After hearing Sansa introduce Illyrio's background, Stannis frowned as he sized up the fat man and said, "Where is Varys? Did you take part in his scheme to confuse Rhaegar's bloodline?"
Illyrio was struck dumb. Then his plump face cycled through pale, bluish, and red. He raised a carrot-thick finger and pointed at Stannis, trembling as he said, "Do not slander me, and do not try to change the subject!His Majesty Aegon was raised from childhood by Ser Clinton and Sister Ashara. His identity was personally acknowledged by the Dragon Queen and Prince Doran. By what right, and in what capacity, do you question him?
Hand over His Majesty Aegon at once!"
"I am the lawful king of the Seven Kingdoms," Stannis said, his gaze sharp as a blade. "As for you, why is a foreign merchant so enthusiastically involved in the affairs of the Seven Kingdoms?What is your relationship with Aegon, that you are even more eager than Sansa Stark herself?"
"I do not deny that in funding His Majesty Aegon I had thoughts of gaining a title and lands. But I am a righteous merchant and an old friend of House Targaryen. Helping the Targaryens seek justice is also my ideal."
Illyrio looked indignant, his eyes clear, his tone resolute, every bit the image of a loyal minister wronged and misunderstood.
"Stop changing the subject," Sansa said impatiently, waving her hand before questioning Stannis. "Why not release Aegon immediately? I have already done as you said. The True Dragon Alliance has clearly collapsed and can no longer threaten your throne."
"Have you forgotten?" Stannis replied curtly. "I said that once Davos obtained military command of the False Dragon Alliance, Aegon would be placed with a third party, namely under Jon Stark's supervision.
Only after the matter of King's Landing is concluded, and after you swear to exile yourselves, will I let him go."
"That is what you said at the time, but you should not have taken Aegon away from Winterfell. Once he leaves Winterfell, how can Jon guarantee Aegon's treatment and safety?"
"Do you think I will remain in Winterfell forever?" Stannis countered.
"You could leave a group of men in Winterfell to oversee Aegon, just as you did with the Black Reaper," Sansa said.
Stannis glanced at Jon and said coldly, "Sorry, but your credibility is not worth the risk. I would not feel at ease leaving him in Winterfell."
The words were clearly directed at him. Jon felt both embarrassed and indignant.
His face flushed as he said, "Your Majesty Stannis, that is going too far, is it not?
The Dreadfort has not yet been taken, and I have not completed my revenge against Roose Bolton, yet I still sent two thousand cavalry south with you.
In the entire North, there are not even three thousand cavalry at this moment. What more do you want?"
Stannis replied evenly, "I want you, in the capacity of Robb's heir, to rally the river lords. I want ten thousand Northern soldiers to march south with me."
Jon's forces were composed of three parts: the wildlings from the Wall, the stoneborn of Skagos, and the private troops brought by the Northern nobles.
The two thousand cavalry he gave Stannis all came from the various Northern houses. The wildlings, the stoneborn, and even the battered clansmen were all left in Winterfell.
By Stannis's thinking, Jon was not only to support his southern campaign with full force, but also to replace Sansa and rebuild the alliance of "stag, wolf, fish, and eagle."
After all, Robb was not only King in the North. The river lords, including his maternal family, House Tully, had all sworn loyalty to him.
Of course, Stannis was not foolish. He had never expected to reap the entire harvest. Whatever number of people Jon could help him win over would be a gain.
But Jon refused.
He refused to commit his full forces to march south with Stannis, and he refused to write a letter urging the Blackfish at Riverrun to surrender.
Jon would have been a fool to exhaust himself helping Stannis at a time like this.
And the Blackfish was Sansa's great-uncle, with no relation to him whatsoever.
In the silence, Sansa suddenly asked, "Where do you intend to take Aegon?"
To King's Landing, to the Red Keep, to put him on public trial and then exile him. Unfortunately, a trace of helplessness surfaced in Stannis's deep, icy-blue eyes before vanishing in an instant.
His face was expressionless, his voice flat and rigid. "To White Harbor. We will sail south. I am returning to Storm's End. That is the ancestral seat of House Baratheon and cannot fall into the hands of outsiders."
The North had never been his destination. Gaining the loyalty of the North, then leading the Starks south through the Neck, rallying the river lords and even the Vale lords along the way, and rebuilding an alliance centered on the stag, an alliance of "stag, wolf, fish, and eagle," had been his original and most cherished ambition.
Of course, the present situation was not the worst either. Aegon was out of the picture, the North was loyal, and the Iron Bank had even granted him effectively limitless funding, allowing him to raise troops madly and recruit seventy or eighty thousand mercenaries. In the end, he could still fight his way to the gates of King's Landing.
The discussion ended on bad terms. However, before leaving, Jon stayed alone in Stannis's command tent for a quarter of an hour.
"Your Majesty Stannis, I have long had a question," Jon said, voicing the doubt that had troubled him for so long. "Winterfell and King's Landing are separated by thousands of miles. How did you know Aegon's military plans, even the exact positions of the northern and southern armies?"
"I have my own channels of information," Stannis said vaguely, clearly unwilling to elaborate.
"Was it Maester Theomore?"
Seeing Stannis's pupils constrict abruptly, Jon knew he had guessed correctly. He shook his head with a bitter smile and said, "So Lord Manderly's warning was right after all.
I really should have listened to him back then, refused Maester Theomore's service, and chosen an apprentice from a Northern noble house instead.
Even if his ability were a bit lacking, at least loyalty would have been guaranteed."
"Maester Theomore is very loyal to the king," Stannis said coolly.
