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Ned Stark’s forces had come and the Tyrell host soundly defeated. To Davos’ mind Stannis had been disappointed that the Baratheon soldiers had been too weak to contribute materially to the battle.
“It was not Ned Stark that won the day,” Stannis muttered as he closed a heavy tome.
“I’m sure King Robert is grateful that you kept Storm’s End out of Targaryen hands for the entirety of the war,” Davos said. It would not have been right to stroke Erline where she perched and yet it was tempting to comfort the daemon the way he would his own.
A smuggler-turned-knight probably shouldn’t harbor such tenderness towards his liege lord, but Davos was surprising himself a great deal these days.
“It is not myself that I credit for the survival of Storm’s End,” Stannis said as though his heart were heavy. “The truth of it is we were at death’s very door just before your arrival.”
Sunniva tensed as though she wanted to fly to Stannis. Davos smothered the sympathetic urge to reach out and touch Lord Stannis.
“I do not need any gratitude from Lord Stark or your brother,” replied Davos. “Your lordship has already honored me.”
“A person deserves their proper due, be they born a lord or a peasant,” Stannis said. “If Ned Stark had not been such an intimate friend of my brother’s I doubt he’d be given the title of Hero of Storm’s End as readily as he has been.”
“Perhaps not,” Davos allowed. “But I do not need to have songs sung about me. What you have done for me I will remember my entire life.”
“More like what I have done to you,” Stannis eyed Davos’ left hand.
“That too,” Davos chuckled. “They go hand in hand, if you’ll pardon the awful jest.”
“How you can be so sanguine,” Stannis shook his head and Erline nipped at his hair affectionately. “After all that has transpired.”
Davos was saved from making any kind of reply by Sunniva who suddenly turned her head, “It seems we are not alone in this library, your lordship.”
Stannis and Erline nearly jumped from where they sat. “What is the meaning-?”
“There must be witches afoot,” Sunniva continued. “For I spy a little daemon, but I can’t see any human.”
Van scurried up the thick drapes as a field mouse with a bushy tail.
“A witch has infiltrated Storm’s End!” Davos played along. “Or perhaps the Children of the Forest have returned. I’ve heard tales that their daemons can go even further than that of a witch.”
A giggle muffled by fabric.
“At first I thought it Van, but it can’t be my little hatchling,” said Sunniva. “He was a beautiful blue and black butterfly at breakfast and told me he was to be one all day.”
“No you are quite mistaken, Sunniva,” Erline said. “Van was to be a fawn or a kid goat this midday for he wanted to inspect the yard with Lord Renly and parade about.”
“Either way we have a witch on our hands,” Sunniva observed. “For here is a wandering daemon with no one in sight.”
“It’s me and Van! We’re here,” Renly poked his head out of the drapes. Van shifted to a shaggy brown chick that Davos thought he recognized the type but found he did not. “I’m not a witch, I’m a good hider.”
A strange mix of emotions came over Lord Stannis’ face. “Being adept at hiding was a valuable skill when Storm’s End was besieged. But you cannot hide anymore. Maester Cressen was likely very concerned about your whereabouts and sneaking away from your lessons is not conduct becoming of a lord.”
Privately Davos thought Stannis’ tone overly sharp, but then again Davos had not been the one holding down a keep through starvation and degradation knowing the former might take his youngest brother. It was not his place to rebuke his liege lord, but the shine of unshed tears in Renly’s eyes wouldn’t allow him to be silent. “And if you hide too well how are we to continue our tally of Fox and Geese?” Davos knelt to speak to Renly face to face. “I haven’t forgotten you have beaten me by two games and I’m keen to win back my honor. It’s only sportsman-like that we know where you are.”
“And you promised to teach us a Lyseni card game,” Van added shyly. “The one Captain Saan taught you.”
“And I distinctly recall a promise being made about having an Oware board brought from the Summer Islands by way of Essos for Lord Renly’s amusement,” Sunniva hopped down to the floor to play with Van. “With King Robert on the throne ships will come and go quite freely now.”
