act ii . chapter xli

STORM'S END
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LORD ROBERT BARATHEON ARRIVED at his ancestral home, the castle Storm's End late one black, thundery night. The merchant ship he boarded was iron clad, but it had taken some damage from the rough waters. Robert himself had even taken a few hits when he was sleeping and the ship hit a ginormous wave. He fell from the cot and hit his cheekbone in the corner of a table, leaving the skin around his eye black and blue. It was tender to the touch, but he had experienced worse.

Candles lit the windows of Storm's End that night. Stannis ordered them lit for a fortnight in expectancy of its years absent Lord. The rowdy waters crashed against the thick-set wall of the castle towers. The castle itself was the strongest in Westeros. Storm, nor water, nor dragonfire could bring the wall down as Orys Baratheon would have told.

He was now a rebel. This was his castle, but the law said the he was not allowed to have it. Robert knew that the law could not take the allegiance of his people. The king could say that Storm's End was not his, but he could never take it from him. Not when his people were inside.

When his ship docked, the waves rocked them all around even harder. Robert stayed steady as he walked across the boarding plank, for he was a common goer of this coast and strong enough to do so. The Valemen swayed and gripped the railing, doing their best not to fall over. The ship itself reeked with vomit from the men who were not used to the rocking of the boat and the spray of the sea water.

At the end of the dock, Robert's younger brother, Stannis Baratheon stood, arms crossed and waiting. He was seventeen and still had not smiled once in his entire life. He was a tall, slender young man with hair as black as Robert's. He kept it
short and his face was shaven clean. He had a grim expression his face and his arms sat crossed on his chest. His black eyes were hard and unrelenting.

"Stannis!" Robert boomed, slapping his brother's slender shoulders with warm fervor. Stannis's expression remained cold.

"Robert." His voice was grim and almost angry. There was no love there. There was no love in Robert's greeting either. It sounded awkward and forced. But Robert tried his best to be jovial around his brothers. There was never much love between the three of them. Especially after the deaths of his parents. Robert went away to foster under Jon Arryn and it made Stannis even harder. Renly was only a baby when the maester and the wetnurse took him and raised him away from his brothers. .

Stannis was born emotionless. He was stiff and rigid in his ways and had no sympathy for others. His face was long and it always wore a frown.

"House Baratheon is in open rebellion," Stannis stated. Robert couldn't pinpoint the way his brother felt about it. Robert dropped the happy façade and his face was as cold as Stannis's.

"You say that as if you are not apart of this House," Robert said with a glare. There was still nothing on Stannis's face. He stared up at Robert as the Valemanen unloaded supplies behind him.

"You made me choose, Robert," Stannis said, his words drawn out and low. "I stood here in charge of our family's castle while you, the Lord, stayed out gallivanting as a twenty-year-old forsterling. You made me choose between this family and the crown. If you havent noticed, the crown is our family."

Robert sighed with faux difficulty. "Oaths be damned, Stannis what did you fucking choose?" His words were rash and not thought out. The offensiveness of them made Stannis grimace even deeper.

"You've docked in this port, have you not, Robert?"

"Yes, I have. Does that mean that you have graced me with your rigid loyalty, little brother?" Stannis didn't react. He stared at Robert for a few moments before speaking again.

"Your lords are waiting inside," he clipped, turning on his heel and walking back up the wooden planks of the pier, water crashing at his ankles. Robert took one last look around at the thundery sky before turning and following after his brother.

A sense of nostalgia fell over Robert as he mounted a horse and rode through the port town with Stannis and the greeting party that consisted of the castle Maester Cressen, the Captain of the Baratheon Guard, Yaron Horlie, and Renly. Robert never did acknowledge the boy. He was at war and had no time to amuse a seven-year-old. Memories of Steffon's Baratheon filled his mind as the gates to the castle walls began to raise, the clicking of the heavy chains beating at Robert's ear drums.

When they rode through the gates, the nostalgia had put Robert in such a daze that he had half expected to see his mother, Cassana Baratheon waiting for her three boys, holding her newest son in her arms. It was almost seven years ago, but Robert could remember her black hair, rosy cheeks, and crystal blue eyes. He remembered her warm embrace and her words of encouragement. He even missed her scolds.

Anger arose in him. He hated being here at Storm's End. All it even did was remind him of the parents he so sorely missed and the ruined relationships with his brother that the loss had caused. The though of his mother seeing them today sickened. She would slap him on the wrists for starting a war. She would wrap him fiercely for fathering a bastard. But she would never get over the way her sons treated each other. Neither would Steffon.

The poor man had tried for years to get Robert and Stannis to bond. To at least make Stannis smile. The last letter ever received from him held a tale of how they had picked up a divine fool from across the narrow sea called Patch Face for the court in hopes that the fool would put a smile on Stannis's angry face. Steffon wrote, "Only a boy, yet nimble as a monkey and clever as a dozen courtiers. He juggles and riddles and does magic, and he can sing prettily in four tongues. We have bought his freedom and hope to bring him home with us. Robert will be delighted with him, and perhaps in time he will even teach Stannis how to laugh."

