"George R. R. Martin - Ice and Fire 2 - A Clash of Kings" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin George R R)

now, one-and-twenty, and still he played his games. Look at me, I'm a king,
Cressen thought sadly. Oh, Renly, Renly, dear sweet child, do you know what
you are doing~ And would you care if you did? is there anyone who cares for
him but me~ "What reasons did the lords give for their refusals?" he asked Ser
Davos.
"Well, as to that, some gave me soft words and some blunt, some made excuses,
some promises, some only lied." He shrugged. "In the end words are just wind."
"You could bring him no hope?"
"Only the false sort, and I'd not do that," Davos said. "He had the truth from
me."
Maester Cressen remembered the day Davos had been knighted, after the siege of
Storm's End. Lord Stannis and a small garrison had held the castle for close
to a year, against the great host of the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne. Even the
sea was closed against them, watched day and night by Redwyne galleys flying
the burgundy banners of the Arbor. Within Storm's End, the horses had long
since been eaten, the dogs and cats were gone, and the garrison was down to
roots and rats. Then came a night when the moon was new and black clouds hid
the stars. Cloaked in that darkness, Davos the smuggler had dared the Redwyne
cordon and the rocks of Shipbreaker Bay alike. His little ship had a black
hull, black sails, black oars, and a hold crammed with onions and salt fish.
Little enough, yet it had kept the garrison alive long enough for Eddard Stark
to reach Storm's End and break the siege.
Lord Stannis had rewarded Davos with choice lands on Cape Wrath, a small keep,
and a knight's honors . . . but he had also decreed that he lose a joint of
each finger on his left hand, to pay for all his years of smuggling. Davos had
submitted, on the condition that Stannis wield the knife himself; he would
accept no punishment from lesser hands. The lord had used a butcher's cleaver,
the better to cut clean and true. Afterward, Davos had chosen the name
Seaworth for his new-made house, and he took for his banner a black ship on a
pale grey field-with an onion on its sails. The onetime smuggler was fond of
saying that Lord Stannis had done him a boon, by giving him four less
fingernails to clean and trim.
No, Cressen thought, a man like that would give no false hope, nor soften a
hard truth. "Ser Davos, truth can be a bitter draught, even for a man like
Lord Stannis. He thinks only of returning to King's Landing in the fullness of
his power, to tear down his enemies and claim what is rightfully his. Yet now
. . ."
"if he takes this meager host to King's Landing, it will be only to die. He
does not have the numbers. I told him as much, but you know his pride." Davos
held up his gloved hand. "My fingers will grow back before that man bends to
sense."
The old man sighed. "You have done all you could. Now I must add my voice to
yours." Wearily, he resumed his climb.
Lord Stannis Baratheon's refuge was a great round room with walls of bare
black stone and four tall narrow windows that looked out to the four points of
the compass. In the center of the chamber was the great table from which it
took its name, a massive slab of carved wood fashioned at the command of Aegon
Targaryen in the days before the Con-
quest. The Painted Table was more than fifty feet long, perhaps half that wide
at its widest point, but less than four feet across at its narrowest. Aegon's