“How merry we shall all be,” Erline agreed. “All the ships will come in and the court will not have to worry about a madman who fancies himself a dragon.” Yet for all her dry remarks she too joined Sunniva and Van to amuse Renly.
“Is Robert going to bring all those things here? Or are we going to live in King’s Landing?” Renly worried his bottom lip.
“Storm’s End is safest for the time being,” Stannis said. “Until Robert decides otherwise we shall remain here and everything will be brought to us.”
“Oh good,” Renly sighed, nestled on both sides by daemons.
Davos brought a cushion from one of the chairs so Renly didn’t have to leave his hiding spot then he thought the better of it and brought a second. “Here you are, my little lord. Make yourself comfy while your brother goes over the accounts.”
Stannis’ mouth twisted as though he were about to object, but then thought the better of it. “When you’re bored, you may leave to attend to your lessons.”
That leave taking did not seem to be in the immediate future as Renly pulled out a sweetbun from his pocket and began telling the daemons, all in a half-whisper, a story Maester Cressen had read to him the day before.
“He longs to be near you,” Davos told his lord in a low voice when Stannis returned to his writing desk.
“Nonsense, he longs to be away from his lessons,” Stannis replied in an equally hushed tone so that Renly would not overhear their conversation. “It has precious little to do with me.”
“You are wrong, my lord,” insisted Davos. “He could have hid in any room in the castle and he chose the one you are most like to be found in. Why do you think little Van shifts to a bird form when you are near?”
“I cannot account for why children or their daemons do anything.” Stannis frowned, puzzled.
“Children’s daemons often change into a similar form of the daemon of those they love and admire. Your little brother is showing his great regard for you when that happens.”
“Or a symptom of his flighty nature.”
Davos considered it a victory that Stannis was not outright denying the notion. “Trust me, my lord, I saw it quite often in King’s Landing growing up. Regardless of his daemon’s eventual settling, if he did not esteem you then his daemon would behave and appear very differently in your presence. A child can mask their face, but it’s far harder to keep a child’s daemon from showing their feelings.”
Stannis looked down at the accounts and Davos worried for a moment that he had crossed a line. While Davos had always enjoyed an easy knack for making friends, Stannis was a world apart. A liege lord was new in Davos’ experience, though perhaps not entirely unlike serving under a captain, but the normal gulf that Davos had felt between himself and the gentry seemed nearly nonexistent with Stannis. The very day after he delivered the onions Stannis had treated Davos as his confidante without hesitation.
“Thank you, Ser Seaworth,” Stannis did not raise his gaze to meet Davos’ but he did incline his head in his direction. “I am not familiar with children other than Renly and I fear the war has done him ill that can never be recovered from.”
“He may be scarred from the events. I won’t lie and say otherwise.” Davos gave in to the urge he’d been fighting the last few weeks and laid his hand on Stannis’ shoulder. “But he will heal and continue to grow in no small part because you protected him during the siege. Take care not to push him away when he looks to you for comfort.”
Stannis had stiffened initially at the contact yet by the end Davos’ speech he had relaxed. Davos could feel the weight of Erline’s stare from across the room. “I do not want to spoil him.”
“I find it difficult to imagine you would spoil him.” Davos dared to squeeze the shoulder just the slightest bit and leaned down closer. “You still have a very fit sense of justice. You would condone immoral behavior in your brother. But the occasional indulgence like today is not going to spoil him.”
“I suppose in deference to your experiences I suppose I have no choice but to take it under advisement,” Stannis conceded with a thick swallow.
Much later when Davos bedded down in chambers he still could not believe were for his private use, Sunniva told him, “Erline sends her thanks for whatever you said in the library. She believes Lord Stannis to be in better spirits on the days you’re able to speak with him in private.”
“I didn’t say much of anything, an upstart smuggler-knight doesn’t have much counsel worth a lord’s ear, still you may tell her it is no hardship. Lord Stannis is like no man I have ever known.”
Sunniva laughed and snorted. “That he is.”