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Davos is sitting in Stannis’ solar, finished with his duties but not dismissed and uninterested in leaving when he’s gotten comfortable in his chair, when there’s a knock at the door.

Stannis looks up from his book but doesn’t seem surprised. “Enter.”

Surprised- Stannis hadn’t mentioned anything about a meeting, and he dislikes being interrupted- Davos watches the door swing open.

Shireen steps through, her expression wary and hopeful at once.

“Hello, Father,” she says. “I’ve come as you asked.”

“Commanded,” Stannis corrects. “A king does not ask for someone to come; he commands it. The same is true for a queen.”

Shireen’s frown matches the one on Davos’ face. “Yes, Father.”

Stannis nods. “Sit.”

Shireen sits.

Davos watches curiously as Stannis’ jaw works and his eyes narrow, a rare but reliable sign he’s uncertain.

After a long minute, Stannis says, “After my death, you will be the queen of Westeros.”

If ever there were a father more poorly matched to his daughter than Stannis to Shireen, Davos can’t think of him. Stannis loves Shireen, but the harder he tries to make her see it, the more he makes her question it.

Shireen doesn’t need to be told to show love. She feels it, and she shows it.

Her father feels it as well, but love sits awkwardly on Stannis. He knows his duties, so he does them. He loves Shireen so he does what a dutiful father does: keeps her fed, keeps her warm, and tries to prepare her for the things he can’t prevent. The rest is just… complications.

Someday, Shireen will see her father in greater context. An orphan who watched as his parents perished, left with two brothers who held no great love for him. A man who failed in his duty to produce a satisfactory heir. A husband who could not give his wife a life that could make her happy.

A father who nearly killed his only living child because of sentiment.

Eventually, Shireen will understand her father is all these things and more. She may forgive him. She may not. But she’ll understand him.

She’s only a girl now, though, and for all she loves Stannis, Davos has a feeling this particular expression of Stannis’ love, whatever form it’s taking, will not be one she treasures.

Nodding despite the distress on her face, Shireen says, “I understand.”

“I’m not sure you do.” Shireen’s head jerks, but Stannis shakes his head. “This isn’t your failing; it’s mine. A queen cannot rule well if she’s never governed before she takes the crown. So you will learn to govern while I live. Going forward, you’ll join me on top of your current studies- in court, to hear pleas and arguments, and in here, to learn logistics.”

Shireen bites her lip. There are questions racing through her mind; Davos can see her concerns as clearly as if she’d said them. He even shares a few.

“As you command, Father,” is all she says.

“Then you’re dismissed. I will see you tomorrow at breakfast before you join me in hearing petitions.”

Shireen wastes no time. She nods her acknowledgement, then hurries from the room.

Davos glances at Stannis after the door shuts.

“You think I’m being too hard on her,” Stannis says without looking at him.

“I think you’re confusing her,” Davos corrects tentatively. “First you keep her away from all deliberations. Now, without warning, she’s to be thrust into the middle of them.”

“She will be a better queen than they expect.” Stannis stops himself and draws a long breath in. “Westeros will be lucky to have Shireen on the Iron Throne. She’ll be loved better than any of us who’ve sat on it before her because she loves Westeros. She loves its people. There is no one who will work harder to see the kingdom flourish than she will. As her father, I intend to ensure she’s equipped with all she’ll need to make it so. History won’t remember her kindly for her family, nor will the people. She must stand on her own merit.”

The words are said sharply, but they’re the result of a rare burst of passion, not censure.

It’s an easy connection to make between Stannis’ emotions and the throne: Robert’s failings as king, Stannis’ resulting years of frustration, the likelihood of Shireen becoming a member of her husband’s house and ending the Baratheon name. Teaching her well and early is a good strategy. Showing the people she’s invested in ruling well- showing them she won’t be weak or selfish like the kin who sat on the throne before her father- will make them less wary of her when she takes the crown. They’ll see her good heart where they only see her father’s coldness.

Shireen is a Baratheon by blood, after all. Her timidity will fade in time; Davos has already seen glimpses of the woman she'll become.

Her aunt only married into the name, and it showed. Cersei never had the temperament to rule. Shireen was born into the line; she’ll find her fury, and she’ll level it against the kingdom’s enemies.

Yet as Stannis shifts his attention to a different book, Davos can’t help but think there’s more going on than Stannis is saying.

xx

Shireen is crying.

Ever her father’s daughter, she’s pretending she isn’t, but Davos knows her too well to think the hair falling forward to hide her bowed head is an accident.

At the head of the table, Stannis is eating his meal with more stiffness than usual.

Davos was sent off on an errand during Shireen’s time at her father’s side in the throne room and brought directly to the dining room; he doesn’t know what happened, only that whatever it is, it left Stannis furious and Shireen miserable.

Neither speaks until Stannis, unprompted, excuses Shireen.

She thanks him in a wobbly voice, then leaves.

Davos isn’t expecting an explanation, and he doesn’t get one.

xx

A fortnight passes with little change. Davos is sent away on tasks he doesn’t need to do personally. Shireen attends court with her father. Davos returns in time for supper, as a servant explains he’s expected to do. Shireen is quiet, so much so that Davos has been losing sleep over the silence. Stannis excuses her, and he and Davos eat in silence.

Davos has never seen Shireen so upset, not even when her mother left with Melissandre after Stannis refused to make her suggested sacrifice to the Lord of Light.

The girl Davos has watched grow is quiet, but she isn’t silent.

She doesn’t hide her face.

Davos swore he would be loyal to his king, and he intends to be. He dislikes being sent away needlessly, but he does have his horse saddled to make the journey of the day when he overhears two noblewomen talking.

“It’s just so strange,” one says. “How many princesses do you know of who’ve sat in on the king’s petitions?”

“None,” says the second. “But that’s because he’s got no other options. Nobody wants their son engaged to someone looking like that. What if it came back? Only a first son wouldn’t be an insult to her station, but who wants to risk their heir on a plain girl who might kill him with her skin?”

One of them tuts.

“It’s a bit cruel, isn’t it?” asks the first.

“Isn’t what cruel?”

“Making the poor girl sit in front of all those people! It isn’t her fault her father almost got her killed. Why should she have to suffer for his mistake?”

Davos leaves before he overhears something he won’t be able to let pass.

The shortened fingers on his right hand ache as he clenches his fist.

xx

Davos is riding toward the gate on a painfully bright morning when a horse pulls even with him, its rider reining it in to match the pace of Davos’ mount.

The man is familiar, vaguely. Another lowborn man made into a knight by a grateful lord but without any great loyalty to him- an apt choice by Tyrion Lannister.

What the man is doing here, Davos can only dread.

“Morning, Lord Hand,” the man says with the cheer of a man who has a secret. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. Name’s Bronn.”

“Good morning, Ser,” Davos replies warily.

Bronn picks up on his tone and gives him a smile. “I’m not looking for trouble, Hand. Just the opposite, actually.”

“Is that so?”

“Aye, it is.”

“What does the opposite look like?”

“His lordship has been wondering what the king is up to, putting his daughter on show like he’s been,” Bronn says blandly. “He won’t ask plainly because he’s a Lannister and highborn men are like that, and I thought I might avoid a bit of bloodshed if I asked for him.”

Davos looks Bronn over, trying to reconcile the man’s bawdy reputation with his stated purpose.

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t entirely believe that.”

Bronn shrugs. “It’s not my job to persuade you. You do what you want. I just don’t want to be dragged from my castle to fight because His Grace upset the little bastard who got me my castle in the first place.”

Davos debates the wisdom of answering for a long minute.

Bronn, surprisingly, doesn’t leave. He and his horse keep exact pace with Davos and his.

Perhaps he has more of a stake in this than he says, Davos thinks. Mixing lowborn habits and highborn obfuscations is always a messy, impossible business. Bronn makes it harder than most because so far as Davos can tell, he’s got everything he wants and the man isn’t half as opposed to battle as he’s saying.

“What does Tyrion Lannister find so distressing about a king encouraging his daughter to learn about ruling firsthand?” Davos settles on when nothing better materializes. “I didn’t take him for a traditionalist.”

Bronn laughs, loud and long and genuine. “Traditionalist, he is not,” he says after he’s calmed enough to speak. “I suspect he’s worried about the sort of father who puts his freak of an offspring on show.”

“Shireen isn’t a freak.”

“No, but her face sure isn’t natural, is it?”

Davos’ fists clench around the reins.

Below him, picking up on his tension, his horse begins to dance about.

Bronn’s expression turns pitying. “She seems nice enough for someone raised by our stone of a king, but we can all see she’s unhappy. And who wouldn’t be with a face like-”

“Careful,” Davos warns.

“I’m being kind.”

“Odd choice of words for kindness.”

Beside him, Bronn sighs. “You’ll remember Tyrion has been the half-man since his birth. His father tried to hide his shame of a son.”

“I remember.”

“Then it won’t be too much of a leap for you to figure out that a man like that might be concerned when a father who’s kept his daughter out of the court’s sight suddenly pushes her into the center of it.”

Davos swallows his instinctive rebuttal.

Bronn raises his brows.

“Stannis cares for his daughter,” Davos says slowly. “He doesn’t consider her a source of shame. Your lord’s concerns are misplaced.”

“So why’s he putting her on parade, then?”

“He isn’t putting her on parade.” He knows what Bronn means, though, and wants the man to move along, so he adds, “I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on-”

“I don’t.” Davos shakes his head. “I’m Hand of the King, but I’m not privy to the thoughts in his head. I only know what he chooses to share.”

“You’re more than his Hand, though, aren’t you? You reach a bit further than most- more than Nedd Stark did for Robert, I’d guess. But a bit lower down- below our good king’s belt, maybe?”

Bronn says it plainly, as if he isn’t insinuating Davos is reaching high and beyond his station.

His mask of indifference slips after a moment, though, and Davos shakes his head at Bronn’s suggestive look.

He forces himself to swallow back his knee jerk denial. It wouldn’t work and would probably only provoke Bronn into needling him further.

“The king does ask for my counsel, but he hasn’t shared his exact plans for the princess with me. What I can say with confidence, however, is he wouldn’t invite scorn on his daughter. He may not dote on her, but he’s no Tywin Lannister. Whatever he’s doing, it’s for her benefit and for the kingdom’s.”

He feels Bronn’s eyes on him. Davos lets the silence stretch, unwilling to be tricked into speaking more than he’s willing to share.

Eventually, Bronn sighs. “It’s a shame highborn men are the ones in charge. Men like us would just have some drinks, punch it out, and be done with it.”

The idea of Stannis, who doesn’t drink, getting drunk with Tyrion Lannister, who’s always drinking, and getting into a fight makes Davos’ lips twitch.

“The king would beat your lord, I think.”

“I don’t know,” Bronn drawls. “Second-born sons are sneaky little bastards when they’re nobility, and Tyrion is as underhanded and little as they come.”

Davos shakes his head at Brown’s delighted grin.

“I’ll give your message to His Drunkenness, shall I?” Bronn asks. “See if we can go a little longer before we have another clusterfuck of a civil war?”

“That does sound like a good idea.”

“You’re an interesting man, Lord Davos,” Bronn tells him. “Try not to die for our king too soon. He’d have difficulty finding another man who likes him, and I’m not sure I want to see what he does when you aren’t around to keep him honest. Besides,” he adds with another sharp grin, “a common man like me whispering in the king’s ear is more fun than I would’ve thought.”

With that, he turns his horse and urges it into a trot.

Davos weighs Bronn’s choice of words as he makes the rest of his journey. It isn’t the Hand’s job to whisper in the king’s ear. If anyone whispers, it’s Varys.

The Hand is the king’s to command; he does as he’s bid to ensure his king’s rule is secure. He offers counsel if he’s asked. There’s no whispering in Stannis’ ear involved in advising him.

If Bronn wasn’t referring to an official duty but something Davos might do with Stannis as two men rather than king and subject, however…

Davos shakes his head. He’s been at court for too long. Sometimes men say things just to see how they land, and Bronn seems like the sort to get in a jibe out of habit, regardless of whether he means it or not.

Even if he did, it doesn’t matter.

xx

When Davos returns that night, Shireen and Stannis have already begun eating.

Shireen has already eaten nearly everything she’s been served, and when she spots Davos, she lights up.

The fist clenched around Davos’ heart loosens somewhat.

“Did you have a good day?” Shireen asks as Davos takes his place at their table. “Father said you had to collect some things for Maester Pylos.”

“I did,” Davos agrees, pleased to hear her speaking again. “Everything was where it was supposed to be, but the maester would have lost at least a day gathering it all.”

Shireen smiles at him, and Davos’ heart twinges. She shouldn’t be a princess. She should live somewhere in the countryside where she can run around like other children. Maybe have a dog or two, companions for her adventures. She shouldn’t be trapped in this castle with its sharp-tongued people lords and ladies who’d love nothing more than to dispose of her.

