"You did not bring your squire with you," he heard Jon Arryn's voice, finally breaking the silence. They had been riding side by side without a word being said since they left the brothel.

"No. He is only a boy."

Stannis thought of Devan's father, and it occurred to him suddenly - at Devan's age, Davos probably had been to many places similar to the one they just left. But Davos was a crabber's son, and a smuggler from a young age. Devan is the son of a knight, and a lord's squire. He wondered, not for the first time, if Davos ever found it strange, watching his sons grow up in circumstances so dissimilar to his own. As strange as I sometimes feel being a King's brother, instead of a Lord's?

He glanced back at the three guardsmen escorting them. Lord Arryn noticed him looking, and smiled.

"They have been in my household for a long time. I trust them. They will not talk of where we have just been, Lord Stannis. Do not worry."

"I am not worried," he replied. Yet Stannis wondered. Was it really wise for Jon Arryn to be so trusting? As always, his instinct was muddled when it came to this man. Lord Arryn is a wise man, perhaps the only man who can ever hope to rein in Robert and his excesses, he had to admit. But there were also times when he thought ...

"We are here. Will you come back with me to my study?"

They dismounted. Two of the guardsmen took over the reins of the horses. Crossing the courtyard, Stannis could see curious pairs of eyes watching them. Watching and pretending not to be. Spies, he thought. But whose? Varys'? The Queen's? "Lord Arryn went out riding with Lord Stannis again," he pictured the spies reporting to their paymaster. Eyebrows would be raised, questions would be asked.

Stannis had been in Jon Arryn's study before, yet the messiness still had the power to shock him. Books and more books, everywhere you look. Open ones and closed ones scattered on the desk, more books stacked on chairs. Papers and letters slipped between book pages, and nestled between stacked books. How does he find anything? He removed a dusty historical tome from one of the chairs, sat down, and waited while Jon Arryn paced the room.

"We have confirmation enough, do you not think, Stannis?"

"Perhaps. But I do not know how strong a case we could make to Robert, Lord Arryn."

"The boy working for the armorer, what was his name?"

"Gendry."

"He is the spitting image of Robert at that age, don't you think?"

Stannis opened his mouth to reply, but saw that Jon Arryn was lost in reverie, smiling slightly. He's thinking of Robert as a young man, Stannis thought. The young man he fostered, the boy he brought up, side-by-side with Ned Stark. I recognize the resemblance, he suddenly felt a desperate need to say, but I did not know that young man, not the way you knew him. He was seldom with us. But the sudden madness passed, sanity prevailed, and he simply said, "Yes."

"You could hardly miss the resemblance. The black hair, the blue eyes. And he said his mother had yellow hair."

"Only his words, some might say. The mother is long dead."

"The two women at the brothel are not. Two pairs of mother-and-babes. One golden haired, one yellow. Yet both babes are black-haired."

"They are whores," Stannis scoffed. "Are we to take their words that those are Robert's babes?"

He looked up to see Jon Arryn watching him. Watching him with that expression on his face. The expression that had always confounded him, made him supremely uncomfortable. If he had to guess, he would have said it was a mixture of sadness, regret, and ... pity? But why would he pity me? And who am I to Jon Arryn to elicit any sadness from him? The regret was even more a mystery. Maybe I am misreading the look, he told himself yet again.

"Those women are only doing their job. If we have to be censorious, blame the brothel owners. Or the men frequenting these establishments. Even then, we should remember, it is not against the law here in King's Landing."

"Only because Robert refused to heed my counsel and outlaw it," he snapped. He resented the look, and the kindly tone. Who are you to pity me? I am not your Robert, or your Ned.

"Men ... and women too, we are all flawed creatures in some ways. Some more flawed than others, that is true. Yet we should try to be more understanding, no? Of other people's weaknesses and flaws. And maybe others will be more understanding too, of our own weaknesses and flaws, when it is our turn to fall." Jon Arryn started pacing the room again.

"I do not wish for understanding from anyone. And why should forgiveness come so easily? If we have done wrong, then we must accept the punishment."

"Understanding does not mean absolution from punishment. Or even forgiveness. Only a recognition of human frailties." He felt a hand touching his left shoulder as he heard Jon Arryn's words.

He turned to see Jon Arryn's hand on his shoulder. Such a strange feeling, the hand of another on your shoulder, he thought. My father's hand used to rest there, he remembered. A gentle squeeze, instead of a hug, because he knew how much hugs discomfited his middle child. And sometimes both hands on both shoulders, almost a hug but not quite.

"Our second-born, who came to this world an old man," his father used to say, followed by a booming laughter. Yet Stannis had always detected sadness underneath all the joviality. Did I disappoint him? Did he wish I was more like Robert?

A gentle squeeze on his shoulder interrupted his journey to the past. He came back to the present, watching Jon Arryn staring at him intently. For a brief moment, it seemed like the past and the present colliding, blurring the faces together. My father, Robert's surrogate father. He wants something FOR me, as well as FROM me, the thought came unbidden from somewhere. But what is it?

A knock on the door brought everything crashing down to earth. He watched as Jon Arryn walked to the door, opened it, spoke a word or two he couldn't catch to the other person, and firmly shut it again. Neither of them could quite look each other in the eye. It was as if a rubicon had been crossed, and they were both trying to find their way back to normality. The King's Hand and the Master of Ships, discussing state's affair. Or the King's affair, at any rate.

"Those women are not Lannisters. No matter the color of their hair. Perhaps with a Lannister..."

He was swiftly interrupted. "No. I have studied the historical records. All the children born of a Baratheon-Lannister union in the past had had black hair as well. Joffrey, Tommen and Myrcella are the only exceptions. Perhaps it is time for us to tell your brother."

"Us? No, Robert would not believe it, coming from me. He might even suspect some kind of treachery. The news has to come from you, Lord Arryn, and you alone."

"You judge your brother too harshly, Stannis."

"He judges me harshly. I am merely stating the truth of the matter."

Jon Arryn started to say something, hesitated, and then turned away from him, walking slowly to the window. From the back, he looked like the old man that he was.

"I have often wondered, if ... when your parents died ..."

As he was waiting for Jon Arryn to finish the sentence, he suddenly thought of something that had not crossed his mind for years. The week after their parents' death, when he had overheard Robert telling a crying Renly that they would all go to the Eyrie, and have a family again. "Jon will be our father, and Ned another brother. It will be all right, you'll see."

"Stannis too?" Renly had asked, amidst the sobs.

"Yes, Stannis too. If he would come, of course. There is no telling with him. Maybe he would prefer to stay here without us."

Well someone has to stay, he remembered thinking. We are Baratheons, not Arryns. Storm's End is our home, not the Eyrie. We cannot all go gallivanting to other people's castle, leaving Storm End's without a Baratheon.

But he remembered something else too. That he did want to go to the Eyrie with them. He knew he could not, and would have said no if asked, but he had wanted it. Wanted it with such force and desperation, the memory of it still terrified him, remembering it years later.

In the end when it was time for Robert to return to the Eyrie, he left alone. Jon Arryn must have refused, Stannis thought. And why shouldn't he? He agreed to foster one Baratheon child, not take in an entire family. Renly never spoke of it. Stannis wondered if Renly even remembered that conversation with Robert, he was so young.

"I will tell Robert myself. But we should be prepared. The Lannisters will not take this lying down." Jon Arryn's voice was calm and resolute.