In the bay, just in sight of Storm's End Steffon hard died along with Cassana and one hundred others, Robert, Stannis, and Renly watching. The fool, Patches was the only one to live. A fisherman found on the shores weeks later. He was not the same as Lord Steffon described in the letter. The water changed him. He was speaking only in rhyme. He sang songs that made no sense. He didn't form any real sentences. He was fat and soft. He walked sideways and twitched and shook. They had taken Patch Face for dead, for he wasn't breathing and his skin, tattooed with motley (how he got his name "Patchface"), was clammy cold. The castellan, Ser Harbert had suggested that they let him die when they found that he was not already. Maester Cressen refused, for it was Steffon and Cassana's last gift to their sons.

In the courtyard, instead of Cassana and baby Renly, it was Lords Florent, Buckler, Caron, Dondarrion, Errol, Estermont, Penrose, Selmy, Staedmont, Tarth, and Wilde.

"Lord Dondarrion!" Robert greeted, stepping off his horse's and shaking the man's hand. "How is your boy?"

Lord Dondarrion chuckled. "Still betrothed to Allyria Dayne no matter the war," he assured, keeping his ground. Robert took note of that. He didn't care who his son grew up to fuck, as long as his men fought behind him in this war. He smiled and put his hand over Dondarrion's assuring him that he was on the same page.

"Lord Selwyn." Robert shook Lord Tarth's hand. He looked to all of them. "I suppose you know where our lord Jon Connington is?"

"I suppose Griff is still kissing ass at the Red Keep," lord Selmy scoffed, his voice jesting. Robert looked at him with a half-smile.

"And where do you think your brother is?"

"No matter the king, a sworn brother of the kingsguard is a great honor and a tiring duty. Barristan will stay out of these talks."

Robert nodded. "Very well, my lord." He took Lord Florent's hand and shook as he grimaced. "That swelled cunt of a lord drinks with. Me. He hunts with me. He rides with me. He gets one taste of court and now he wants to eat Rhaegar Targaryen's ass. You heard it here men. Jon Connington will die for this."

He shook the rest of the hands of his more prominent lords and nodded to the rest of the smaller ones. "Let's take this inside the Hall, my lords. Stannis, have some meat and salt brought forth for these fine lords. Order for wine to be brought. We all have some discussing to do."

Stannis did as Robert told him as all the Lords filed in behind Robert into the main hall. "My lord, wouldn't you like to rest from your travels?" Maester Cressen asked Robert as he seated himself on his throne of salted wood. "No, Cressen. I have war to get back to. Wine, meat, and bread will do it."

Maester Cressen bowed to him and turned to the serving wrenches and gave th same order Stannis had given them. Stannis grimaced at the Robert's ignorance of his deeds. Cressen sat on one side of Robert and Stannis on the other. The discussion started with the attendance.

"Who is not here besides the dragon cock-licking shit Griff?" Robert asked, his voice thundering through the halls that Robert adorned with his stag and boar mounts and pelts of every kind. Lord Dondarrion stood up.

"Lord Swann is gathering all the forces from the Marches," he informed. Robert's fingers gripped on the pelted armrest.

"All your forces? As in Selmy, Dondarrion, Caron, and Swann?"

"Yes, my lord. Our forces are duly equipped with archers and swordsmen. We are in need of no immediate weaponry."

Robert smiled, scratching at the otter pelt on the arm of his chair. "Good men." The Marcher lords were historically one for being the force to hold back the Dornish from the reach and from the Stormlands. The archers were legendary. "Anyone else?"

Lord Errol stood up. "There are no Lords Grandison, Caffren, or Fell, my lord."

Robert's brow furrowed. "Well, we can't have that, now can we?" He looked over to Maester Cressen. "Did you receive any word?"

Cressen shook his head. "No, my Lord, I have not." Robert stood up.

"Has any man in this hall received word from Lords Caffren, Fell or Grandison?"

There was no response but unknowing looks and eyes of ignorance. "Alright then,' Robert said. "Fell, Grandison, Connington, and Caffren are traitors to House Baaratheon and the Stormlands until proven not."

"What is our course of action, my lord," Stannis asked Robert. Robert sat back down and took a horn of wine from one of the serving women and took the entire thing down his throat. He motioned for another. When she filled the horn this time, he took only a big swallow.

"Lord Stark has gone north to gather his army. He will be marrying Catelyn Tully to keep Hoster in the fold. Arryn called his banners, but a few of them held up in Gulltown, as I assume you all have heard. Words travel faster than boats around here. He took back his people, as well as his port, killing the traitor lord," Robert said, his voice calm as he relaxed on his throne.

"The three will be meeting at Riverrrun."

"And us?" Stannis asked.

"You will stay with Storm's Ends no matter. I will not lose our ancestral home. And neither will I have traitor lords on my land." He stood up from his throne and drained his horn, throwing it onto the ground.

"Our brothers-in-arms will not see us at Riverrun until we root all these traitors out and kill them!" The lords unsheathed their swords and raised them into the air, shouting sounds of praise and zeal. "Jon Connington will pay for his treacherous actions! We will root him out of the Red Keep and out into the open. Any man who tells me where the three traitor lords are will expect gold and wine from me!"

Robert took Stannis's goblet of wine from his hand as he sat in sullen silence and drained it, red wine spilling down his beard and chainmail as his lords cheered with battle readiness. Robert only hoped their men would share the same fervor as their lords when blood is spilled.