The Wizard of Fury Chapter 3 (Patreon)

AN: I hope you all enjoyed the start to The Wizard of Fury. I have big plans for this series, and I hope you all enjoy the start of it (even if it takes a bit to get to the smut). As you will see in this chapter, this will be a multi-POV series, though Harry will remain as the primary POV character. I think the multiple POVs will help keep my writing fresh and allow me more creativity in developing the narrative.

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The open water had never been a friend to Stannis Baratheon. His parents, Lord Steffon and Lady Cassana, had both died aboard the Windproud, a magnificent vessel that was destroyed during a storm in Shipbreaker Bay. Watching their ship be smashed against the mighty rocks in the bay had been one of the worst experiences of his life. He always wondered if his parents were lucky enough to have had their heads caved in quickly by the rocks or if they suffered a painful, slow death from whatever injuries they sustained. Maybe they survived long enough to drown. Drowning was a bad way to go. It was not a particularly painful way of dying, but it was a terrifying one. The endless scramble to try to find air and the panic that came along with it made one’s final moments utterly horrifying.

That was what Stannis associated with water: dying.

Of course, that was not the only reason the seas troubled Stannis. At the end of his elder brother’s rebellion against the crown, he had ordered Stannis to amass a new royal fleet and capture the island of Dragonstone, where the last Targaryens resided. The attack had gone well at the start, but the last two Targaryen children managed to be secreted away before Stannis could capture them.

His failure to end the last of the dragons had driven a rift between him and his older brother, Robert. Robert gave Stannis Dragonstone instead of their family’s ancestral seat of Storm’s End. It was a slight, one that left him situated on that dreary island, constantly reminded of his failings to succeed in his duty.

If that was not enough, Robert had tried to name Stannis as the master of ships, one of the king’s advisers on the small council and the commander of the royal fleet. Once again, it felt like a slight. Robert knew of Stannis’ hatred for the sea after their parents death, but he named him to the position anyway. It was likely borne out of malice and the underlying knowledge that Stannis would never refuse his king.

Only, this time, he did.

With the birth of Stannis’ son, Harry, he begged leave to return to Dragonstone rather than stay in King’s Landing. It was the only time he had truly gone against his brother’s will, and the shock of it made Robert agree. Stannis remained master of ships, but his work was often done by raven or by his intermediaries rather than him directly. He still visited a few times each year, and each time he dreaded the short journey across Blackwater Bay.

And now here he was sailing around the entire continent of Westeros. Treading upon dark waves that never ceased. It was a madness that only true sailors could come to terms with. But Stannis was no sailor. He was a military commander, and that was all.

The Fury was a triple-decked war galley crafted in the years after Robert’s Rebellion to serve as Stannis’ flagship in times of war. In truth, it was a glorious vessel, but Stannis had never stepped foot on it before this expedition. He always had a foreboding feeling whenever he looked upon this vessel, like it was bound to be his demise. Perhaps it would.

But that was not likely to happen for a time yet. It would take weeks before the Iron Islands came into sight, and there were plenty of stops to be had along the way before then.

They had travelled south from Dragonstone, following along the jagged coast of the Stormlands. When they entered the Straits of Tarth, Ser Benethon suggested that he might like to continue onward to Storm’s End to visit his home, but Stannis refused. He would never sail near the rocks in Shipbreaker Bay where his parents had died.

So, instead, they cut east away from the coast and headed for the Sapphire Isle of Tarth. They made port at Evenfall Hall. Lord Selwyn Tarth, a man who well remembered his family’s long history of being sworn to Storm’s End and the Baratheons, welcomed them easily and provided fine provisions to keep them going through the rest of their journey. He offered six galleys to join Stannis’ burgeoning fleet, which he gratefully accepted.

From there, they skirted around Shipbreaker Bay until they reached Cape Wrath and then the Stepstones. Pirates once roamed these waters, but as the Master of Ships, Stannis ensured that the Crown’s patrols kept any significant pirate activity from harming the important trade that crossed through this archipelago.

Once they were through, Stannis directed his ships to travel to Sunspear in Dorne. The walled settlement was said to be beautiful, but Stannis never liked the overbearing warmth in places like this. The light, breezy clothes of the people here showed no sense of modesty, and the city’s design reflected that. It was either narrow alleyways where one could easily get mugged or stabbed, ugly brown clay hovels that still stood tall and proud, or excessively opulent gardens with richly-coloured manses.