He returns her smile. “I got something for you as well, Princess.”

Her eyes go wide, as any child’s would, but she looks to her father before she speaks.

Stannis glances between them, then nods, freeing Shireen from the bonds of courtly conversation.

“It isn’t finished, I’m afraid,” Davos tells her. “It’s hardly begun, really, but I thought you’d like to know I’m making it.”

She nods, not understanding but interested, as Davos produces a fist-sized section of wood from his pocket.

“It’s the match for your stag,” Davos explains. “Now that the war is done, I can make you a complete set.”

“Father-”

Stannis doesn’t sigh, but his face says he wants to. “Yes, you may get up to thank Lord Davos as you like.”

Permission received, Shireen bounces to her feet and walks- Stannis won’t allow running in here, even now, and Shireen knows it- to Davos. She touches his gift in the making when he holds it out. Raw as it is, her eyes go wide, and she throws her arms around his neck.

“Thank you, Davos,” she says against his cheek. “It’s beautiful already!”

Davos feels himself smile as he returns the hug. “It will take some time time, but we’ll get your stag some company. Your father does keep me busy.”

She squeezes him hard, and he turns his head to kiss her cheek.

Shireen hums to herself as she returns to her chair.

Davos glances at Stannis, who’s watching Shireen with a look like he’s dying and trying not to through strength of will alone.

Shireen isn’t the only one who would be happier away from the throne.

xx

Time passes. Davos whittles away the wood day after day. Bronn visits with him, sometimes to talk about Tyrion’s concerns but mostly to bother Davos.

It’s a relief, especially on the night Davos realizes he accidentally whittled the doe a great rack of antlers.

“Another round!” Bronn calls. Davos is certain that’s a bad idea, but Bronn is laughing and the woman on Davos’ lap is slender and warm, a hybrid of Stannis and Marya and neither of them all at once.

xx

“How is Tyrion Lannister?”

It’s a simple question, but hearing it in Stannis’ voice makes Davos’ gut clench.

“I can’t say, Your Grace,” Davos says. “I haven’t seen him.”

“But you’ve seen his man.”

Davos nods though it isn’t a question. “I did.”

“And he had news, did he?”

“Not news, exactly.”

Stannis fixes Davos with a hard look. “Then what?”

How to phrase this in a way no one gets hanged…

“The court has noticed Shireen’s attendance at your side,” Davos tries. “Tyrion Lannister has been… especially aware of this. As Bronn served him and came to know him well, the man thought it would be prudent to speak to me.”

“About?”

Davos swallows. “What prompted the change.”

Stannis narrows his eyes. “And what might make Tywin’s shameful second son so interested?”

There’s no easy way of handling Stannis. He’s emotional, far more than he seems, and he’s prone to making decisions based on his emotions if no one talks him down.

The task of handling him becomes significantly more difficult when it comes to topics like the one Davos is being backed into. Stannis accepts the court’s language for Tyrion, but he won’t like it being applied, even by proxy, to his daughter. “You recall, You Grace, that Tyrion is not- He is an intelligent man, but when you look at him, he isn’t- You only see that he’s- The court is not-”

“He’s a dwarf, and the court doesn’t like that,” Stannis summarizes.

Relieved that Stannis isn’t making this harder than it has to be, Davos nods. “I realize he opposed you-”

“Until I took the throne.”

If all men’s minds worked like Stannis’… He doesn’t quite hold grudges. He doesn’t quite forgive either, but he doesn’t hate and hate the way some men do. Tyrion is doing his duty, so Stannis has no further quarrel with him.

“Yes, Your Grace. Since you consolidated the kingdom, he has bent his knee as he should.”

“So why is his man bothering my Hand? And what’s it to do with my daughter?”

“He worries for her,” Davos blurts.

Stannis frowns at him harder.

“You and I know Shireen is a good girl and a smart one, but we both know that doesn’t mean anything in King’s Landing. They see the grayscale and little else.” Stannis’ mouth thins, and Davos hurries on. “Tyrion Lannister endures that same judgment. So far as I can see, he is genuinely concerned you’re making a show of her- exposing her to mockery she needn’t feel.”

The silence that follows is long and uncomfortable. Davos is used to long silences. Stannis isn’t much of a conversationalist, and he only has so much patience for Davos’ smuggling stories. He knows Davos now; he knows what Davos does now. Unless it’s helpful, he has no interest in Davos’ previous life.

This is not that sort of silence.

“Is that an opinion you share, Lord Davos?” Stannis asks.

Davos swallows. “I don’t believe you would needlessly expose Shireen to ridicule, no.”

“But you are concerned.”

“You send me away on menial errands, and when I return, Shireen is frequently in tears and refusing to eat. What else should I be?”

Another silence falls.

Stannis gives Davos a long, measuring look.

“You’ll join us tomorrow.”

“Pardon?” Davos asks.

“You will come to the throne room with us and see what sort of show I’m making of my daughter.”

Davos hasn’t heard Stannis’ voice take on this particular tone often. He’s disappointed in Davos- insulted by him as well.

“Your Grace, I didn’t mean to overstep-”

“I suggest you consider what good your words can do you before you continue.”

One part dismissal, one part practical advice.

“I think I’ll return to my quarters for the night, if it pleases you, Your Grace.”

“Go.”

Davos doesn’t flee, but he doesn’t linger either.

xx

Tyrion Lannister was wrong.

Bronn was wrong.

Davos, though he wasn’t convinced of the concerns they had, was wrong.

“Has this been happening long?” Shireen asks. She’s sitting on a smaller, plainer throne placed on Stannis’ right. From Davos’ vantage point on his feet, he can’t see her well, but he can hear in her voice that isn’t afraid.

The man she’s addressing, a shepherd about Davos’ age, nods. “It has, my lady.”

The boy beside him nudges the older man and clears his throat.

“That is- I apologize, Your Highness.”

Stannis’ knuckles begin to regain their color.

“What do you say, Shireen?” Stannis asks. “Do we send the shepherd aid?”

Davos waits for the obvious answer.

“Not to this one,” Shireen says, “if he is a shepherd at all.”

The old man opens his mouth to argue, but Shireen speaks over him.

“You said your flock was interrupted three months ago, during mating season. Mating season begins in two months.”

Glancing down at Stannis, Davos notices a pleased curl of Stannis’ lips.

As if freed of an enchantment, the old shepherd straightens, his seemingly weak body unfolding into a more vital man.

“You’ve caught us, Your Highness,” he says, his voice suddenly richer. “I am no shepherd. I am a knight in your army, and the boy is my brother, not my son.”

The boy nods.

“Thank you for your efforts,” Shireen tells them. “You’ll be given extra when you receive your next stipend.”

Both boys nod.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” they chorus before they back away.

Stannis gestures for the next supplicants to approach, but Davos can hear the pride in his voice as he instructs them to direct their words to Shireen.

xx

They break for lunch, and Davos braces himself.

Shireen barely waits for him to take his seat at the table before she asks, “What do you think, Davos?”

“I’m surprised,” Davos admits. Seeing her face fall, he quickly adds, “Not by you, Shireen. You’re a smart girl; of course you’re good at finding liars.”

“Then what are you surprised by?”

Davos forces himself not to glance at Stannis.“I don’t think I expected your father to allow the people to try to trick their future queen.”

“She doesn’t do this on her own,” Stannis interrupts, drawing Davos’ attention and rendering Davos’ efforts pointless. “She consults with my advisors when she requires them. In the meantime, the people will see that their future queen is intelligent and thoughtful. If she misunderstands, they will see her corrected and in the next request, they will see her apply her understanding.”

“Father helps, too,” Shireen adds. “He’s better at telling people no- but I’m doing better! Father said so.”

Understanding twists unpleasantly in Davos’ gut. “That’s why you were crying.”

Shireen nods. “The people who come with real problems… I have to know which need my help and which don’t. Father can’t fix everything before I take the throne.”

“I can think of no one better to look to for instruction on ruling justly,” Davos says, forcing his thoughts away from Stannis’ sense of duty keeping him from abdicating before his death. “His Grace is singular in that regard.”

Davos can only hope Shireen tempers her sense of duty with mercy and gentleness. Stannis has little of either, and should times become lean, as they almost certainly will, that will hurt him.

“Have you finished studying?” Stannis asks. “Maester Cressen mentioned you had work left.”

“I have another chapter left to read, and the horse master mentioned a wish to see me try a greater height in jumping.”

“Then you are excused for the afternoon. Do your work, and when you’ve finished, you may have the rest of the day to yourself.”

Shireen beams at him as she says her thanks, quickly finishes her food, and excuses herself.

Without her, the room feels suddenly too large.

Stannis eats his meal slowly, and Davos feels an unwelcome tug in his chest.

Stannis has never recovered from the siege. He will not admit it, but Davos quickly befriended Cressen after Stannis knighted him. He knows Stannis never enjoyed eating the way Robert did, but he had meals he liked over others. He enjoyed a few to the point of them being deemed his favorites by the adults around him.

In the time Davos has known him, Stannis has never given any sign that he cares one way or another about the food before him.

Another joy stripped from him, Davos thinks. As if he cannot deny himself on his own.

Stannis doesn’t speak until Davos’ plate is empty- Davos has always liked food, and a king’s cooks are talented cooks.

“I know what they think of her.”

Davos freezes. “Your Grace?”

Stannis gives him an impatient look. “I know what the highborn say of my daughter. I imagine the lowborn have similar thoughts.” He glances at his plate, his meal scarcely half-eaten, then looks back up at Davos. “Tyrion Lannister would do well to remember I am not my brother. I have one living child, and I take no pleasure in humiliating my family. Shireen is not a spectacle. She is the kingdom’s next queen. They will see her eventually. The sooner they get past the novelty of her appearance, the sooner they’ll recognize their good fortune in having her.”

“I didn’t mean to speak out of turn,” Davos says quickly. “I know you would not place her in harm’s way without reason.”

“Then what did you mean to do, Davos?” Stannis asks, and Davos feels the weight of his king’s scrutiny settle over him.

“I have known Shireen her entire life. She’s one of the few good people left, I think, and good people, they aren’t so good at protecting themselves. My loyalty will always be to your first, but Shireen… She shouldn’t be left to fend for herself.” Stannis is in a strange mood. Davos can’t be certain whether his next words will help or hurt, but he says them because his honesty is what Stannis has always valued in him. “It would hurt me to see her hurt. She does not deserve to be mocked for anything, least of all for surviving.”

Stannis watches Davos evenly for what feels like an eternity. When he speaks, there’s more passion in his quiet voice than Davos heard in the last three kings combined.

“I sat her beside me so the people would see her. The court can snicker, but the smallfolk like Shireen. When she is beside me, they can see her intelligence and her kindness, and every time she begs me grant them aid, they love her more.” His jaw works, grinding or working in unspoken anger or both. “Any boy who thinks he can embarrass her and not make an enemy of the entire kingdom will find himself quickly disabused of that notion, and any house that thinks my daughter is not more than a match for its sons will get the lesser match it deserves.”

There it is, Davos thinks. That’s his goal.

“You’re giving her a kingdom as an army. Women and children and all,” he says aloud. “Lowborn men and women don’t care for the games the highborn play. You’ve given them cause to care.” 

“I’m ensuring the kingdom recognizes a good queen when it has one. If they have half a thought between them, they will see the value of that and defend her.”

Davos searches Stannis’ face, and finally, in the furrow between Stannis’ brows, finds the crux of it.

Love is not easy for Stannis.

This is the best gift he can give Shireen. Practical and nominally a means of securing his line, yes, but Davos knows his king.

Suddenly, the trips Davos has been sent on make more sense.

“I’m your Hand,” he says. “You’ve been sending me with messages to families with sons suitable for Shireen so I could take the measure of them. They would be caught off-guard, but they would not miss the opportunity to impress me so I’d relay to you their successes.”

Stannis nods. “As you say, you are attached to Shireen. It’s well known she cares for you in return. But you are also of low birth. The valor I rewarded you for is only further crime in their eyes. If they cannot get past that, they cannot give Shireen an adequate match.”

“And when I went into the city to fetch materials…”

“You could hear what the people were saying of her, yes.”

Davos looks at his king for a long moment, unable to find an adequate reply.

“It is just,” Stannis tells him. “A king ensuring his heir is prepared and well-received- this is just.”

Davos nods. “It is, Your Grace.”

Stannis nods in return.

He means it to be the end of the discussion. Davos can see that. Pushing is inadvisable; Stannis’ patience is limited.

Yet Davos finds himself asking, “And what of yours, Your Grace?”

Stannis frowns. “My what, Davos?”

“You said I have Shireen’s favor. Do I still have yours?”

“Are you still my Hand?” Stannis asks, to which Davos nods. “Then you have my favor. I would tell you if it were otherwise.”

From another king, the telling would come too late, but long ago, in a castle filled with starving men, Davos swore himself to the young lord he found dying there, a man already in possession of more honesty than thirst for power.

