Chapter 5

Stannis crossed the Narrow Sea upon the first ship he found, with naught but the clothes on his back and the gold and sword that he bore with him. He ate little and slept less. The sailors dared not question or disturb him. He stood in silence at the side of the ship, wearing the skins of eagles, gazing down at what Robert had taken from him.

When the ship passed beneath the Titan, he learnt that she had been heading for the Free City of Braavos.

He wandered through the city half in a dream, taking little note of his surroundings, observing dockyards and alleyways and marketplaces, alike and unalike to the world he knew. Sometime he came to the Iron Bank, which was more reputable than backstreet moneychangers, to give his pouch of Westerosi dragons for a heavy bag of small square iron coins. Afterwards he shed his clothes and bought Braavosi garments, and settled in a warm inn for the night.

Awake or aslumber, it scarcely mattered. His thoughts were far away, flitting about on swift wings spread above the home that he had left behind.

He knew not how long he was here, but when he was growing so thin that even he could not ignore his hunger, he withdrew from his eagles' thoughts and ate four dinners in an hour. He threw up much of it. The pain pulled him to where he was; its fire provided clarity. He would never return to Westeros, save mayhaps in his dotage, if Robert's son were merciful. He would receive nothing from the brother for whom he had broken himself. He had to make a life for himself here, for he could not reclaim the one that he had lost.

Stannis came, then, to the minds of his birds and summoned them to him. When they circled the skies above him once more, he departed from the inn and walked the streets of Braavos. He purchased a house there, one that could keep him in what he considered adequate circumstances, and he dwelt there for a time. His servants tended to him, and with their presence he found within himself a feeling beyond anger and hatred and loss: a sense of irritation that he could not understand some of the words they spoke to one another. Though somewhat alike, the tongue of the Braavosi was further than any of the other Low Valyrian dialects of the Free Cities from the High Valyrian that his lord father had taught him as a child. This displeased him, so he hired a tutor to teach the words to him.

Thus he remained, for several moons. Folk of Braavos chattered in their cups of the thin young man who lived in a grand old house beside the Green Canal from which he never departed, only sending forth servants to buy and sell and do his bidding. Stannis was not unaware of this. He had many eyes and ears beyond his own, and dwelt within them frequently. He simply did not care. What mattered the chattering of shopkeepers? He had been despised by higher men than them.

In the end, however, it was a crude concern that forced Stannis's hand. The gold he had happened to have with him on that day in the throne room, as the brother of a high lord, was a substantial sum to common folk, but it was not unlimited. From the wages of his servants and the purchase of the house, he had little of it left to him. Nor could he replenish it. He had not the means to buy a plot of land to be farmed on his behalf and thus to live as a minor lord somewhere in Braavos's vast sprawling hinterland. He refused to inflict such a biting insult to his own House as to let a son of Lord Steffon of Storm's End descend to be a petty tradesman. And it was not in his nature to beg for an allowance from Robert—not after what Robert had done to him. He was no whipped dog at the king's feet, pleading for morsels to make the bitter draught of exile more bearable. Banished and forsaken though he may be, he was still a Baratheon, and a Baratheon had his pride.

That left to him only one recourse. It was not, precisely, honourable, but not unthinkable for a son of a noble House. Even princes in times past had sometimes taken up the occupation. Stannis, as a highborn man of the Seven Kingdoms, had been taught of war at the feet of his lord father, and so he determined to practise it.

Bestirring himself in his birth form, Stannis rose and left the old house on his own two feet, making his way through Braavos. Lately he had been eating enough to sustain himself, for a change, and he perceived the signs of it in his form, which had grown somewhat less skeletal. The Braavosi, as a people, were not fond of extravagant colours. Most of them dressed in dark hues, shady greys and blacks and midnight blues and deep purples. That suited Stannis's temperament. He bought a boat and upon it he sailed from canal to canal through the city of a thousand isles.

The evening was cool and misty, lit by a pale half-moon in the sky that danced over the rooves of manses, markets and temples in dazzling and bewildering variety. One could easily lose oneself there, drifting aimlessly amidst the endless waterways. Few were conducting their business at this hour; most here were couples, warmed in the dark by the bright fire of young passion or the softer and more constant hearth of long-shared comfort.