Prince Doran Martell of Dorne was much less welcoming than Lord Tarth had been. The division between the Martells and the Baratheons was still too fresh after Robert’s Rebellion. The death of his younger sister, Princess Elia Martell, the wife of the former crown prince, Rhaegar Targaryen, had made all of Dorne pull away from the rest of Westeros. Trade became limited, and tensions grew high as word of a possible Dornish rebellion spread throughout the realm. Although Jon Arryn, the Hand of the King, managed to quell any such rebellions through diplomacy, Dorne was still unwelcoming to outsiders.

Prince Doran had sent servants to greet them, claiming that his gout was troubling him and was why he could not meet with them directly. It was a blatant lie; the man simply did not want to meet with them, but Stannis did not have the time or desire to challenge him on his false words. They had offered a poor selection of supplies and only a couple of galleys that were well past their best years to add to Stannis’ fleet. He had accepted all of them, if only out of spite. If a man dared insult him to his face like this, Stannis would show him that he could turn it into a boon for himself.

They did not stay in Sunspear for more than a night before they set sail again. Stannis chose against stopping in Dorne again. No other house was likely to be any more friendly to them than the Martells were, so he decided to set sail straight for The Arbor. His men knew better than to complain; they would do their duty or be left behind.

Surprisingly enough, even his own son had not complained. Stannis had expected some protest, some little act of rebellion, but there had been nothing of the sort. Harry seemed to enjoy being at sea, and the wonder in his eyes when he had spotted a pod of spotted whales swimming near the fleet had even been enough to make Stannis forget about his distaste for the open waters.

He did not always enjoy being a harsh, stern man towards his son, but Harry needed to learn that the world was neither warm nor kind to anyone. The world was filled with harsh realities that were better faced here and now. It was a chaotic mess, and that was what made order and duty so important.

But perhaps Dragonstone had been too stifling for such a message to sink in. With all its grotesque statues and dreary landscapes, it was no place for a boy to find his place in the world. Of course he had wanted to rebel when he was stuck in a place like that. He would have had him fostered long before now if his lady wife, Selyse, would have been able to handle her only son leaving the nest. None of his other siblings had ever survived in her womb, and he was sure that her latest pregnancy was bound to only drive her depression deeper. Without Harry around, she would have lost herself long ago.

Stannis was bitter about that. He was deserving of half a dozen children by now, but his lady wife continued to fail to birth children for him. Maester Cressen reassured him that it was no fault of him or Lady Selyse, but he could not help his feelings on the matter. He was grateful for the reprieve from her presence, because she had begun to repulse him with her constant failures.

Stannis held back a sigh. There was no need to plague his mind with such negative thoughts right now. He was away from her, and his focus needed to be on his son and getting through this voyage so that he could deal with the Greyjoy Rebellion.

It would be upon him soon, and he could only hope that this one would fare him better than the last.

But he had his doubts, for he was being made by his elder brother, his king, to work alongside the Redwyne Fleet and its commander, Lord Paxter Redwyne, the man who, alongside Lord Mace Tyrell, had laid siege to Storm’s End during Robert’s Rebellion and nearly starved him, his men, his wife, and his son to death.

Though Stannis would work with the man as he was commanded to, he would never forget what that man and his forces had done to him.

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Once more, Margaery relished the sensations of the flower petals falling upon her skin. Spiders crawled there too, but she brushed them away, and they knew better than to return.

The gardens of Highgarden were simply legendary. It had been a feat like no other to raise them within these tall castle walls. A myriad of colours stood proud above the greenery that lay underneath, emphasising the importance of careful maintenance of one’s homestead.

Her grandmother, Lady Olena, told tale of a time when the gardens were not quite so green. The verdant hues of the shrubbery even faded, and it was all due to Lady Olena’s ‘lard-bellied father’. He’d chosen to focus his efforts on uplifting the other houses of the Reach at the expense of their own. Were it not for Lady Olena’s efforts, the gardens would have faded into disuse, but she saw the value in maintaining such a thing.

Gardens could be inviting. They could also be dangerous. Regardless, they captivated ones’ eyes and drew upon a curiosity known to all. It was such that made them ever so important to the Tyrell family.