Stannis would tell him.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Do not thank me for doing what I ought.”

Davos nods, and as far as he’s concerned, that’s the end of things.

xx

A month and a half into Shireen’s attendance in the throne room, Bronn wanders into a room just in time to bump into Davos.

“Afternoon, Lord Hand,” Bronn says in greeting. His voice is too warm, too casual, and Davos finds himself fighting the urge to ask if Bronn doesn’t have other pigtails to pull.

“Afternoon, Ser Bronn.”

Bronn grins at him. “Tyrion Lannister was surprised by your master’s plan.”

“Stannis is the king,” Davos reminds him. “He’s master of us all.”

“As you say.” Bronn’s grin grows wider. “Prop the princess up, make that scar of hers into a reason for the people with our blood to like her. Anyone snubs Princess Shireen, they’ll find themselves unwelcome all over the kingdom.”

“Is this going somewhere?”

“What are you planning to do?” At Davos’ obvious intent to tell him not to concern himself, Bronn raises his hands. “You’re no lord, Davos. Neither of us is. Me, I’m going to find a bride and get out of here to the castle I’m told will be finished someday soon. But you had a bride and a castle. You even had a little brood of sons. You could’ve had it all.”

Davos feels his teeth grinding and forces himself to unclench his jaw. “Again, is this going somewhere?”

“I suppose it is.” The grins drops, and Bronn takes a step closer. “You’ve made your bed with our king. Is it his actual bed or are you just loyal?”

The two of them are of a height. Even if Davos were bigger, Bronn fights dirty and doesn’t mind that people know it. Hitting him is inadvisable.

It would feel good, though.

“You should be careful how talk about the king,” Davos warns him.

“But not you?”

Davos doesn’t reply.

Bronn sighs. “Well, if it’s a real bed you find yourself sharing with him, try suggesting he loosen his hold on the Lannisters. The idiot older brother is chafing to visit his lady love on her island and being confined to Casterly Rock is making him twitchy.”

He walks away without giving Davos time to form a reply.

xx

Bronn is not the last person to ask Davos about his relationship with Stannis. He’s the most forthright about it, though, which Davos grudgingly comes to wish the others would be as well.

“You’re the king’s Hand. What the fuck are you doing down here?”

“Can a man not eat without having insinuations thrown at him?” Davos snaps, pushed to edge of his patience. “Yes, I am an advisor to our king, and yes, should she wish it, I will continue doing so for Princess Shireen when she takes the throne. That is all. Will you let me eat my soup in peace?”

The man glaring at Davos squints at him for a long moment. Davos glares right back.

“It’s just odd, is all,” the man says. “Ned Stark didn’t look after Joffrey or the others like you do with the princess.”

“No, he didn’t. But I don’t think Robert and Cersei and their mess is a guide to correct behavior, is it?”

That makes the man close his mouth.

Davos returns his attention to his meal. He had to leave for nearly a week to check rumors of wildfire being smuggled in, and while he’d hoped to be back at the castle by now, this inn serves a good soup and has clean bedding.

“You’ve gotten a bit big for your breeches, haven’t you?” Davos’ angry companion asks.

The soup really is good. Davos should suggest one of the cooks from the castle come down and learn to make it.

Outside, it’s cold and rainy, and Davos just wants to eat his soup in peace while he waits to return to Stannis.

“Hey! I’m talking to you.”

“You are, yes. I suppose I’m just not in the mood to talk to you.”

It’s a foolish response. Davos knows that.

He’s just so tired. Everyone’s decided to make trouble for him, rubbing the salt of suggestion into the open wound of his own foolish wishful thinking. He misses his sons- Marya doesn’t keep them from him, but he doesn’t have time to travel. And Marya can’t just send them to him. He can see Shireen, though. He can sit with the girl he’s known since her father held her in fear and wonder. He can guide her as best he can through politics and war and, when she has no one else to counsel her, the life of a young girl.

Davos loves Shireen as his own, but it isn’t his place.

He loves Stannis as his king, which Stannis is due. He loves Stannis as any man might love another person who makes his heart beat fast.

But that, too, is not Davos’ place, and a man can only be so out of place before he starts to resent it.

“My breeches are as big as the king sees fit to make them,” Davos says slowly. “Are you suggesting the king doesn’t know what he’s doing?”

The twitch in this man’s jaw looks like the twitch in Stannis’ jaw, but Stannis is deliberate. This man is not.

Davos can’t duck the first punch, but he can throw the second.

xx

It’s cold and rainy, and Davos is yanking off his sopping wet tunic.

He has more trouble with it than he should, but his heart is racing and the man next to him already yanked his breeches down.

Fighting is an odd sort of foreplay, but it isn’t the oddest.

Cold skin warms up fast when you can’t hear over the sound of your own breathing and there are rough hands tugging at your clothes.

xx

Stannis doesn’t know about the second half of Davos’ afternoon, so when he sees Davos waiting in his study with a black eye, he’s thinking only of fighting.

There’s a mark on the inside of Davos’ thigh, left there last night. It felt like a tether, one thing for Davos that was his alone and tied him somewhere other Stannis.

In his king’s castle, with the insignia of the Hand on his chest, Davos isn’t ashamed, but he does feel exhausted.

Stannis’ gaze has the weight of twenty men.

“Would you like to explain to me why my Hand got into a fight at an inn?” Stannis asks as he sits behind his desk.

A part of Davos he’d thought firmly buried wonders if Stannis gets lonely.

Davos is his Hand, and hands can do many things-

“I apologize, Your Grace.”

“I didn’t ask for an apology. I asked if you’d like to explain what you were doing.”

“Then I have to tell you I would not.”

It’s interesting that a man whose face is frequently compared to stone can convey so much by accident. The lift of Stannis’ brows is minimal, but Davos sees the shift and recognizes the surprise.

Davos has always offered himself to Stannis without reserve. This refusal is its own red flag.

“Is it done, then?” Stannis asks, not pushing but clearly not forgetting. “Whatever brought you to blows will not be repeated?”

“I cannot speak to other men’s behavior, but I don’t want a second black eye, Your Grace.”

There’s a moment where Stannis’ expression shifts into concern, and that will be enough to keep Davos loyal to him.

Davos has already forgotten the feeling of the other man’s hands.

“Then let us continue. What did you learn about the wildfire?”

Stannis is a thin man, smaller than Renly and Robert. Perhaps it’s the mark of a man who never adjusted to having his fill. Not food, not love, not even the simplest comforts.

In Storm’s End, when Stannis was barely a man, Davos brought him a feast of onions and salted fish. Years later, he’s still watching Stannis starve, but it’s a far more difficult task to get a man to accept loyalty beyond duty than it is to sneak a boat past a navy.

Stannis ate because he would fail if he didn’t.

He’s lived on nothing for so long, he doesn’t see anything but duty, the one thing that got him through the taste of his own boot leather. Davos would give him a banquet, but all Stannis can see are the scraps.

“I can find nothing to confirm it’s anything other than rumor,” Davos tells him. “The Targaryen queen is content with her kingdom in Essos, and Westerosi merchants won’t touch it.”

“Even the smugglers?”

Davos shakes his head. “Especially smugglers. No one wants to marry themselves to something that volatile.”

xx

“What did Father say when I was born?”

Startled, Davos looks up from the parchment he’s been studying.

Shireen doesn’t look away when he meets her eyes.

“What did he say?” Davos echoes.

She nods.

“I wasn’t in the room. I couldn’t say.”

“After that, then,” Shireen presses. “When Father told you I wasn’t born still like my brothers, what did he say?”

It’s a small thing, but Davos has noticed Shireen tends to discuss Stannis and Selyse’s sons as if they’d lived. Her brothers, her blood- she discusses them as if she met them. As if they’re merely out of the room rather than buried.

There isn’t much room for sentiment in the Baratheons. It must be the Florent line in her; Selyse, for her shortcomings, has honest passions. Her allegiance to R’hllor makes Davos uneasy, but she holds it honestly. She loves her god of light. In her mind, that’s what matters.

Shireen doesn’t worship her brothers, but they’re real to her. They’re named and kept alive in some small way in their sister, though she was born last.

Stannis doesn’t talk about his sons, but they live in him like ghosts. They hound him though they never lived long enough to speak his name. Davos sees when they shake through him, Stannis’ eyes snapping away from a healthy boy as if he thinks this child, too, will turn to stone in his presence.

Davos looks over Shireen’s face, still round in youth. She should have more than ghosts for company.

“He didn’t speak at first,” Davos tells her. “Your father isn’t much of a talker; you know that. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so frightened.”

Shireen frowns. “Frightened? Father?”

“I thought something had happened to you- not another stillbirth, though. I knew what that did to your father.” That silence still makes Davos uneasy in his memory, another death etching lines deeper into Stannis’ face. “When he finally told me, he said only two words, and his voice was so rough, I had to struggle to hear them.”

“What were they? What did he say?”

“‘Shireen lives,’” Davos echoes. He can’t give the words the weight Stannis gave them. An early morning birth, difficult and stressful with years of fear built up in it, and a father afraid he might lose child and wife this time- Davos can’t begin to speak as Stannis did then.

“But why was he scared?” Shireen presses.

“Because he loved you, and your father, brave as he is, is a man like the rest of us. He doesn’t want to get hurt.” Shireen frowns at him, not understanding, and Davos fights the urge to put his arm around her. “It hurt him to lay your brothers to rest. How much would it hurt to lose a child he’d held? A child he’d seen grow?”

“He thought I’d die?”

“He did. I don’t think he held you for a full month, and when he finally did, he looked ill. He isn’t suited to fatherhood, your father. Even if your brothers had survived, I don’t think he would have been comfortable with it. But he did hold you eventually.”

“Did you hold me?” Shireen asks.

Davos blinks, thrown. “Your mother and I did, yes. I don’t think Lady Selyse let you out of her sight for a full year; she carried you all over.” A memory rises up, Davos returning to Stannis late one night and crossing paths with Selyse as she walked around the castle, gently bouncing Shireen in her arms, and Davos spares a thought for the lady who left behind the daughter she loves for a god she thinks will right the world that took the sons she lost first. “Marya and I’d had a few of our own by the time you were born,” he continues, “and I’ve always liked children. Your father would hold you for a moment, then give you to me. You were so small back then, I could carry you with one arm.”

Stannis had been more awkward than any other time in his life when Selyse had pressed their daughter into his arms. But he’d been careful with her, his arms holding Shireen close until he could pass her to Davos safely.

There had been a moment once, as Davos cooed at baby Shireen and let her curl her tiny fingers around one of his, that he’d looked up and found Stannis looking at him with the expression of a man about to lose everything.

What he could have lost to Davos is a mystery, but Davos hasn’t seen the expression since, so whatever it is, Stannis must have lost it.

Where the compulsion to reassure Shireen that her father loves her is coming from, Davos doesn’t know, but it feels suddenly vital that he ensure she knows.

“Your father told you about bringing in every maester on this side of the world when you were sick, didn’t he?” he asks.

Shireen nods. “Because I’m his daughter. He didn’t want to send me away.”

Here, Davos is bigger than his breeches, but the world is unkind. He can rip his breeches if it will give Shireen some greater confidence.

“It takes more than money to get so many men to travel,” he tells her. “Your father called in every favor, used every bit of leverage he had, to bring them to you. It wasn’t simple bullying- he used up a great amount of debts and burned bridges to save you.”

“Which he could have used in the war,” Shireen surmises, her expression falling.

Davos gives in and puts his arm around her. “He could have, yes. And he knew this.” Shireen’s head tips forward, and Davos bumps it gently with his. “Your father is a proud man, but he doesn’t hide from his misjudgments. Saving you was no such thing- in my eyes and in your his.”

Shireen bites her lip but looks up at him hopefully.

“He thinks of what he spent to save you as nothing but a necessity.” He pats her arm gently. “You had to live, Shireen- he needed you to live. Another father would have sent you away in the dead of night out of shame. Yours yelled so loud he brought half the world to his castle. Try to remember that when he’s…”

Davos trails off, and Shireen lets out a watery chuckle.

“When he’s being him?”

“I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”

She gives him a long, hard look. Then, without a word of explanation, she drops her head onto his shoulder.

“Tell me a story, Davos. A happy one.”

He shouldn’t indulge her more than he already has, but he’s going to. “Have you heard of the smuggler from Flea Bottom?”

“No?”

“Ah, then let me tell you. It’s a good tale, and it starts like all good tales do: with a poor boy who had too many brothers and sisters. His name was Lannis, and he was a handsome boy who thought the sea would be a better place to live than the land…”

xx

“Where did my daughter get the idea that smugglers make good friends?”

Davos looks up from the doe he’s nearly finished whittling. Its body is complete; it just needs its hooves to be defined. He might paint it a little, but he might not. He’ll have to find out which Shireen would like better. 

He could whittle in his quarters and probably should, but he likes working in Stannis’ study. The Hand is allowed some liberties, and making himself available to his king seems like a small one.