Yards distant and yet worlds apart, a lone slim shadow passed among the lovers, swift and with certain purpose.

On the other side of the city, he found a squat redbrick house, well-guarded. When he told the guards at the door of his purpose, one entered. He sat outside, willing to wait. It transpired that he would not wait long. Two of the guards motioned him within. He followed.

The two guards led him through torchlit corridor after torchlit corridor. Stannis had not expected such a long and winding path. Such a matter ought to be ordinary for them. Surely they were not unfamiliar with recruitment.

At long last the guards came to some others, and they opened an ornate maplewood door to a room that assailed his nose with sweet-scented torches. Stannis crossed the threshold without hesitation. There were four men inside, other than himself. One was a tall pale bald man with gold rings on all his fingers; another was the biggest man Stannis had ever seen, a great red-bearded broad-shouldered brute; another was a stout figure with greying dark hair and a face that was a solid mass of scar and muscle; and the fourth was a short thin man with a hooked nose, lean and wiry.

"Greetings, captains," Stannis said in accented but understandable Braavosi.

The scar-faced man spoke in perfect Andal. "Greetings, Stannis Baratheon."

So that is why. Stannis supposed it had been naïve to imagine that they might not know who he was.

"Greetings," he said in his own tongue, "Captain Tyleo Anastis." He addressed the scar-faced man. "Captain Gemilio Nikar." The tall pale man. "Captain Philenio Zometemis, whom men call Bloodbeard." The great brute. "And Aro Isattis, commander of the Company of the Cat, whom they call Handtaker." The lean man who stood in the centre.

"So you do know who we are," Tyleo Anastis said. "You also know why you're speaking to us, and not to some lowly recruiter."

"My blood," said Stannis.

"Yes."

"That matters little now," Stannis said. "By royal decree I cannot return to the Seven Kingdoms, and I'd be a fool to try. You needn't fear that I am Robert's man. I will serve as well as anyone, when I join you."

"I know your intent," said Captain Nikar. "Why should we let you? Westerosi lords don't tend to be obedient."

"I can obey," said Stannis. "I've spent most of my life obeying."

"Obeying a lord, now king. That is a different matter to discipline."

"Only if I let it. I will not."

"You're a prince," the scar-faced man said bluntly. "You've lost what little money you had by wasting it on frivolities, living beyond your means. Why should we trust you not to desert as soon as you're down in the muck with men born far beneath you, in a shit-stained camp besieging some town somewhere?"

"I was not born a prince." Stannis was unmoved. "I can endure hardship. At Storm's End we ate rats and I did not falter."

"Understand, you'll not be paid more than other men of my company," Handtaker said in a voice as slow as it was soft. His grasp of the Andal common tongue was halting. "You are not a lord here. Your brother, mayhaps, he pay great ransom if someone captures you. I laugh at him and attack anyway."

Stannis bowed his head. "I understand, commander."

Handtaker's voice sharpened, and turned to Braavosi. "Do you? If any man breaks a contract with the Company of the Cat, I take his hands, I salt his wounds and I leave him to wander, to gnaw on bones and such scraps as he can scrounge until sickness or starvation takes him. When the war breaks out again and we're fighting on the Rhoyne, I can afford no exceptions. Discipline requires it. Men do as I command because I am more feared than my enemies."

Stannis very much doubted that was the only reason. The free companies of the east were not unknown in the Seven Kingdoms; some had been used on both sides of his brother's war, and other wars beforehand. Even on Westerosi shores, Handtaker was notorious. If it were only for discipline, strange indeed that it was said he liked to cut and salt every stump of a hand himself.

He said nothing of it, only, "As you say, commander."

"No exceptions," Handtaker repeated. "If you break your word, I can't not punish you, for the sake of my other men; but if I punish you, that sets me in blood feud against the king of the Sunset Lands. You've never been a sellsword. You're a pampered son of a noble House. You can't know what our way of waging war is, not until the day you've done it, and once you've seen it, your willingness may weaken. You tell me, Stannis Baratheon—how could your sword be worth the risk of your brother's wrath?"