House Tyrell needed to stand above the rest, to act as a shining beacon that other houses would be inspired to match. It was through this that they could foster improvements throughout the Reach while maintaining their own house’s standing. And their gardens were the perfect representation of this.

Above her in the arms of one of their great apple trees, Loras continued to sprinkle flowers upon her, as was her whim. It’d taken a week or more of begging before he could finally be pulled away from his training and brought to aid her in her desires.

“Tell me, Loras,” Margaery began to speak slowly, her soft brown eyes focusing on the ways the flower petals drifted down towards her. “Will father travel to see Lord Rewyne off?”

“Likely not,” Loras’ smooth voice replied. Despite only being a year older than her age of ten, he already sounded as though he’d begun to enter puberty. His voice was deeper than it had been a month earlier, and though it still had a while to go, it sounded quite manly to Margaery. “Goldengrove is reporting a substantially lower harvest than normal, so he's planning on visiting them to oversee the work.”

Not like it would help, Margaery thought to herself bitterly. It shamed her to think that her father was a sub-par lord, but the simple matter of the fact was that he indeed was a less-effective lord than almost any other that Highgarden had known. Their family's place in the world had stagnated once again despite their wealthy position within the Reach. Grandmother always said that they could be doing far better if they’d had a man like Lady Olena’s own great-grandfather as the head of the family. Of course, that was impossible, and so they were stuck with what they had.

“Wouldn’t his time better be spent ensuring that the coast was secure?” Margaery asked.

Loras shrugged as he grabbed another handful of blue-coloured flowers. He began to pick the petals off one by one and accumulated them into his off hand. “Seems to me that he’s doing fine. He’s trying to help our people.”

Yes, but not in the right way. It was just as Grandmother said: the Reach was one. Grain could be moved from more bountiful towns to less fortunate ones, but if our defences were ever breached, we’d struggle to hold off the offensives. And Highgarden had to lead the way above all else.

“Wouldn’t it be better to look to Ashford and Cider Hall for assistance?” Margaery suggested. “Surely they could—”

“Do we really need to discuss this right now?” Loras sighed.

Of course, he wished to go back to his training. The yard was his favourite place to be, and his longsword was his preferred tool of choice and not these flower petals.

Margaery felt silly for requesting him to help her in this. Slowly dropping flower petals above her head paled in comparison to the value that training for battle provided. She should never have asked her brother to do this.

She sat up suddenly, brushing away the last of the petals. “You’re right, Loras,” she said sadly. “I think I’ll return to the Septa and see if she has anything else for me to do.”

“Wait—”

She heard the regret in her brother’s voice, but she was too far gone for him to catch up to her. She heard him scrambling down out of that old apple tree and rushing to find her before she disappeared within the castle’s depths, but she was already out of sight and moving with a quiet speed that was impossible for him to track.

It was easy to get lost in Highgarden. Tall, slender towers helped to allow for every travel between the multiple levels of the keep, walls, and surrounding buildings. The interiors were often designed with maze-like sensibilities in order to help confuse any potential invaders, not that there had been any attacks on it for hundreds of years now. Margaery knew the layout of the castle well though and rarely managed to lose her way.

Ivy crawled along the white-stone walls of the castle, and countless plants, flowers, and fountains littered its grounds. Cosy, private gardens were set up all around Highgarden, allowing for nature to maintain a powerful presence here. They even had artificial waterfalls set up in a couple of the larger yards and within the Tyrell family’s private gardens.

It was a gorgeous place to live, one that was never short of visiting singers, musicians, and artists coming to take in the castle’s breathtaking beauty and offer up whatever they could to add to it.

Margaery meandered through the castle. She wasn’t going to find her Septa like she’d told Loras—that’d simply been a ruse so that he didn’t come looking for her. Spending time with her Septa was tedious for two reasons. First, she was made to endlessly drill her courtesies and courtly knowledge, which she already excelled at. Second, her Septa often preferred to heap endless praise upon her instead of bothering to teach her anything new.

Septas were everything that she shouldn’t be, at least, according to her grandmother. They were dutiful and devoted in service to another, they lacked proper agency in their lives, and they were dreadfully dull. Margaery had giggled like mad while her grandmother ranted about the dismal state of women who allowed themselves to be corralled as such. She ensured that Margaery wouldn’t live such a life.

Lady Olena was everything that Margaery wanted to be when she grew up: clever, witty, and powerful. She’d effectively managed the Reach through her late husband and helped to grow their wealth and power, and even now that her son was in charge, she was still able to exert her influence to keep him from bumbling things up too badly.