There’s a frown on Stannis’ face, but it’s just a warning. He’s only contemplating whether he could get angry or not.

“I suspect that may be my fault, Your Grace,” Davos admits, though it’s hardly a great admission. Stannis already knows Davos is the cause. Who else would have told Shireen of lowly smallfolk outsmarting lords on the sea and in their ports?

“Do you?” Stannis asks, not amused but not annoyed yet.

“She wanted to hear a happy story, and it seemed appropriate.”

“You taught her the best ways to bypass our navy.”

“When she’s queen, she may have need of that information.”

Stannis’ face commits to the frown. “Davos.”

“I can’t abide it when she looks at me like that,” Davos admits. “She’ll have plenty of time to be unhappy when she takes the throne. It feels cruel not to let her laugh while she can. But if you wish me to stop-”

“No.” Stannis rubs his hand over his face. “I can give her a stable kingdom and the means to maintain that stability. If she wants happiness, she will have to find it on her own. But be more prudent about what you tell her, Davos,” he warns. “She’s still young enough to believe smugglers don’t take more than they give.”

Davos fights the urge to point out that the smuggler in question is Davos and he’s given Stannis quite a lot.

That isn’t the point.

Looking at Stannis and his agitation, Davos doesn’t know what the point is, but Davos’ misadventures isn’t it.

“I will, Your Grace,” he swears.

Stannis frowns harder. “Back to your whittling, then. After supper, I will need you here again and without distraction.”

xx

“Your friend attacked two of our ships.”

Shireen looks up from her book. Her eyes dart to Davos, who’s been looking through Stannis’ books for a particular volume.

He doesn’t ask who Stannis is referring to.

“That’s the problem with sellsails,” he says instead. “They do like to bite the hands that just fed them.”

Stannis grunts.

Davos doesn’t try to guess what the sound means. A benefit of Stannis’ directness is he reliably makes his thoughts known when he wants them to be.

It’s unfortunate so few appreciate that aspect of him. Excitement in kings means danger. Stannis’ lack of charisma is disappointing, but gods… Charisma on its own doesn’t put food in empty bellies.

Perhaps Davos is just getting old, but it’s a relief to serve a king who has no fondness for secrets or intrigue.

No bastards or illegitimate heirs to complicate succession either, just a daughter whose worst traits are poking at her father and stubbornness, and Westeros can weather those.

The thought reminds Davos of the last time he saw Salla. It had been one final attempt to poach Davos from Stannis, made as Davos had been arranging the delivery of Salla’s payment from Stannis.

“I still don’t understand you,” Salla had told him. “That man cut off your fingers, yet you love him.”

“He only took a bit off the top,” Davos had reminded him absently. “And he’s a good king.”

“He’s boring. You were a smuggler, Davos. You spent years avoiding men like your king. Why are you so loyal now? Because he gave you some land?”

Davos likes Stannis. He respects Stannis.

And Stannis, for all his fixation on rules and duty, respects Davos.

“I don’t think I can give you the answer you want, Salla. He’s a good man, and the world is in short supply of those. I’d like to help him. That’s all.”

Salla had sighed and given him a meaningful look.

“Your king took more than your fingertips, didn’t he?”

“I have them, actually,” Davos had interrupted. “They’re right here-”

“Please do not show me whatever grim package you’re reaching for. I’ve seen enough of you Westerosi and your unsettling customs.” He hadn’t smiled as he said it, but Davos had gotten the feeling he’d been laughed at. “Some advice, from one friend to another?”

Davos had nodded.

“Stop thinking like a Westerosi man. Lys isn’t the only place to find pleasure if you look the right way.”

An impossible suggestion but an interesting one.

Davos had thanked his friend, bid him farewell, and watched Salla sail away.

Pushing the memory away, Davos thinks back to Stannis’ complaint.

“Did we lose much?”

Stannis gives him a sharp look.

Shireen gives him a pitying look.

“Of course we did.” Davos sighs. “I can’t control Salladhor Saan, Your Grace.” Sensing the sort of reply he’s going to get, Davos adds, “I will speak with the captains, if they survived. They may have some idea if Salla’s motives were more than opportunism.”

That’s what Stannis wanted. He gives Davos an approving nod, and Davos goes back to looking for that book.

xx

Davos is eating with Stannis and Shireen when Shireen’s boredom boils over.

“Father,” she begins, “how do you know if a boy likes you or if he’s just being mean?”

Stannis, who’d been frowning at the potatoes on his plate, points his frown at Shireen. “If he’s mean, he doesn’t know how to behave and is undeserving of you, so the question is irrelevant.”

Davos bites his tongue to keep a startled laugh from escaping and drawing Stannis’ ire.

“But the Septa said-”

Stannis’ jaw twitches, and Davos intervenes before the conversation can take an unfortunate turn.

“Tell him he’s hurting you,” he says. “You’re old enough that if he doesn’t stop, he’s choosing to be mean.”

Shireen nods, her eyes fixed on the soup in front of her.

It’s the same look her father gets when he’s puzzled and unhappy about it.

“How do you know if a boy’s being nice because he likes you or if he’s just nice?” she counters.

“There are no nice boys,” Stannis mutters.

“Then let him be nice,” Davos says quickly. “If he wants to keep being nice to you and just you, he's probably more than just being nice.”

“Is that how your wife knew you liked her?”

“Shireen,” Stannis warns sharply.

Davos shakes his head minutely, but he can feel himself smiling. He misses Marya and will for the rest of his life; not having her as his anchor is disconcerting. But she’s happier now. And her happiness lets his relief feel less shameful.

“I’m afraid I wasn’t that subtle,” he tells Shireen.

“What did you say?”

What Davos said was something he cannot repeat to Stannis’ daughter.

“I said she was very pretty,” he says after some extended mental editing. “She told me I wasn’t but that she didn’t mind. And she’d mind even less if I bought her lunch.”

Shireen blinks at him, and Davos thinks again that the highborn built impossible cages for their children. Being courted here is infinitely more frightening than it was in Flea Bottom. Davos’ heart got broken, but no one started a war over it.

At the head of the table, Stannis sets his spoon down and pushes his bowl away despite most of it remaining in the bowl. 

xx

Bronn appears in the armory when Davos is discussing with the master of arms a way to arm Shireen subtly. Stannis approved the idea, along with lessons from the lady from Tarth Jaime Lannister has been trying to court. It hadn’t even taken much convincing. All Baratheons are warriors. Daughters aren’t immune to that lineage.

“Sleeve dagger,” Bronn offers.

“Absolutely not,” the master of arms says, just as Davos says, “That’s what I’ve been arguing.”

Bronn flashes a grin at the master of arms, a big man with dark hair who has every hallmark of a Baratheon bastard. “Must be a lowborn thing.”

Sensing an argument Bronn will win by simple virtue of not caring about the outcome, Davos pats the master of arms on the shoulder and promises to return after he’s thought over what the master told him.

He won’t think it over much because Davos has the right of it, but still. He’ll consider the other options.

He gives Bronn a hard look as he passes through the doorway, and Bronn chuckles, falling into step with Davos as they head down the hall.

“And why am I honored with the pleasure of your company today?” Davos asks, just to make Bronn scoff. “Surely your master has figured out the king has no intentions of belittling his daughter or bedding me by now.”

“Actually, I think you’ll hate this one even more.” Bronn sounds like he’s never been happier; the sting of being a messenger must be offset by the opportunity to annoy Davos.

“Go on, then. Let’s hear it.”

“Why aren’t you fucking the king?”

Davos stops abruptly.

Bronn pauses a few steps past him before he turns around and faces Davos, his arms folded across his chest. “Don’t pretend to be a prude. How many sons did your wife give you?” He pauses to pretend to think. “Unless they aren’t actually yours?”

“They’re mine,” Davos snaps, stepping closer so he doesn’t have to raise his voice. “And it isn’t prudish to think it’s unwise to discuss fucking the king in the open like this.”

Bronn’s grin only gets wider. “I figured he’d be more of a ‘fucking in the dark, curtains drawn’ type, but if that’s what you’re thinking-”

“It isn’t.”

“You’re no fun, you know that? The king’s certainly been rubbing off on you one way or another.”

Before Bronn can say anything further, which Davos would be obliged to fight him for saying, Davos asks, “What does Tyrion Lannister really want?”

“I already told you. He wants to know why you and the king aren’t fucking.”

“Why would he think-”

“He’s little, but he can just about see your faces. I do have to lift him to see when you’re up on your high horse, though.”

“You were right,” Davos says after a moment.

“I usually am, so you'll have to be more specific.”

“I do hate this more.”

Bronn lets out a loud, uncourtly laugh. “Aye, I did tell the fucker that.” Sobering, he tilts his head, giving Davos a hard look. “Well? What am I to tell the Lannister?”

“The king’s business-”

“-is everybody’s business. I don’t want to get sent out to Sothoryos to die because he’s moping.”

“Melodrama doesn’t suit you.”

“It suits you less.”

For a moment, Davos wonders what would have happened if he’d met Bronn in Flea Bottom. They might have gotten along. Bronn has a sort of code- not a good one, but he’s no Mountain.

Or they might hated each other.

Sighing, Davos resigns himself to reality. “The king does as he wishes, and he doesn’t do what he doesn’t wish. I think you’ll find your answer in that.”

Bronn opens his mouth, and Davos doesn’t have to hear him to know he’s got an objection to Davos’ obvious lie.

So he does what any lowborn man in a castle does. He shoulders his way past Bronn and calls for a servant to help Bronn find his way back to Tyrion Lannister.

Bronn’s shouted, “Touchy, are we?” only confirms Davos’ sneaking suspicion the conversation was a trap.

It isn’t until he’s poring over Stannis’ shelves in search of that volume he still hasn’t found that Davos realizes he only said Stannis was opposed. 

xx

Davos presents the finished doe to Shireen during lunch on a day when Stannis is out of the castle. That isn’t why he gives it to her then, but he can’t say it’s bad timing. Bronn’s poking at him has left Davos wrong-footed around Stannis, every thought seemingly leading to a conclusion where Davos doesn’t have his clothes on.

Eyes lighting up, Shireen lifts the doe from Davos’ open hand.

She’s grown so much he sometimes doesn’t recognize her as the little girl he could have sworn she just was, but her grin as she turns her gift around, inspecting it from every angle, hasn’t changed.

He watches her run her fingers over it, as careful as she always is. Even when she was learning to walk, she hadn’t bumped into things or dashed unsteadily around the castle like Davos’ children had. He’d worried about her, told himself it was probably because she was a girl, remembered the stories he’d heard from some of the servants of other little girls, then worried more. 

“Is Father angry, Davos?”

Not expecting a question like that, Davos fumbles for a moment.

Shireen gives him a searching look. “He’s been locking the door to his study, and it isn’t because he’s talking about important things with you.”

“And how do you know that if the door is locked?”

“I can still listen.”

She says it in a way that’s so much like her father, expression and tone and all, that Davos can’t breathe for a second.

“He isn’t angry,” he manages. “He’s just busy.”

“Father doesn’t sleep in his study because he’s busy,” Shireen argues. “He sleeps there when he doesn’t want to sleep in his room.”

Davos swallows. “Shireen-”

“He used to do it a lot before Mother left. And right after Lady Melisandre left. But he didn’t lock the door those times. I could go in and read if I couldn’t sleep, and he’d let me stay so long as I was quiet.” She frowns at the figurine in her hands. “He looks weird when he sleeps.”

All of this is more than Davos knows what to do with.

Shireen must knows that. She rubs the doe’s nose with the tip of one finger.

Davos decided when she was just old enough to learn to ride and insisted on starting every lesson by kissing the horse’s cheek despite her teacher telling not to waste time on it that Shireen is just that sort of child- too shy to make an issue of what she wants, too good-hearted to stop what she thinks is a kindness, but bold enough to figure out ways around restrictions.

She handles her scarce gifts with care. The stag is still in one piece, not even a scratch on it despite Shireen keeping it with her for so much of the war.

“I wish I knew how to make him happy,” she whispers, and part of Davos cracks at the sound.

There’s nothing he can say to make this better. Stannis isn’t a happy man. If he’d been happy as a boy, no one seems to remember it. Even Maester Cressen, who’s known Stannis since he was born and loves him as a son, doesn’t know how to make Stannis’ mood lift. Happiness doesn’t factor in.

All Stannis has is duty met and duty to be met.

It’s no wonder he never got along with Robert and isn’t close to Renly.

Davos ignores the feeling of his heart beating in his throat and lays a hand on Shireen’s shoulder. “I’ve known your father for a long time. He’s a great man, the best I know. But he isn’t a happy man. I wish he were; I do. And I wish sometimes the gods would lessen the burden he places on himself. But my hopes won’t change him, and I’m afraid even yours won’t either. The gods don’t bend even for royal blood.”

All of this she already knows.