"Because I offer you more than my sword," said Stannis. "I'll prove it to you, on the very day you ask it of me."

Captain Anastis seemed curious. "You still have friends in the Seven Kingdoms?"

"No," Stannis said. "You're here for the war on the Rhoyne, I understand—but you're sellsails as well as sellswords, aren't you? You also fight at sea, around the Disputed Lands."

"We do," said Bloodbeard. "What of it?"

Stannis Baratheon's thin lips quirked. "More than you know," he promised. "Give me what I require, and the winds will never turn against you."

The Narrow Sea winds were fierce and cold on the day Eldon returned to court. Black stags danced on sails flaring as they blew. He could hear the chatter of sailors, frequently interspersed with swearing, as they set the ships at anchor and moored them to the wharf. Eldon was in high spirits.

The king and queen were waiting to greet him, along with all the court. "Uncle!" King Robert boomed as Eldon stepped out onto the pier. "What news do you bring to me?"

"Victory, Your Grace," Eldon said, and almost flinched at the intensity of the court's cheers. He was beaming. Finally it was over. The war was won.

Almost three years had passed since Robert had risen up against the Mad King. It had been long, hard, and rife with defeats. Ashford was still a bitter word to Eldon's mouth, bringing back memories of the occupation of the Stormlands. The Trident had been a perilously near-run thing, much as men liked to imagine otherwise. And most recently, Eldon rued the day of the Great Raid, when the Targaryen fleet had issued forth from Dragonstone for the first time in over a year, catching the complacent defenders of King's Landing by surprise, and had put the docks and the fleet being built there to the torch. They had fled quickly afterwards, and some of the ships had been saved, but the attempt had roused another feeble attempt at rebellion in the crownlands. Robert had crushed that one, like the last, inside two turns of the moon. Nonetheless it had shown the newness and fragility of House Baratheon's grip on the crown.

Eldon's nephew embraced him, and he winced at the clap on the back from the king's tremendous strength. King Robert stepped back and turned to his court. "House Targaryen is ended!" he proclaimed. "The dragonspawn are done!"

"Long live the king!" called the court.

It was the moment they had been waiting for. A deafening cascade of trumpets blew in triumph and heralds shouted the names of the returning heroes as they stepped off from their ships. First King Robert welcomed each of his valiant captains and knights home to Westeros. Those of the common men who had distinguished themselves came afterward. A king could order a fleet built, but he needed sailors to man it, and most of them were men of Gulltown, White Harbour and Greenstone. The fleets of those lordships had been the foundation on which the new royal fleet had been built. Of the noble Houses of the realm, the Lannisters and Hightowers had sizeable fleets too, but those dared not venture out of port, for fear that the greater Iron Fleet would pounce on them and rip them to pieces. For this endeavour, Westermen and Reachmen had not been available.

Robert watched each man return and said similar words to each, one by one. He knew some, but not even he was gregarious enough to know them all, or near it; most were strangers to him. When the last of them had set foot ashore, he kept looking, as if expecting someone else to be led before him. No-one was. His smile widened.

While the king was busy, Eldon spoke to his goodniece, the queen. Cersei Baratheon was very lovely, and she must be a woman of eminent good sense, for Eldon knew that he had her to thank for his appointment as master of ships. Like many in the Stormlands, Eldon and his father were worried about Lord Jon, the Hand, amassing too much power for himself. Of the king's small council, excluding the doddering old Grand Maester, the meaningless powerless eunuch and the mighty but largely silent Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, every single one owed his allegiance either to Lord Arryn or to his wife's family, the Tullys of Riverrun. The Hand, the master of coin, the master of laws… all were Valemen or Rivermen, and the men with whom they had filled the king's treasury and the king's courts were similar. Word had spread throughout the city from the Red Keep's servants that Lord Jon had meant to make his vassal Lord Gerold Grafton master of ships as well, and his lickspittles on the small council had spoken for it, and no-one had gainsaid him… until the queen leant over her husband's shoulder and gave him a well-timed reminder that Lord Gerold's cousin and predecessor, Lord Marq, had fought on the wrong side of the war, though Gerold himself had been won over and served Robert afterwards. That play to the king's mistrust had won the day and thus caused Eldon's own appointment.