But that would come in time. Margaery needed to work on her own skills first in order to be like her. And then, one day, she’d find a proper lord to marry from an important house. Either he’d be wise enough to take on her advice as she offered it or he’d be foolish enough that she could manipulate him into doing what she wanted anyway. In the end, she won.

It’d be a shame to leave Highgarden, but such things were inevitable. She’d always known that she’d be forced to leave once she married, and that was why she spent so much time roaming the castle, memorising every last detail so that she could still visit it in her mind when she was away.

Margaery’s feet carried her through her favourite garden, the one that sat just east of the Great Keep. Laceflower, lavender, primrose, foxglove, and bellflowers sat between short, neatly-trimmed, crisscrossing hedges that provided an incredible aesthetic design that captivated the eye. Taller hedges provide privacy as one wandered the maze-like garden.

However, its privacy was not perfect. Words could carry upon the wind, and that was exactly what Margaery overheard as she neared the centre of the garden.

She paused for a moment, hesitating behind a hedge. It was improper to ever be caught spying on another—the imperative word being ‘caught’. Her grandmother impressed upon her the necessity of a curious ear when it came to being an effective player of the great game of politics.

So, Margaery listened carefully to overhear the words being spoken.

“—ou worry too much.”

That was her grandmother! Margaery nearly stepped out into view right then and there. She’d never listened in on one of her grandmother’s private conversations before… but she was the exact woman who’d told her to do this.

“Caution is a proper thing when it is wise.”

Willas! Margaery hadn’t realised that her eldest brother had returned to Highgarden from his visit to The Arbor already. His cane clicked down sharply against the cobblestones beneath his feet as he shifted his stance.

“Indeed, and yet you’d be a fool to believe it wise in this instance. Stannis Baratheon may indeed despise our family and Lord Paxter, but the man’s not likely to kill the man,” Olenna pointed out.

Willas let out a frustrated sigh. “You are not listening to me.”

“Oh, I’ve been doing nothing but listening to you blather on for ages now,” Olenna’s famously sharp tongue countered. “You’re normally far more intelligent than this.”

The barbs rolled off of Willas as though none had even been said. “Lord Stannis does not need to kill Lord Paxter outright. He could simply place him in a dangerous position in the fleet.”

“Every position is dangerous,” Olenna said. “It’s war. Some men live and some men die, and I’d put my money on both Lord Stannis and Lord Paxter living. You’ve never met Lord Stannis, but I have. There’s a greater chance of him throwing himself into the sea to drown than doing anything that could be seen as impropriety by those around him. He’ll keep Lord Paxter relatively safe and well in a position of command in the fleet even if he wished to see him strapped to the bowsprit of the leading ship.”

Willas let out a frustrated sound. “Isn’t it dangerous to work with him even still? These are our bannermen we’re risking the lives of by going along with the king’s orders.”

“If it were any other man, you’d be in the right of it,” Olenna acquiesced. “But Stannis is not the sort of man to do what you fear. He’ll be dour about it all, but the man will do his duty. We can count on that, at least.”

“I still don’t like it,” Willas said.

“You don’t have to like it,” Olenna laughed. “But the fact remains that this is an important moment for our family. We fought against the new king in his rebellion, and now we need to cement ourselves back in his good graces. Our harvests have done much to help us in that regard, but King Robert is a man of action. He’ll appreciate our fighting spirit more than anything else.”

“I suppose,” Willas agreed.

“Good, now leave me,” Olenna ordered him. “I’ve had enough of this for one day.”

The clacking of Willas’ cane faded in the opposite direction of Margaery, and for a moment, she thought that she was safe.

“Left, go fetch my granddaughter from around the corner, would you?”

Margaery’s face went pale. How had she been found out so easily?

When Arryk or Erryk—it was nearly impossible to tell apart Lady Olenna’s twin personal guards—came around the corner, he had an amused smile on his lips. Since she couldn’t tell them apart either, her grandmother liked to call them Left or Right based on which one was on her left or right side that day.

“Come now, my lady,” Left said gingerly, gesturing to her to take the lead.

With a nervous smile at being caught spying, Margaery walked out from behind the hedge into a small clearing. A glistening pool of water sat in the middle of it while neat boxes of flowers sat all around beneath the encircling hedgerow.