“Be a good daughter and listen to him,” Davos tells her, the best and only action he can advise. “Pay attention to your lessons. Become the queen he sees in you. Make his legacy even greater. Outlive him. Those are your duties. Seeing you succeed in these is all he wants of you.”

She closes her eyes and tips her head so it rests on the back of the hand he has on her shoulder. He squeezes gently, wishing he had something to reassure her with, and her breath catches.

He hasn’t seen her cry since her mother left.

She doesn’t quite cry. She lets the tears run down her face as she sniffs and swallows wetly, but it’s as if she doesn’t have the energy to weep. The sadness just drops out of her like sweat down a common man’s back on a hot day.

Slowly, her breathing evens out and she lifts her head. She wipes at her eyes, and Davos retrieves his hand, sensing a change.

“I’m the king’s daughter,” she says, looking up at him.

Davos nods. “You’re the king’s daughter.”

“I’ll be queen one day.”

“You will.”

“Then I can give you a royal command.” She doesn’t wait for him to confirm- or qualify- this. “My father is not happy, but there are times he’s less unhappy. You’ve been at his side for all of them. So I command you, Lord Davos, to continue to do your duty to him. Stay by him. Defend him. Serve no one ahead of him, not even me. I want your word you will do this.”

Over the years, Davos has sworn all manner of oaths to Shireen.

This is the first that’s felt like a command.

It’s almost funny that it’s the one command she’d never have to give him.

He swallows the protest that Stannis would object to Davos having any loyalty that would supersede his loyalty to Shireen after she takes the throne.

She looks far older than she is as he gets to his knees and bows his head. It hurts; he’s never liked being on his knees and they’ve only begun to ache more as he’s aged.

This is Shireen’s moment. He can feel it, something in her bearing shifting to make room for something bigger. A queen taking her place where a princess sat, perhaps.

He isn’t being knighted. He doesn’t have to kneel to be commanded.

This is Shireen’s first decree as Queen Shireen, first of her name. Davos will give this the honor it’s due

“Will you do as I have commanded you, Lord Davos?” she asks. “Do you give me your word as a knight and as a lord and a man with honor that you will never desert my father?”

Davos swallows before he looks up at her. “I do.”

“Then I leave him in your care.”

He nods, and for a long moment, he’s in the presence of the queen of Westeros, though she hasn’t yet inherited her crown. The same bedrock certainty that drove Stannis through a civil war is wrapped around her.

Whatever calamities think to shake Westeros, they will have to shake a queen made of stone, and the woman standing here cannot be shaken.

It’s been a privilege, Davos thinks, to see Shireen grow.

He doesn’t get to tell her this because she coughs and, face flushing, asks, “Um, Davos? What happens next?”

The queen disappears, and the girl whose majority is still years away returns. Her face is still baby-round, her confidence not yet absolute.

She looks embarrassed, and Davos loves her for more than her father’s blood.

He doesn’t mean to laugh, but he does. A moment after he starts, she joins him, and the two of them laugh until Davos is wiping at his eyes and Shireen is complaining about her stomach hurting.

“You’ll be a good queen,” Davos tells her, sobering. “Just don’t tell your father you had me do this or I’ll never get to see you take the throne.”

“Don’t make me laugh more,” Shireen whines. “We both know Father couldn’t hurt you if he tried.”

She means Stannis’ respect for Davos would prevent him from executing Davos, but Davos finds the next round of laughter ringing as empty as Stannis’ bed.

xx

Davos gives Stannis two more nights before he decides he’s the Hand of the King, which means he ought to stop coups before they happen.

He knocks on the study door. “Your Grace.”

Stannis doesn’t reply, but Davos knows he’s in there. He can hear Stannis shuffling things about.

“It’s me, Your Grace,” Davos tries again, raising his voice. “Your Hand.”

Stannis continues to ignore him.

“I can hear you, Your Grace.”

The shuffling stops.

“There’s a problem that requires your attention.”

“I’m busy, Davos,” Stannis replies, his voice weak. “We can speak tomorrow.”

“I beg your pardon, but unless you’d like to replace all your cooks, I don’t believe this should wait that long.”

There’s a stretch of silence that finally breaks with Stannis’ footsteps.

The door opens, and the king gestures sharply for Davos to come in.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Your Grace.”

Stannis shuts the door firmly. “You mentioned my kitchens might become empty soon. That’s worth the interruption.”

Davos looks Stannis over and finds himself clenching his fists to keep from reaching out. Stannis looks exhausted- his hair is a mess, there are dark circles under his eyes, his clothes are off-kilter- and his study, which he keeps in rigorous order, is in disarray.

“Is something the matter?” he hears himself ask.

Stannis stiffens impossibly straighter. “I believe you are the one who mentioned problems in the kitchen.”

A hundred questions bubble up, but Davos swallows them down. “You haven’t eaten since you got back. The cooks are concerned they’ve displeased you.”

“Is it not possible that I may simply not be hungry?”

“When your life depends on the king’s pleasure, I imagine it does not seem to be, no.”

From a lesser man, the sound Stannis makes would be a huff.

“They only wish to be certain they’ve done their duties well. You are their king; they don’t want to disappoint you. You can see how refusing to do them the honor of accepting their work could be seen as a sign they’ve failed.”

Stannis purses his lips. “I suppose I can. You may reassure them their lives are not in danger.”

It’s a clear dismissal.

Davos stays where he is.

Stannis frowns at him. “Is there something else?”

“Well, once the cooks pointed out you hadn’t eaten, I did get worried as well.”

“It’s unnecessary. I’m perfectly fine.”

“Forgive me, Your Grace, but I don’t believe that.” Davos fights the urge to cross his arms. He isn’t on the defensive. “If I may, your daughter expressed her concern as well.”

“Shireen worries. She is her mother’s daughter.”

“She also dislikes dissembling. She’s her father’s daughter as well.”

Davos doesn’t get a smile, but some of the tension in Stannis’ face eases.

“You know I would do anything for you,” Davos says quietly. “Even in matters I cannot resolve, I’m yours to command. I have no master but you; I know you know this. So I have to wonder- why are you hiding from me?”

“I’m not hiding anything,” Stannis snaps. “I’m working. And I would remind you not to presume on my tolerance.”

Davos doesn’t have to point out that Stannis doesn’t speak to him this way when there are no problems. Stannis can see it just fine.

“As much as I value your counsel, this is a matter I must keep to myself,” he says, relenting.

It’s unusual for Stannis to keep his thoughts to himself, and Davos feels the beginnings of new concerns taking root.

Before they can grow enough to convince him to try to push, someone knocks on the door.

Stannis scowls at him.

Davos gives him a look he hopes conveys his apologies while suggesting this is a matter Davos won’t be overruled on without a fight.

He opens the door and takes the tray from the girl on the other side of it. She looks terrified- young as she is, she’s probably never come so close to the king, let alone when Stannis is in a mood.

“From the kitchen, Lord Hand,” she tells him needlessly. Her voice is high and tight, her eyes darting between Davos to a spot by his elbow.

He can guess who’s in that spot.

“This is perfect,” he assures her as he relieves her of the tray. “It looks delicious. Pass along that the cooks have done an excellent job, will you? They’ve chosen well. The king will be pleased.”

She nods and squeaks a quick, “Yes, Lord Hand,” before she skitters off.

Davos has no sooner shut the door than Stannis is glowering at him.

“I told you I’m not hungry.”

“Oh, this? This is for me.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Of course it is. I missed breakfast to see you, and I’m due for a beating from Tarth’s lady knight this afternoon. I need my strength.”

“Yet you said I will be pleased with the contents. Why?”

“I’m your Hand,” Davos tells him mildly as he breathes in the steam from the bowl of broth. “What king would not want his Hand to eat well?”

Stannis regards him warily but accept the reasoning.

He also accepts Davos’ offer to go over the outline of their plan for placating Dorne.

An hour later, he accepts the bite of meat pie Davos offers him. So Davos can reassure the cooks the king said he was pleased with their efforts, of course.

An hour after that, Davos has quietly gotten him to eat half of the pie and to drink most of the broth the cooks sent up.

It isn’t enough for a grown man, but it’s something.

xx

Bronn catches him on the way to a well-earned bath after Brienne of Tarth finished feeding him dirt. Davos is no warrior and never will be, and he knows, as everyone gathered there knows, the lady did not fight him as she would a true opponent- for which Davos is deeply grateful. Someone around Jaime Lannister ought to know restraint.

“Not now,” Davos grumbles as soon as he spots Bronn.

“You’d be happier if you fucked somebody, you know,” Bronn replies.

“Are you offering?”

“No, but I do like my neck unbroken.”

“I know you’re trying to get me to ask why you think you’d be hanged, but I’m moments away from a bath, and I don’t care.”

Bronn snorts. “Course you don’t.”

“Do you have another message or is this a social call?”

“Why can't it be both?”

They reach the stairs and Davos fights a groan. “What’s the message?”

“You’re a poor swordsman.”

Davos grimaces. “Thank you, Ser. I hadn’t noticed.”

Bronn leans back against the wall, looking pleased with himself.

Davos rallies himself for the long journey up the stairs to his keep with Bronn’s limitless wit for companionship.

“Davos.”

He’s barely set his foot on the first step, but Davos already hurts. Stannis’ voice is a welcome relief.

When he turns around, Stannis is frowning at Bronn.

Gods.

“Your Grace,” Davos says before Bronn can open his mouth and harass Stannis. Davos really doesn’t want to think about the agitation a hanging would stir up. “I didn’t realize you had need of me.”

Stannis’ frown shifts to Davos. “I always have need of you.”

Over Stannis’ shoulder, Bronn pointedly raises his eyebrows.

Davos ignores him.

“Of course. I can meet you in your-”

“I’ve been in that room long enough,” Stannis interrupts. “And you will need to change before you’re attired appropriately. You will give me counsel on our way to your quartets.”

The “our” clearly doesn’t include Bronn, who gives Davos an exaggerated wink before he saunters off.

“I take it Selwyn’s daughter did to you what she did to Loras Tyrell.” He narrows his eyes. “She’s done an admirable job of redecorating you. Even Renly would approve.”

Davos chokes on the laugh Stannis’ rare burst of humor startles from him. “She did worse to me, I think,” he says around it. “Loras Tyrell is one of our greatest swordsmen. He managed to get her in the mud as well.”

“You didn’t think to simply throw some at her? You’re losing your touch.”

Davos searches Stannis’ face for some hint as to the source of this uncharacteristic mirth but finds none.”

“We can’t all be warriors,” Stannis says after a moment. “Brienne of Tarth is formidable in battle, but I wouldn’t entrust her with the task of sneaking rations past heavily guarded gates.” There’s a sharp look on Stannis’ face that says he knows exactly what Davos did this morning. “Now come. Explain to me what you know about smugglers in Dorne.”

Davos does tell him but runs out of information before they’re halfway up. Stannis pays no mind to that. He walks down the stairs beside Davos, pausing when Davos needs a moment but otherwise not acknowledging Davos’ struggling.

When they reach the baths, Stannis comes to a stop just outside. “You’ll have an hour and a half to bathe on your own before the baths are opened back up to other people. If you wish to take longer than that, you’ll have to share. Don’t worry about your clothes. I already had a servant fetch you clean ones, and these will be taken away to be washed.”

“Your Grace, I don’t-”

“You are my Hand,” Stannis reminds him firmly. “That makes you the man I rely on above all others. I can arrange for you to have a moment for a private bath where the water’s hot.”

It’s more complicated than that, but Davos’ body aches. He can feel his heartbeat in at least four places not in his chest. The water will be hot enough to hurt, and he itches to get in.

For a moment, he imagines Stannis joining him. He’s slighter than Davos would have guessed, but he’s an accomplished warrior just like the rest of his line.

The heat from the water has drawn heat to Stannis’ face even out here, and for a moment, Davos forgets why he isn’t supposed to think about kissing Stannis.

“I’ll see you at supper,” Stannis tells him briskly, and Davos is reminded that he can’t just want Stannis. Kings don’t kiss the sons of crabbers. They may give those sons titles, and they may entrust them with their daughters. But they don’t kiss them.

They never strip down and hold them in baths, no matter how hot the water is or how tired their lowborn confidante is.

“Yes, Your Grace. Thank you.”

Once Stannis has left, Davos peels off his dirty clothes and sinks into the water with a sigh.

It occurs to him that he can’t think of a single time he’s Stannis bathe down here.

Perhaps, Davos thinks, he should come down here himself. A little heat never hurt anyone.

It would never work. Stannis dislikes change for the sake of change, and he doesn’t have a hedonistic bone in his body. Appeals based on pleasure fall eternally shy of the mark with him. Davos is almost comforted by the consistency of it. Stannis doesn’t seek joy. He merely endures.

It’s an interesting thought, though- Stannis stripping down after a long day and letting the water wash out some of the tension he carries like he carries the crown.