It was understandable for the bannermen of the Hand of the King and his lady wife to profit from the change in dynasties, for they had supported it, but not to such a grotesque extent as this, at the expense of the king's own bannermen being excluded. King Robert should have spoken up to prevent it. That he had not was an inauspicious sign for his future reign. Faced with such an apathetic king, it had been wise for Eldon's goodniece the queen to confide in an experienced knight as eminent as himself, and Eldon was resolved that he would do his best to help her stop the lord Hand from getting too greedy. Gods knew his nephew would not do it.

Once the heroes had been welcomed home in an elaborate ceremony that began at the seaside and ended in the Red Keep, Eldon fell in beside his nephew, who led him to a private chamber in Maegor's Holdfast. "How was it done, Uncle?" King Robert asked him.

"With difficulty," Eldon answered honestly. "We had more ships than the Targaryen fleet, but they had many, about two-hundred by my guess, and—if Your Grace will pardon my speaking—their sailors were a great deal more seasoned than most of ours. We formed up in three battles, myself in the centre, Lord Wyman Manderly on the left and Lord Gerold Grafton on the right. The Targaryens did the same. They didn't go—"

"Who were the enemy captains?" the king interrupted.

"Lord Lucerys Velaryon in overall command," said Eldon, "with Lords Guncer Sunglass and Ardrian Celtigar at his left and right."

"I see."

"As I said, they didn't go far from Dragonstone. They were defending the shoreline. The battle raged for half a day, then Lord Lucerys took his galley to the rear of his fleet and they headed for shore. His centre pulled back too, and, afterwards, the flanks, one after another."

"Retreat!" exclaimed King Robert.

"It seemed so," said Eldon, "but it was a trick. We pursued them, of course; the men were so eager for that, they didn't even need to be told. We were distended, then they struck at our foremost ships with burning brands when we were close. It was chaos. Straight after—they must have planned it—their left flank moved to envelop us. They came within an inch of it, but they counted on us panicking more than we did. My captains were admirable. We kept order well enough, and kept our heads, and by the end our numbers told, and their ships were captured or sunk. I dedicated my efforts to saving as many of our men as I could from the burning ships once I knew the day was won."

"Gods, I wish I could have been there," the king said wistfully. "We won, Jon needn't have been so worried. It sounds a magnificent victory."

"You are kind, Your Grace."

"I'm honest," said Robert. "Enjoy the celebration feast. You've earned it. Tell me, what of the island?"

"It's yours now," Eldon said. "We put to land after the day was won at sea. The garrison had lost heart after the sea-battle. They had no wish to die for a defeated dragon. We took Driftmark, too, and Claw Isle as well. The Narrow Sea is a dagger at your throat no longer. The Targaryens no longer possess any land in Westeros."

Eldon had thought that would gladden the king's heart. He was mistaken. "What do you mean, 'possess'? How can a dead man possess anything?"

"We didn't find them. Viserys and his sister fled from Dragonstone before our host arrived. But Your Grace, that's a trifling matter. Their support is gone, they no longer have the strength to—"

"Trifling?" Robert roared. "You think it trifling? For generations the Blackfyres harassed the realm! Now the dragonspawn will follow their bastard cousins' lead, without a doubt. Mayhaps it'll take generations to crush them, too; or mayhaps Viserys Targaryen will succeed where Bittersteel failed, and win back the crown for the Mad King's line."

"He is only a boy, Your Grace! Alone he is nothing! It's his men and ships that we had cause to fear! Those are gone; the islands of Blackwater Bay are ours, Your Grace; I defeated the Targaryens, I won the battle for—"

"You killed a bunch of fucking dragonseeds," Robert snarled. "D'you expect me to give a fuck? I didn't send you to brag about slaughtering some fucking poor sailors, I sent you to kill Targaryens and you haven't killed a single one, not even brought them back here if you were too squeamish for it!"

"I have served Your Grace well."

"What shit. If you did, Viserys Targaryen and his sister would be dead." The king stood. "Well, you failed. If we're to defeat the ironmen, let's hope my new master of ships isn't as incompetent as you."

Fuming, Eldon took his leave from Maegor's Holdfast—but not before speaking with the queen.