Davos II

The first case of the Red Rot that Davos ever saw in King's Landing was the princess Shireen. A homely girl, but cheerful, who seemed to be enjoying a surfeit of suitors in the Red Keep. Gallant young knights like Loras Tyrell and Guyard Morrigen begged for her favor, which she was happy to grant, though the king liked it not. Young men from across the realm sang her songs and brought her gifts. That all stopped when she started showing the signs.

The pale, cracked flesh that ran from her cheek down her neck, the mark of a case of greyscale the little princess had in infancy, grew inflamed and began to weep. From ravens in the Reach, they knew that was the first sign, though the sores were rather localized in Princess Shireen's case. Lord Alester Florent, Hand of the King, suggested the girl be confined at once, and the court flee to Dragonstone. Her royal father would hear none of it.

This was not the court of Robert's day, crowded with office-seeking lordlings and knights wishing to eat from the king's table, but plain and sober governance. There were no feasts nor frolics, and certainly no tourneys. In the long autumn, tax revenue was such that they managed to pay down half the debt to the Iron Bank. Elsewise, His Grace the king disdained to spend, dressing even in roughspun breeches and a plain wool doublet when he sat the Iron Throne delivering hard justice, hard but fair, if you asked Davos.

When the Red Rot came, folk begged the crown for relief, but there was naught Stannis Baratheon could do. The maesters said the disease was born of the queer warm autumn and the unwholesome air and rains falling on a land not ready to receive it. Whatever the case, Oldtown was much troubled, and from there the Reach, even as far as Stony Sept in the Riverlands.

One of Lord Davos' duties was to listen, not to the highborn lords, but to dip his ear in places well-bred men dared not. Folk in rough winesinks and humble potshops said the king's tightfisted ways brought the wrath of the gods to his own house.

Fools. Princess Shireen was the first case of the Red Rot Davos ever saw. First and last. The grey, mottled, calcified patch on her cheek wept its last and sloughed off like mud, leaving raw pink flesh beneath. The High Septon named it a miracle and the wonder of the age. Not a single person sickened in the city after that, and the Princess Shireen had ten times as many suitors after. Men might not call the princess beautiful, but she certainly wasn't ugly. One of Davos' younger sons, the king's own squire, was sweet on her. That could never be, though Davos was a lord.

All the Rainwood was his, given as a reward for good service, though the other lords on the council would never see him as more than a smuggler. Today, the council would meet, and his presence was required.

"I do not understand it, my lords," said Estermont, the Master of Laws, a courtesy only, due to his kinship with the royal line. Stannis knew the law quite well. "Dorne and the North are completely untouched, and in other places the spread is, well, er, spotty."

"Spotty?" Lord Velaryon, Master of Ships, raised a single comely eyebrow.

"Aye. About the Trident, Bracken lands are savaged, while Blackwood is untouched. How can that be, I ask you? Folk move from place to place in those parts, same as any other."

The king's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Strange, I will admit. At Storm's End there is nothing, and no cases in the capital either, save my daughter. Are there any other incidences of those marred by greyscale losing the mark of that disease?"

"Once in Lannisport," reported the Grand Maester. "It is a queer sickness, my lords, and we don't know why some are untouched while in Oldtown they have more bodies than they can bury. My order is quite overwhelmed."

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The eunuch, Varys, put his hands together and smiled. Davos was oft sent after rumors the spider brought to the king's attention. "Mayhaps I can be of assistance, my lords. A little bird in Dorne told me weirwood trees hold back the Red Rot. It might be their pollen in the air. The leaves of the weirwood are red, I would remind you."

"That doesn't mean anything," Lord Florent rumbled. "Many a leaf in autumn goes red, yet my folk at Brightwater are suffering."

The spider shrugged helplessly. "It is only a theory. Some might say a hypothesis." The strange word seemed to amuse him.

"Hypostis?" repeated Florent, quite nonplussed. "None of that nonsense of the Free Cities, Spider." The Hand paused to gather his thoughts. "Weirwoods, you said. There are no weirwoods in a desert. How have the Dornish escaped?"

Varys laughed softly into a lace handkerchief. "Oho, my Lord Hand, Dorne has not been a desert for some years. The queer rains that flooded the Mander and Honeywine fell on them as well. I am told it is a fair green land, full to bursting with carpets of wildflowers."

They bickered a while longer, until a younger maester, the one who kept the Red Keep's ravens, begged admittance. In accordance with well-established protocol, the young man in grey robes put the letter directly into the king's hand, seal unbroken.

That's pink wax, Davos observed as the king opened the letter and speedily read the contents. "It is as I feared," His Grace said after setting down the rolled-up parchment. "Lord Bolton reports the Wall has fallen and the realm is in peril. Velaryon, see that the fleet is ready. I mean to sail to White Harbor with twenty thousand men, as quick as may be. The special weapons are ready, I trust."

He did not elaborate, which was the king's way. The Hand looked pleased, as well he might, since he would sit the Iron Throne while the king was away. When all the councilers were dismissed, the king beckoned Davos forward with a two-fingered gesture. "My lord of the Rainwood," he said, more courteously than Davos of Fleabottom deserved, "I have a task for you as well."

"You do not mean for Black Betha to join with the rest of your ships, Your Grace?"

"I do not. King's Landing is exposed and will be lightly held while I'm away. This is a time of deadly danger. Monsters out of myth are coming for us all, or so Lord Bolton says. I take that man for many things, but never a liar. I want Shireen well away from here. You may stop at Dragonstone, but do not stay there. Without the marks of greyscale, she can pass for any highborn maid. The Free Cities might be best. You had friends in Lys, you said."

Not friends I would trust with a princess, but Davos could not say that aloud. "It may prove costly," he was forced to mention. Maintaining a princess in royal dignity was no easy thing. They would need a manse, servants, guards.

The king made a careless gesture. "Take all the gold you need. I have more than I could ever spend, if it were not for my profligate brother. One of your older sons could play the part of a rich merchant, yes?"

"Aye," he answered. Dale could, or Allard, without a problem. Since knights could not be smugglers, or fathers to smugglers, they had done some honest trading in their day.

"Then let them find some place for my daughter, some likely story, sister, cousin, promised bride, what have you."

Davos smiled despite himself. "Devan will be terribly jealous."

The king's smile was so faint a man who didn't know him would surely have missed it. "If I could get away with it, my lord, I'd let my squire marry my daughter."

Which squire, he did not specify. But of course, King Stannis could not get away with it, as they both well knew. His lords would howl. Still, the words meant more to Davos than any honor.