Stannis doesn’t want to be king. His claim is clear, and he’s enforced it to maintain the integrity of inheritance. But he never wanted to sit on the iron throne.

What he does want, Davos doesn’t know. But this isn’t it.

xx

Shireen asks him for a third deer.

“A fawn this time?” she asks. “No, a yearling. Not quite a baby but not grown yet either.”

Davos looks at her, looks at the stag and his doe arranged together on the table, decides she either doesn’t know what she’s doing or does and it doesn’t matter, then looks back at her.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

She hugs him hard enough to hurt his bruised ribs. Davos kisses the top of her head and wonders if he isn’t making a mistake.

xx

Shireen must have shown Stannis her figurines. Davos knows this because Stannis is standing in Davos’ quarters, three weeks after Davos promised the yearling and a day after he presented the finished piece to Shireen. The head of the yearling is currently poking through the space between Stannis’ thumb and forefinger.

There had been a moment when Davos had thought the figure was broken, and his heart had begun to pound, but no, Stannis is holding it with care, the yearling’s delicate neck cradled in the curved webbing of his thumb.

“I’m not a good father,” he says. “Don’t argue with me, Davos. I’m not, and I don’t need you to shelter my feelings. Shireen is my daughter, and I give her all I can. But it isn’t enough of what a child needs.” He shakes his head. “You’ve been her father more than I have.”

There’s no end to this conversation Davos doesn’t dread. “Your Grace…”

“She must be a strong queen, and I can teach her how to become one,” Stannis says over him. “But I cannot teach her how to inspire love. She is not self-obsessed or spiteful like Robert and Cersei or hateful like Joffrey. She is not a pawn like Tommen. Yet the lowborn cannot be sure of this. Beyond what I’ve already done, I can do nothing to endear her to them. To survive her first year, she must have their love, Davos. She should have it anyway, for her own sake, but they don’t care about such things.” His hand grip begins to tighten around the figurine, only to loosen a moment after when he realizes what he’s doing. “She is owed their love, but I cannot secure it for her.”

“No one could do that,” Davos reminds him. “Kings and queens are loved or they’re not. We can’t know which until she takes the throne, and even then, favor can turn. But if I may,” Davos adds, “I would remind you that an absence of love does necessarily mean the presence of hate.”

Stannis glances down at the yearling. “There’s nothing to be done, then. She cannot even secure the loyalty of those she would keep close.”

Davos has known Stannis for too long to think this is entirely about Shireen.

“Loyalty doesn’t work like that, no. Either it’s given or it isn’t. Anyone expecting favors in return for loyalty has none to give.”

Stannis’ thumb brushes the yearling’s face, and Davos thinks of a stag’s head inside a heart of flame, its crown burning with it. He thinks of a house that raises its children to know fury before anything else. He thinks of a man who knows he isn’t the king anyone wants yet guides it better than any of his rivals.

He thinks of a man who’s been starving for so long he doesn’t recognize a feast as his when it’s given to him.

“Love can be learned, Your Grace,” he says quietly. “In fact, I’d say it’s always learned.”

Stannis scoffs, his expression dismissive.

“I didn’t know you when I decided to sail past the ships blockading Storm’s End,” Davos reminds him. “I’d never met you and had no interest in knowing you. Yet here I am now, your Hand. Something had to make being at your side more appealing than sailing.”

It’s difficult to surprise Stannis, but Davos has managed it. He can see the signs, the clenched jaw and the furrowed brow and the scramble for a response in Stannis’ eyes. He feels a familiar twinge of sorrow at Stannis’ mistrust of getting love he’s due.

“One man’s devotion is not a kingdom’s loyalty,” Stannis rasps. “She is my daughter. Whoever she marries, she is mine.”

“And she’ll be loved all the more for it.”

“Don’t lie to me, Davos.”

“When have you known me to lie to you?” Davos challenges. “You’ve brought them stability. You address their grievances. Perhaps they don’t love you as they loved Robert, but look at his legacy. They don’t love the civil war he forced on them. You ended it. They respect that. They respect you for being an attentive king.”

Stannis considers this for a long moment. “You’re right. I’ve never known you to be a liar,” he says. “And you wouldn’t make Shireen vulnerable to save my feelings.” He nods slightly to himself. “You serve me well, Davos.”

“Thank you, Your Grace”. It's a simple acknowledgement, nothing Stannis doesn’t tell any of his advisors, but it sits warmly in Davos’ chest anyway. “I intend to continue doing so.”

“Good.”

Stannis looks like he has something else to say, but he seems to change his mind about it. He looks at Davos for a long moment, then holds out the yearling. “Shireen showed this to me earlier but failed to take it back. As I leave for business away from King’s Landing now and she’s at her lessons, I cannot return it to her properly.”

Davos accepts the figurine, its delicate neck fitting into his hand the same way it for in Stannis’. “I’ll see she gets it.”

Stannis again looks like he has something to say, and again, he keeps it to himself. He leaves without another word, leaving Davos to wonder what his king can is so reluctant to share with Davos.

It sits poorly with him, but he has no option but to let it sit as Stannis leaves it. 

xx

Davos is drunk.

The woman kissing Davos’ neck is drunk.

Bronn is drunk.

The woman on Bronn’s lap is drunk.

Tyrion Lannister is drunk, and there are two women sitting on either side of him. They seem to be drunk, too. Tyrion looks more comfortable than Davos feels. All of them do.

“How did I get here?” Davos asks as the woman next to him uses her teeth on his throat just hard enough to sting. He isn’t sure if it’s nice or not.

“You wanted more to drink,” Bronn tells him.

That’s odd. Stannis doesn’t drink, and he doesn’t like being around people who drink. So Davos rarely drinks.

“You,” he says, remembering in a flash that Bronn had goaded him into this. “You made me.”

“Why are you talking?” Bronn groans.

“He’s afraid Stannis will scold him for having fun,” Tyrion says too loudly. “No fun in the middle stag’s court.”

Davos pushes himself more vertical, intent on defending Stannis, but when he does, he suddenly feels the every moment between now and the last time he drank more than a tankard of watered-down ale. The tidal wave of alcohol roars in his gut, and before he knows it, Davos is on the floor.

“Not on the rug,” Tyrion whines.

“How’s a man supposed to relax when you won’t shut up about the damn house-”

Davos quickly loses track of the conversation. The darkness at the edges of his vision rushes in, and it’s with relief that he feels himself fall out of consciousness.

xx

When Davos opens his eyes and summons the strength to sit up, he spots Shireen sitting on the floor facing him. She looks worried.

“You’re awake!”

Davos winces. “That does seem to be my punishment.”

“Father wants to see you.”

Davos winces harder. “He isn’t due back for at least two more days.”

“He came back early.”

Stannis won't be happy about Davos getting drunk with Tyrion and Bronn. The first part would have been bad enough, but the company… It’s going to take time to shake the stink of lion off himself.

Casting a look around, Davos slowly recognizes his quarters.

Horror slams into him.

He doesn’t want to ask her, but he needs to know as much as possible before he leaves his quarters.

“My lady, do you know how I…”

“Ser Bronn brought you,” she tells him, sounding apologetic- as if any of this isn’t Davos’ fault. “I think he may have dropped you.”

The throbbing in Davos’ hip suddenly makes sense.

“Thank you, Shireen.” He struggles for something like a smile.

She grimaces, and he knows he failed.

“Have you seen your father?”

“He said he’d be in his study all day.”

Even worse news.

“I best go see him, then,” he says.

Shireen nods and gets to her feet.

“Davos…” she says.

“What is it?”

She bites her lip for a moment, and Davos is reminded of her as a child when the whole world overwhelmed her and she didn’t seem to know how to put one foot in front of the other.

“You’re all right, aren’t you?”

Davos frowns. “I’m a bit queasy, but I don’t think anyone’s ever died of three glasses of wine.”

He’s playing it down, but she looks like she thinks he’s on his deathbed. A hangover isn’t fun, but it won’t kill him.

She isn’t reassured, and she doesn’t run over to hug him.

It’s a poor start, and Davos isn’t expecting it to get better.

xx

“Is there a reason my Hand drank himself sick last night?”

Davos fights the urge to repeat the action. Stannis is doing nothing to soften his voice, and it hurts. His stomach is empty, but he doesn’t think that will help matters. “Not a good one, Your Grace,” he rasps.

Stannis lifts his brows. “But there is one.”

“Yes, but as I said-”

“Why were you drinking, Davos?”

He should have just said no. To the first drinks, to Bronn, to Tyrion, to Stannis’ question.

To the thought that smuggling food to a besieged lord would be anything but trouble.

To the first treacherous thought that Stannis might value him in particular.

“It’s a strange position to be in, a lowborn smuggler given a knighthood and favor over men with greater blood. I don’t wish I’d turned down your favor,” he adds before Stannis can misunderstand. His stomach rolls with more than anxiety as he struggles to anticipate Stannis’ moods and soothe them. “But it can be… lonely. This-” he gestures at the brooch bearing the sign of the Hand “-has only heightened distrust of me. I’m neither noble nor lowborn and so distrusted by both. Bronn earned his position in a manner close to the way I earned mine. There’s a kinship there, Your Grace.”

“You’re nothing like Bronn,” Stannis argues.

Davos can’t help but chuckle despite the way Stannis’ voice makes his eyes water. “That’s true. But our places in the world are not dissimilar, and having a meal with him when my work was finished and Shireen was in bed did have an allure.”

Some touch of the tension in Stannis’ face eases.

Davos opts not to question which part of what he said managed that.

The tension, however fractionally eased, remains. “Yet my daughter found me before dawn, certain you’d died.”

“Bronn dropped me,” Davos tells him. “More than once, I suspect. If I were a highborn girl Shireen’s age, I wouldn’t see much difference between a man passed out and a corpse.”

“That doesn’t explain why you were drinking enough to be sick in the first place. You haven’t touched wine since you swore your oath to me.” Stannis’ eyes narrow. “Have you?”

Are all lords this suspicious of the men they’ve elevated? Stannis knows Davos’ character. That ought to satisfy him.

“I haven’t, but Bronn has friends who are sailors, and there’s only so much talk a man can take about a past life before he starts acting like he’s there again.”

Stannis gestures to his neck. “And that? Do sailors insist on company as well?”

They do, but Davos knows better than to say so.

“A gift from Tyrion Lannister. I think.” Hearing it aloud makes Davos sigh. “There were a number of women there as well as Tyrion and Bronn. One of them was very friendly to me.”

“I see.”

Somehow, Davos doubts that.

“I’ve lost my taste for drinking, it seems,” he admits, all the thinking threatening to push his gut into rebellion. “I thought going without would be bad, but, gods, my mouth has never tasted worse.”

Stannis scrutinizes his face, eyes flicking over Davos’ features. “I shouldn’t give this to you,” he says, reaching into a drawer, “but I believe Renly is up to something. I need to know what.”

He produces a small vial of a thin red liquid, which he holds out to Davos.

Uncertain but curious, Davos pops the cork and takes a tentative sniff. “Panacea?” he asks, looking at Stannis in suprise. He’s never actually had any, but he’s known men who have, and they all described it the same way- a smoky smell, like having their faces over a fire, and a feeling like there actually is a fire in the bottle.

A single sniff and Davos’ stomach has begun to settle.

“This is real panacea?”

Stannis gives him a look that suggests Davos is the one behaving oddly. “I’m not going to waste money on false panacea.” 

Davos blinks at him, unable to summon a reply that won’t annoy Stannis.

Panacea, while not a true cure-all, is still the result of potent, difficult magic. Its price reflects the risk its creator takes in making it. To give it to Davos for something as simple as a reckoning for an evening of drinking is…

Another, less hungover man would call it wasteful.

“Your Grace…”

“Figure out what Renly’s up to,” Stannis interrupts firmly. “I don’t want another war. Figure out what he’s planning, and you’ll have earned it.”

Davos’ mouth still tastes like mistakes.

He doesn’t argue further. He tips the vial upside down, swallows its contents, and grits his teeth against a flash of pain that sears through him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.

It ends in less than a moment, and when Davos risks taking a breath, he feels better than he has in a long time. The hangover is gone, the throbbing from Bronn’s idea of helpfulness, even the ache in the tips of his fingers that’s never quite gone away has disappeared.

Davos isn’t sure he likes that.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Stannis doesn’t look up from his work. “Find out what Renly is up to, Davos.”

“As you command.”

xx

Renly, for the most part, is the most agreeable of the brothers- for a given definition of agreeable. He can be just as pigheaded as his older brothers, and he digs his heels in when it suits him. But he doesn’t usually go looking for trouble, and he does treat the people around him decently, which is better than most of the court can manage.

He’s well-loved, and he’s glad to return that love.

Except when it comes to Stannis.

“I don’t know why you dislike your brother so much,” Davos says as he pulls up a chair to the table where Renly and Loras Tyrell are eating lunch in an otherwise empty room, “and to be honest, my lord, I don’t care. If he weren’t the king, I’d happily stay out of this. Unfortunately for us, he is.”