"But he is even more loyal to the king on the Iron Throne!" Jon rubbed his numb face hard and sighed. "Did you never consider where his information actually comes from?
The Northern nobles have never had much contact with the crownlands' lords. In ordinary times, one might go a whole year without receiving a single letter from the crownlands.
Even when letters did arrive, they were merely compilations of news, with no timeliness at all.
Moreover, outdated political news is something only Winterfell is qualified to receive and send."
In fact, it was not only the North where information was cut off. In an age when communication relied on ravens and papermaking had not yet been invented, information flowed slowly throughout all Seven Kingdoms.
For example, Maester Pyros of Dragonstone was specifically responsible for collecting news from across the Seven Kingdoms, but the information he received was more like a "monthly digest." What major events happened in the Vale this month, what news came out of the Reach this month.
Stannis's eyes flickered, and he said indifferently, "No matter where he got the information, as long as it is true and useful to me, that is enough."
"You…" Jon widened his eyes and suddenly realized the truth. He knew Siomore's motives were impure, but he would rather let Cersei gain some advantage just to get rid of Aegon.
"That's right. I have always been in contact with King's Landing. The ravens from the Red Keep brought news of the True Dragon Alliance. After I met King Stannis, I informed him at the first opportunity."
Maester Siomore's red, chubby face was filled with calm frankness.
After returning to Winterfell, Jon immediately ordered his arrest and had him brought to the great hall for trial.
"So it was you!" Sansa's expression was complicated, filled with obvious disbelief as well as anger and killing intent.
"But you are a maester. You swore loyalty to your liege and vowed to harbor no divided loyalties."
"I did not betray Lord Manderly, nor did I betray Duke Jon," Siomore said calmly.
"Colluding with Cersei, and that is not betrayal?"
"Queen Regent Cersei is the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. The traitors are Stannis and Aegon. I am helping my own liege correct his mistakes."
Siomore showed no shame at all. His voice was steady and loud, without the slightest tremor.
His composure, however, enraged Sansa. Her face twisted with fury as she cursed, "Traitor, execute him!"
"Traitor, execute him!" The wildlings, the men of the North, and the knights of the Vale all shouted angrily in the hall.
"Silence!"
Jon stopped the crowd and coldly looked at the red-faced, fat maester. "Do you still remember your maester's oath?"
"Heh heh, Lord Jon, do you remember the Night's Watch oath?" Siomore chuckled softly. "Of course, you did it for family, and you even died once.
But do you think I sprang out of a crack in a stone?
After putting on the chain, a maester must abandon his former surname, having a name but no family name, and entrust all loyalty to his liege.
Yet I cannot forget the name I used for decades, 'Siomore Lannister.'
I know I come from Lannisport, and that I still have family, friends, and kin in the Westerlands.
For the sake of family, I am willing, like you, to break my vows once, and I am also willing to die once. You may take my head."
Jon felt as sick as if he had swallowed a fly. The other man was that resolute, and what he said was not wrong, leaving Jon unable to erupt.
"Put on the black and go to the Wall," he sighed.
Daenerys gently patted the long wooden crate made of fresh pine from newly recruited soldiers and suppressed a laugh. "Is this the dwarf's coffin?"
"He's not dead yet." Missandei stood in the top garden, where flowers were in full bloom and fruit hung heavy on the branches, looking around at everything with curiosity.
"I am not dead… yet." The dwarf's weak voice came from inside the crate.
Two Unsullied stepped forward, lifted the lid, then carried Tyrion out, wrapped in a thick down quilt, and laid him on the sunlit lawn.
"Ah!" Jiqi, who had eagerly crowded over to watch the spectacle, suddenly covered her nose and jumped back as if shocked. "It stinks. Even the dwarf's corpse has gone bad."
The sky-blue feather quilt was stained with thick yellow fluid and dark red blood. It was like unwrapping bamboo leaves from a rice dumpling, sticky and viscous, even drawing strands between the quilt and flesh. A strange stench of fishy, salty rot mixed with herbs spread immediately.
It was enough to make one retch.
After flying in the sky for two days, Tyrion looked even more miserable.
It was as if a live chicken had been thrown straight into a vat of boiling oil and fried until charred, then smeared with a layer of expired, rancid tomato sauce. Blackened and sticky.
"Your Majesty, save me. I feel terrible. It is like a ball of fire has been born in my belly."
The dwarf stared with his mismatched eyes, one emerald green and one pitch black. His pleading and pain almost overflowed from their sockets.
After checking his temperature, old Aemon cried out, "By the Seven, his body temperature exceeds forty-five degrees in dragon units!"
Then he turned to Daenerys and said, "Your Majesty, save him. Medicine is useless. Only a large-scale holy healing spell will work."
Daenerys neither confirmed nor denied. She moved closer to the dwarf, carefully sensing the fire magic still active within his organs. She removed the lobster glove from her right hand, placed her palm over his chest, and loosely curled her fingers.
Without a sound, faint yellow strands of fire drifted out from all parts of the dwarf's body and flowed into Daenerys's palm.
In a short while, they condensed into a black-red fireball the size of a ping-pong ball.
"Fire witchcraft combined with a curse. Melisandre really wanted you dead."
She clenched her right hand, and the fireball hissed as it vanished. On her jade-white palm, however, a dark red skull imprint remained.
The skull's mouth was still opening and closing.
Dragon Spirit plus True Dragon Roar!
The skin of her palm trembled lightly. The skull mark turned into specks of dark red ash that drifted down, vanishing into the air before they could reach the grass.
(End of chapter)
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