Lady Olenna was short, wrinkled, and, like Willas, walked with the aid of a cane. Many people found her intimidating, especially once she opened her mouth to speak to them, but Margaery didn’t. She always had a kind smile for Margaery, even if she did tease her from time to time. She respected intelligence and wit above all else, making Willas and Margaery her two favourite members of her family.

“The tip of your shoe poked out around the hedge,” Olenna smirked, glancing down at the leather shoes on Margaery’s feet. “Still, it was a good effort. If I wasn’t as low to the ground as I am, I might have missed it entirely.”

“I’m sorry for spying on you, grandmother,” Margaery said with her most sincere voice.

“Piss on that,” Olenna waved her off. “You did what you were supposed to.”

“Grandmother,” Margaery giggled madly. “You can’t say words like that.”

“I can and I will,” Olenna argued back. “I’ve spent too many years alive to have some little girl tell me what I can and cannot do.”

Margaery giggled again. “I’m not little. I’ll be taller than you soon enough.”

“But you aren’t yet. So, until that day comes, you’re little,” Olenna’s teasing smile turned gentler. “How much of my conversation with your brother did you overhear?”

“Some,” Margaery answered evasively, exactly as her grandmother had taught her to do. Normally, it was key to keep the information she learnt close to her chest, but she was too curious to stop herself this time. “Why does Lord Stannis hate us so much?”

“Hasn’t your Septa instructed you on the history of the Rebellion?” Olenna frowned.

“She has,” Margaery answered. “But all she said about Lord Stannis is that we kept him cooped up in his family’s castle at Storm’s End until the war was over.”

“Ha,” Olenna barked. “Of course the Faith would teach it that way, omitting all of the pertinent details. Well, child, that is the short answer on the matter, but the longer one has much more to it. Your lord father and Lord Paxter closed off Shipbreaker Bay, preventing Lord Stannis from escaping or receiving any aid by ship, and besieged Storm’s End for most of a year. The castle’s stores had been depleted by King Robert before he’d set off to war, so the men, women, and children within the castle quickly began to starve. It didn’t help that your fat-headed father and his men held grand feasts within sight of the castle’s walls. They were mocking Stannis with all the food they had, but he would not yield the castle under such temptation. He held out, letting his people starve so that he could do his duty as he was commanded to.”

“But that’s awful,” Margaery exclaimed. Not just of her father but of Stannis too. Why wouldn’t he just surrender and save his people?

“Yes, awful on all fronts,” Olenna agreed. “Your lord father ensured that he’d have an enemy for life with the actions he took, and Stannis nearly led his entire house to ruin. His wife and newborn son both nearly perished; he wouldn’t afford himself or his family any special treatment, so they ate the same portions as all of his men did. Quite frankly, neither of them should have been in command. Your father should have finished Stannis off instead of lounging about and gorging himself until his belly was ready to explode, and Stannis should have surrendered months earlier.”

Margaery bit her lower lip in thought. Perhaps Stannis should have done exactly that, or perhaps her family shouldn’t have joined the losing side of the war so easily. It was difficult to predict such things at the start—that was what Willas always said—but once the tide had turned, surely they should have given Stannis a reprieve.

“Lord Puff Fish,” Olenna snorted at her nickname for her rotund son, “kept up the siege even after the war was lost. Prince Rhaegar laid dead in the Trident and Lord Tywin Lannister sacked King’s Landing. His son executed the Mad King, and Robert Baratheon was crowned the new king. Even still, your father kept up the siege for over a fortnight before Lord Eddard Stark arrived to put an end to it, which your father did the moment his men saw the Stark banners.”

A deep pit seemed to form in Margaery’s stomach. She and her father had never been particularly close, especially compared to her and her mother and grandmother. He always had more time for his sons than he did for her, but even for all of his faults, she’d never expected him capable of something so cruel.

“Are you certain that Lord Stannis won’t seek retribution for what was done to him and his family?” Margaery asked in a quiet voice. “If it was my family that was done to…”

Olenna’s face softened a touch. “I am quite certain, child. Stannis will do nothing to harm our bannermen. His men beneath him though… that is another matter entirely, and one that I expect Stannis will seek to stymie before it becomes a problem.”

Margaery hoped so. War was never a kind thing, and she dearly wished that everyone could come back alive safe and sound.