Renly wrinkles his nose in distaste- at what Davos is saying or Davos himself is unclear.

Beside him, Loras Tyrell looks intrigued.

Davos can use that.

“Why is my brother sending you to harass me?” Renly asks. “We’re having lunch, Lord Hand.”

“Why are you trying to upset the kingdom again?” Davos counters mildly.

“I’m not.”

“That’s very good to hear. I’ll just be on my way, then.” Davos pretends to get up, then pauses halfway out of his seat. “Just one thing before I do.”

Renly’s expression tightens. “And what might that be?”

“Why doesn’t Shireen want to sit by either of you during the upcoming tourney?”

Both Renly and Loras’ eyes go wide, and they exchange mirror guilty looks.

“Let me guess,” Davos says. “It’s the same reason the maids are talking about how the castle might be refurnished under a different king. Am I close?”

“We were just-”

“I know what you were just,” Davos snaps. He wishes he hadn’t- he’s too used to Stannis and his brusque honesty. Men like Renly need a more subtle approach. “You don’t have to like your brother,” Davos revises, “but he is the king. He will have you hanged if he thinks you’re going to make another grab for the throne. The kingdom is stable but only just. A coup would destroy that, and if you have to die to prevent another civil war, you know what I’ll pick.”

Renly’s jaw works, and Davos feels in his gut that this is going to be more difficult than it has to be.

“You’re lucky Stannis favors you,” Loras observes. “These are the sorts of insinuations that impugn men’s honor, Lord Hand. You can be called upon to answer for them, Hand or no.”

Davos returns Loras’ carefully bland regard. “And you’re lucky I spoke to the maids and found out that when Renly said he could kill Stannis, he meant killing Stannis for his lack of interest in making the castle more beautiful.” He looks back to Renly. “You’re also lucky that your niece was too afraid of losing more family to tell her father what she thought she overheard.”

Renly’s expression falls. “I didn’t know she was there.”

“Nor I,” Loras adds quietly, and a different sort of guilt settles between them.

They’re good men, Davos is reminded, the grip of anger around him easing. Renly never had much opportunity to spend time with Shireen when she was little because Stannis avoided court, but he’s been good to her since she came to King’s Landing. He introduced her to his friends and made her at home. Two of her favorite dresses were gifts from Renly. Loras, too, embraced her quickly. She has the little vase he gave her in her room- a vase that’s never short on fresh flowers- and Davos knows how much she treasures it.

Letting out a heavy breath, Davos tries again. “It’s difficult to see Shireen so upset. She truly believes you intend to kill her father and possibly her as well.”

Both Renly and Loras speak over each other, full of denials, and Davos raises his hands, telling them to calm down, until they accept that he believes them.

“I will speak to her, and I will speak to the king.” This is overstepping, but Davos has been doing that frequently of late. “I realize there’s been little time to adjust from the freedom of being rivals, but the war is over. His is the king; you can’t speak of him the way you did when you were at war. He deserves that much.”

“So we don’t need to fear for our heads?” Loras asks. He only sounds half-joking.

“Provided you exercise more care in how you speak, you’ll be fine.”

Renly’s mouth twitches. “And my brother is all right with this? That doesn’t sound like Stannis.”

Davos squeezes the bridge of his nose and reminds himself that Renly isn’t wrong. “He is your brother. He has no desire to see you die. Adjust your behavior, and he will overlook this.”

... In the sense that he won’t order their hanging. He’ll bristle at them for a time, and they shouldn’t expect any further lenience from him. But they will survive.

Renly doesn’t quite react to that, which is a reaction on its own. He looks to Loras, who looks back to him, then both men look to Davos and nod.

“I’m free to say he has the personality of pebble, though?” Loras asks.

“Unless you suggest that stone would be better off getting kicked off Aegon’s Hill, yes.”

Loras’ mouth twitches, and Renly gives him a tired look.

Davos has done what he needed to do here. He can leave.

“If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going back and assuring Shireen that her uncle doesn’t wish her or her father any harm and her father won’t come after her uncle. Or Ser Loras.”

Loras’ mouth finishes stretching into a lopsided smile, but Renly frowns.

“Has my brother spoken to you yet?”

Loras looks at him sharply. “Renly…”

“We speak frequently,” Davos replies, ignoring Loras’ unhappy expression. “Can you be more specific?”

“That’s a ‘no’,” Loras says.

“Stannis…” Renly sighs. “I don’t pretend to hold my brother dear, but I don’t hate him. And there must be some good him; he did manage to contribute to my niece’s conception, after all.”

He smiles softly as he mentions Shireen, and something in Davos unclenches as it strikes him that Shireen has more than detached affection from Renly.

“And a little happiness might help him relax a little,” Loras adds, shrugging when Davos looks at him curiously. “I don’t actually enjoy being hated by my king.”

“Since my brother won’t say this,” Renly says, drawing Davos’ attention, “I feel I ought to. For Shireen and the mother we share- not for him.”

His lips twitch as if he’s said something funny.

Dread opens a hole in Davos’ gut.

“I know Stannis well, Lord Hand,” Renly continues. “Though I suppose it isn’t difficult to know him. He isn’t a subtle man, nor is he a likable one. Stannis has the head for ruling, but he’s never been the sort people want to be ruled by.”

“A lobster if I’ve ever met one,” Loras adds. He turns to look at Renly, who ignores him.

“You can imagine the surprise, then, that of all the men in Westeros, Stannis is the one who’s found himself a man with a loyalty to him even the Starks would struggle to match.” Renly tips his head. “I know how you came to serve him, but you’re hardly the first knight to come from the smallfolk. Why you’ve bound yourself to him when he did nothing extraordinary is the question everyone has.” He shakes his head as if that will clear his confusion. “Yet it hardly matters. What does matter is that people like you, so when you give counsel and my brother listens, regard him increases.”

Loras nods. 

This is surreal. Two of the most charismatic, well-liked men in the kingdom are discussing in front of Davos how low their regard is for the man he’s served longer than some of his sons have been alive, and he’s expected to take their praise of Davos himself as a compliment.

Davos already knew all of this, but he didn’t think anyone had noticed that Stannis listens to him. They speak in private more often than not, their arguments kept between them. There’s no reason anyone should know Davos has any true influence over Stannis.

“Is that what you must tell me?” he asks.

Renly gives him a pitying look. “No, what I must tell you is that Stannis will never approach you. It isn’t his duty, so he doesn’t know how. You must either pursue him yourself or give him a reason to pursue you. Those are the only means of getting more from him.”

He says it mildly, as if he isn’t talking about Davos and Stannis in a way Davos has spent years struggling to keep himself from hoping for. He’s had to cede ground over time, but he’s kept one line unbroken, one barrier between wishful thinking and actual hope.

And Renly just destroyed that barrier.

Loras pats Davos’ arm kindly. “It’s probably better if you don’t try to ease him into it. Just drop him in, like a-”

Davos looks at him sharply, and Loras has the grace to stop himself.

“That was too far,” he admits.

Davos clears his throat. “Thank you for this… discussion. I think I’ll take my leave now.”

“Good luck, Lord Hand. I’m not sure if you’ll need it or not.” Renly’s voice is warm, but Davos isn’t comforted by it.

He isn’t comforted by any of it, not on the way to reassure Shireen and not when he stands before Stannis and proclaims Renly and Loras guilty of nothing but poor choice in words.

xx

Davos takes his usual seat in Stannis’ study. Shireen and Stannis are sitting on opposite sides of the desk, poring over a map of the world as Stannis has Shireen identify and describe various areas and cities. They don’t acknowledge Davos beyond Stannis’ initial, “Enter.”

Their back and forth is soothing. Stannis had surprised Davos by being a good teacher, but it makes sense now. Teaching is all about strategy, identifying the areas Shireen has difficulty with and selecting the correct approach to remedy them.

He corrects Shireen without anger, soothing a fear Davos hadn’t been able to voice, and she’s learned she won’t receive any simply by being wrong.

“No,” Stannis says eventually, breaking Shireen’s streak of correct identifications. “That’s further north. This is Old Valyria.”

“Oh.”

It’s so soft, Davos almost misses it, but he’s used to listening for quiet sounds- the creak of floorboards can be the only sign that Stannis is awake and restless- and looks up sharply.

“This where I was supposed to go,” Shireen says. Her voice catches in her throat. “This is where the stonemen live.”

Davos looks between her and Stannis. He wants to speak up, but this is a period of Shireen’s life he had little to do with. He’d been at Stannis’ side, but this was an issue Stannis had chosen to resolve on his own.

He expects Stannis to need a moment, and he does.

Davos feels every second of it.

When he finally breaks his silence, Stannis’ voice is quiet. “You were not supposed to go to Old Valyria.”

“Because I’m your daughter?”

“Because you’re my daughter.”

There’s more to the conversation, but Davos isn’t party to it. Stannis and Shireen regard each other across the map without speaking, some thought passing from father to daughter that Davos can’t intercept.

Shireen smiles and looks down at the map.

“The Iron Bank is here, isn’t it?” she asks, moving her hand to point at a different place on the map. “In Braavos?”

“Don’t ask a question when you’re making a statement,” Stannis corrects. “But yes, that’s where the Iron Bank is.”

“Which means it’s where the money we owe needs to go.”

It’s an odd relationship that sees the father pleased his daughter is taking an interest in his debts, but Shireen will need to give the bank its due if Stannis dies before he’s paid off the debt. He would be shirking his duty to her and to the kingdom if he didn’t prepare her for that.

Davos watches Stannis flesh out Shireen’s knowledge of Braavos and feels some of his earlier dread dissipate. Stannis doesn’t need to know what Loras and Renly said. Davos can continue to serve Stannis as he has, and all that talk of pursuit can fade from his memory.

xx

“So, have you become a monk now?”

Davos pretends he doesn’t hear the voice echoing at him from farther down the hall.

“Lord Hand! I know you can hear me.”

Davos walks faster.

Bronn catches up to him when Davos is forced to pause to let a group of ladies past.

“Well?” Bronn asks.

“I clearly haven’t become a monk, and you know I haven’t.”

“Yet here you stand, pent up as anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Davos lets out a hard breath through his nose. “Can this conversation be over?”

“Depends,” Bronn says merrily. “You fuck the king yet?”

Davos glares at him. “You just said I’m pent up. It’s one or the other.”

Bronn grins at him. “You know, it’s not good for a man to go so long without bedding someone. If your king isn’t up to it, I’m sure there’s something someone could do if you just-”

Before Davos is forced to hear what someone could do if he just, a different voice cuts across Bronn’s.

“Ser Bronn,” Stannis says coolly. “I believe your lord is about to have a gauntlet thrown at his feet by a Tully. You may wish to intervene.”

Bronn only grins wider. “Yes, Your Grace. That does seem prudent.”

He throws Davos a significant look before he goes.

Davos ignores him in favor of studying Stannis.

There’s no way to be sure what, if anything, Stannis heard.

“Did you need something from me, Your Grace?” Davos asks.

Stannis frowns. “You’re late, and I have need of you.”

Davos winces. “Ser Bronn was not the only knight who sought my ear.” At Stannis’ lifted brows, Davos reluctantly adds, “Ser Loras and I spoke a fortnight past when you sent me to see what Renly was doing. Ser Loras wondered if I’d given any further thought to some advice Renly gave me.”

“What advice could Renly have given you?” Stannis frowns. “You were meant to investigate them, Davos, not befriend them.”

There’s an edge to Stannis’ voice that Davos doesn’t recognize. It’s never good news when Stannis’ behavior changes.

“I wouldn’t say I befriended them, Your Grace. Your brother and Ser Loras weren’t too fond of me when I left. Ser Loras was having some fun, I believe.”

It wasn’t subtle, but Davos did get the reminder when Loras asked him if he’d decided whether he’d figured out how to catch a stag.

“You’re done with them now,” Stannis declares abruptly. “Come. I have work that needs to be done.”

He walks away without another word, and Davos has to jog a few steps to catch up.

xx

Stannis’ mood doesn’t improve as the day passes. Davos watches him frown and seethe and wonders, dangerously, if anyone’s ever thought to try to smooth the unhappiness from his forehead. Davos’ fingers itch to try.

Renly’s words echo in his head, and Davos’ thoughts continue to linger on shouldn’t indulge.

Stannis doesn’t have the sort of looks Loras and Renly have, nor to match the court’s many blandly handsome and homely men. Yet his face is dear to Davos, and when Davos has had the need and the time, it hasn’t been difficult to get himself off with the sound of Stannis’ voice in his head and the thought of Stannis’ face.

He isn’t handsome according to the court or compared to it, no, but Davos has loved him for so long, he can’t think of any face that matters more to him.

“Davos!”

Startled, Davos jerks out of his daydream and into reality, where Stannis is frowning at him hard enough it must hurt.

