption. "A woman can be servile, sensuous or serene. To be servile is to obey a man. Help him so that he will help you in return. To be sensuous is to engage his senses, to lure him in with your words, your appearance or your touch and get him to do things for you in return. To be serene is to be the queens and goddesses of the stories, to be above them, their very embodiment of what a woman should be and have men to aid you so that they might share in your serenity."

Amalia beckoned Shireen to stand up and circled her slowly, hushing her when she tried to ask questions. "You are a queen. Queens cannot be servile, nor can they be sensuous, so we must make you serene."

"But I am more servile than sensuous or serene."

"It matters not, you cannot be servile and get men to see you as a queen."

"But I am not serene."

"Then we will make you serene." Amalia said. "You will stand above them as a queen should. When these men look at you they will not imagine you naked and willing to bed them, but they will swear themselves to you for a smile or the brush of your fingertips on their cheek. And women will want to be near you so that they may share in your light, or learn how to shine in turn."

"And that will be enough?"

"For many, yes."

Shireen tried to imagine herself like that but couldn't. She was the princess who revelled in touch, who hugged and loved and sang, how could she be serene queen."

"You do not have to be, among your friends."

"Father said Kings have no friends, only subjects and enemies."

"Follow that path and you will discard one of your greatest weapons."

"What weapon?"

"My queen, surely you have noticed by now."

"Noticed what?" She demanded in a tone that would have made her mother proud. But Amalia only smiled.

"Everyone who knows you loves you. Find those lords and ladies you trust, let them know your kindness and your love and they will be yours forever."

"But that's not serene!"

"Like I said, being serene alone will not make people like or follow you. Men and women are complicated and that is what makes them beautiful. Look at me. I am sensuous, but do we discuss poetry because you like the feel of my skin, the scent of my perfume of the look of my body?" Shireen shook her head. "You see."

So she only had to be serene to show that she was a queen with confidence, one that the lords at Storm's End could follow, rather than a quivering uncertain girl who knew not how to fight a war. An act. She could put on an act. Different men can look at the same thing and see different truths. There was just one problem. "I am not serene."

"We can work on that. You, me, your lovely handmaiden Aeriel even your mother. She no doubt knows many of these lords and will know how to turn them. I give you my oath, my queen, I will teach you how to be serene."

Shireen bit her lip. "I plan to leave in a matter of days."

Amalia's grin was wicked at the challenge. "Then we start at once."


Sir Beef Loin: All northern hostages have been returned, so there's no one he could demand in exchange for Joanna, it'll be down to him who he wants to release first.