It wasn’t a shout, but Stannis did say his name louder than Stannis usually speaks.

“I realize Ser Loras may have distracted you, but we’re discussing matters of import,” he says stiffly.

Davos frowns. “I’m not sure why you mention Ser Loras, Your Grace. Nor why you’d call this important when the Eyrie isn’t going to rebel so long as it’s left as it is, which you intend to do.”

Stannis stares at him. “Bronn, then,” he says, as if he’s just throwing words at Davos to see what sticks.

“Bronn?” Davos repeats. “The only distracting Bronn does is when he’s harrying me in hallways.”

“Yet you like him.”

“I sometimes enjoy the fact that he behaves like the men I grew up with, but I wouldn’t say I particularly like him.”

“So you delay coming to your king for men you don’t particularly like?”

Stannis is agitated, and he isn’t making sense. He’s looking at Davos as if Davos has answers, but all Davos has are questions.

“I cannot do your will if I never leave your side,” Davos reminds him. “How have I offended you? Tell me and I will address it.”

“You haven’t offended me,” Stannis lies.

“I’m sorry to argue with you, but it’s clear I’ve earned your ire somehow.”

“Look harder. You’ve done nothing.”

“Your Grace-”

“If you are mine as you say you are, why do you spend so much of your time elsewhere?” Stannis snaps. “You are my Hand, Davos, and hands don’t separate from the body. You should be with me.”

The pieces slot into place in Davos’ mind.

“Renly was wrong,” he says without thinking.

Stannis’ expression shutters over, and Davos speaks before he can think not to.

“When I visited your brother as you bade me, he told me you’d never say anything on your own. But he doesn’t know you well, does he?”

“What are you talking about, Davos?”

“Do you remember what I told you when you said you could cut my tongue as you cut my fingers?” Davos asks, hoping to give Stannis some semblance of guidance so he doesn’t have to spell it out for him.

He watches Stannis swallow and knows Stannis can see where this is going.

“You told me your tongue was mine to do with as it pleased me.”

“Nothing has changed. I and my tongue are still yours.” Stannis’ eyes flick to Davos’ mouth, and Davos’ face heats. “I have no master but you.”

“What are you after, Davos?” Stannis rasps. “What do you want from me?”

“Who else would I serve? Did I swear an oath to Renly? Did Loras take the tips of my fingers in exchange for this life?” An awful thought occurs to him. “Do you think I’m so backwards I’d look to Bronn for company?”

Stannis glares at him. “You’ve been unhappy, yet I can find no reason for you to be. What other explanation would you offer me?”

“Perhaps I’m getting old and sentimental, and a Hand does not sit quietly with his king as a knight may sit with his lord.” Davos takes a slow breath in. “Perhaps I’ve loved you for so long it hurts to think about it.”

Of every reaction Davos expects, Stannis chooses the one he’s least prepared for.

“Then you shouldn’t think,” he says, stepping closer, and despite half a lifetime of denial telling him this isn’t what it looks like, he recognizes the way Stannis is looking at him. “You should look to me.”

Davos has wondered if Stannis ever learned to kiss. His marriage to Selyse had not been a fulfilling one for either of them, and it’s always seemed unlikely Stannis would spend time on something neither of them needed or particularly wanted. He married young, when he had less skill with people than he does now, and he wouldn’t dishonor Selyse by taking someone else.

Yet he doesn’t waver when he brushes the first, soft kiss to Davos’ lips.

He doesn’t waver when Davos opens his mouth and closes his hands around Stannis’ tunic.

He only kisses Davos harder after Davos pulls back to catch his breath.

“My onion knight,” Stannis breathes. “How did you miss this?”

Davos draws a shaky breath. “I don’t know. How did you miss it?”

Stannis doesn’t answer. He crowds Davos against the wall behind him instead and tilts his head for another kiss that leaves Davos flushed and clinging to Stannis.

“I am your king,” Stannis tells him, pulling back the leg Davos had caught between his own, “and I would have you, Davos.”

“As I said-”

“I don’t want your duty in this. I will not have you out of misplaced duty; I want your affections, but I need your honesty, as I always have. I will not spend another night in bed with someone who feels it is a duty. You don’t owe me this.

“I am your king,” he adds. “You will not lie.”

Despite the empty, distracting ache in his belly, Davos doesn’t simply say yes and haul Stannis’ body against his own.

“You are my king,” he replies, forcing his thoughts into order, “and I never lie to you. So believe me when I say this isn’t duty.”

Unclenching one fist, he reaches up to touch Stannis’ face. Stannis shaves regularly, but he’s been so busy he’s had to let his beard grow. Davos’ shortened fingers brush Stannis’ prickly skin, and Stannis closes his eyes, turning his head into Davos’ touch.

How can this only be what a king is owed? Davos wonders.

The wall at Davos’ back is cold stone.

Stannis is hot even with space between them.

“I’ve never known you to stop something you started,” Davos tells him. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you didn’t start with this.”

He does pull Stannis against him now, and Stannis lets himself be pulled in.

“I hope you locked the door,” Davos says as Stannis bends to kiss his neck. He can’t help but remember the woman from Tyrion’s room and think that just a brush of Stannis’ lips makes his heart beat faster than anything she actually did.

Stannis pauses. “I did not.”

Without warning, he drags Davos with him to the door. He locks it swiftly, and Davos finds himself backed against another wall. He cups Stannis’ face, keeping it up where Davos can kiss him, and Stannis leans into him.

They’re both getting hard, and Davos hurts with how much he wants this.

His breath comes in pants, a feeling like he has to speak washing over him but bringing nothing to say as Stannis pulls away and watches him, eyes bright in the low light.

“What have you promised to do today?”

Davos tries to remember but can’t think of anything other than the bruises Stannis’ fingers are leaving on Davos’ waist. “What’s more important than my king?”

Stannis quirks one of his crooked smiles at Davos and dips his head to kiss the point of Davos’ jaw below his ear. “Good. I’ll need you for the day.”

The fingers on Davos’ waist clench harder, and Stannis’ words sound like an oath.

xx

“This?” Stannis asks, touching his fingertips to Davos’ naked hip.

Davos swallows. “Yours.”

Stannis smiles as he rubs his thumb in slow circles over the rise of Davos’ hip, and Davos’ heart expands a little further, pressing hard against his ribs. It’s unusual to see Stannis smile, rare for happiness to be the cause.

He’s kept this smile for longer than any Davos has ever seen.

It’s good to see. This softer side of Stannis is hidden from Stannis himself, but it surfaces every so often. With Shireen when he teaches her. When he looks at Renly sometimes and remembers how close they came to killing each other.

And now, in Davos’ bed, when he looks at Davos.

“What of these?” Stannis asks, lifting Davos’ right hand and spreading Davos’ unshortened fingers. “Who do they serve, Davos?”

“They serve you, Your Grace.”

“And this?” Stannis presses, his free hand reaching for Davos’ left. “Does this hand serve me as well?”

“It does.”

Stannis leans forward and dips his head but stops just above Davos’ lips. He’s lighter than a man of his size ought to be; he still hardly eats even when Davos brings him things. The points of his hips are sharp under Davos’ palms.His weight on Davos’ chest isn’t enough to belong to the king of Westeros, let alone a man who carries himself like he has the world on his shoulders as Stannis does.

Yet it is.

“And the rest of you?” Stannis looks down at him, confident and assessing at once. “How much of you is mine, Davos?”

Davos slides his hands up to meet in the dip in Stannis’ back and thinks about the enduring fear in men who’ve starved that any meal may be taken from them, the potential for each bite to be the last.

Stannis doesn’t let fear rule him, but it does gnaw at him.

“I am yours entirely. Have I failed to show you?” Davos asks. He isn’t certain if he’s speaking honestly or as a tease; with Stannis, there may not be a distinction.

Stannis’ gaze doesn’t waver. “I wonder if you know what you’re saying or if you just want to assure me so I continue.”

“You know it’s not the latter.”

“Do I?”

“I’m very good at waiting.” He cranes his neck, nearly reaching Stannis’ lips before Stannis pulls back. “And I always know what I’m saying when I speak to you.”

Redirecting his efforts at getting a kiss, Davos reaches his hands lower, and Stannis groans, distracted enough for Davos to stretch up enough to kiss him.

Stannis shifts his hips and digs in with his fingertips, trying to push into Davos’ hands and rub against him at the same time.

“You still think like a smuggler,” he chides against Davos’ lips. “I had plans, Davos.”

“My apologies. Should I stop?” 

Stannis shivers. “No.”

It’s for the best that Stannis only seems mildly interested in the fact that Davos keeps oil by his bed. There will be enough to talk about that later, after Davos has found out what sounds Stannis makes when he comes. Stannis can ask Davos about it and all the other habits Davos began when he couldn’t sleep because the thought of Stannis had moved from Davos’ head and taken over his bedroom.

Until then, Davos has two hands full of his king, and Stannis is sucking a mark into his neck, one hand wrapped around both of them.

Davos wraps a hand around Stannis’ just feel him.

Stannis squeezes a little harder, and Davos bites his tongue against the urge to beg.

He’s going to embarrass himself; he knows he is. But Stannis’ grasp is sure and Davos can’t even think of anything other than Stannis to try to make himself last.

Davos can’t find it in him to mind.

xx

Two days later, as Davos tries to ignore the way his muscles twinge every time he moves, Renly catches his eye and winks.

Davos doesn’t respond to him, but when Loras comes up to him later and offers him a jar “for aches such as the one in your back, no doubt from all your hard work with the king,” he takes it.

And when he checks on Shireen in her room, she smiles him and points to the three figurines next to the vase from Loras.

“They’re happy now,” she tells him.

Davos agrees and kisses the top of her head. “Come along. Your father has a task for you.”

“But I want to see Lady Stark when she arrives,” Shireen protests. “She studied with the Faceless Ones!”

“Please don’t say that so happily when you’re pleading with your father. He’ll think you mean to do the same.”

“What if I do?”

Davos groans. “Please don’t say that either.”

Shireen smiles up at him, enjoying the idea of riling her father, and Davos lets himself smile back. She won’t be so happy when she finds out Stannis means to test her on her knowledge of bread prices. It’s good to let her be happy while she can.

If Davos wonders, later, if Stannis was unusually lenient in letting Shireen leave early to wait for the Stark envoy, he doesn’t wonder long. Stannis is already pulling out the books he’s using to balance the kingdom’s money against what the Iron Bank is owed.

As he does, a much smaller book falls to the floor. Its cover is plain black save the concentric circles woven into the front cover in gold.

“So that’s where it got to!”

Davos bends down to pick it up, pleased to have found it at last.

Having set the ledgers down, Stannis peers at the book over Davos’ shoulder.

“I don’t recognize it.”

“You wouldn’t, Your Grace. It isn’t a king’s book- it’s mine.” Davos feels Stannis’ confusion and turns to face him. “After I learned to read and write, I kept a diary,” he explains. “A record of all you accomplished.”

“And why is it in here?”

“For safekeeping. A Hand doesn’t keep records in the Keep, but a king’s books are important. You don’t burn a king’s books as easily as you burn a Hand’s.” He looks down at the book and runs his fingers over the gold design. “If anything happened, an account of your reign would survive.”

When he looks up, Stannis is looking down at the book like it holds some great secret.

“The design on the front is reminiscent of an onion, isn’t it?” he asks.

“It would mark the book out as mine too easily if I’d used an actual onion.”

Stannis nods, his eyes still locked on the book. “I would read it,” he says slowly.

There’s room to object, but Davos can’t find a reason why he would. There’s nothing in the book Stannis will object to.

Once it’s in his hands, Stannis finally looks up at Davos. “After the Stark girl’s been greeted, what have you promised to do?”

Arya Stark is supposed to have a message for him from Jon Snow, the master at arms is interested in continuing their quarrel over the best type of weapon for Shireen to hide on her person, Brienne of Tarth suggested another practice bout, both Lannister brothers are being held in less dangerous cells for different objectionable behaviors, the kitchen’s staff is riled up about a significant portion of their ale disappearing after Sandor Clegane paid a visit...

The Hand isn’t meant to put out fires, but if he doesn’t, the king will have to hear about it all.

“I’m very busy,” Davos says.

Stannis nods, accepting this. “Yet I am the king.”

“You are.”

“Then you will attend me as long as is required..”

Davos nods, keeping his expression as neutral as he can. “As you command, Your Grace.”

“With that settled,” Stannis continues as if he doesn’t know Davos is trying not to laugh at the thought of telling the Lannisters he’s sorry for not coming to argue with them about being freed earlier but he finally found a way to get the king to sleep in his bed, “the ledgers. The Iron Bank’s figures are different from ours. I need you to keep track of the totals while I look at the parts that comprise them…”

Davos’ eyes hurt just thinking about the hours of numbers ahead of him, but Stannis is resolved to find the discrepancy.

For the sake of Davos not having a week-long headache alone, Arya Stark can’t arrive soon enough.