A Song of Ice and Fire, #3
A Storm of Swords
by George R. R. Martin
Contents
CHAPTER 25: DAVOS
Overview
Imprisoned beneath Dragonstone, Davos recovers and endures isolation until Melisandre visits, declaring Stannis Azor Ahai and tempting Davos to serve R’hllor. She reveals she foresaw his attempt on her life.
Days later, Hand Alester Florent is cast into Davos’s cell for proposing peace with Tywin. Davos repudiates the terms, insisting Stannis will not yield, sharpening the factional divide around the king.
Summary
Davos languishes in a warm, windowless cell beneath Dragonstone, recovering from fever and injuries after Blackwater with care from Maester Pylos and silent gaolers he nicknames Porridge and Lamprey. As he marks time by meals and torches, he realizes he is being kept alive for some purpose and fears the fate of past prisoners burned by Melisandre’s followers.
Melisandre visits, testing Davos’s fear of darkness and claiming kinship with the torch as an instrument of R’hllor. She dismisses his hatred, tempts him to father another shadow, and preaches a cosmic war of light versus darkness, naming Stannis Azor Ahai reborn. She says she foresaw Davos’s attempt on her life and blames Blackwater on unbelief, promising Stannis’s role in the greater struggle, then leaves him with the torch and his doubts.
After days pass, guards drag in Alester Florent, Stannis’s Hand, who protests his loyalty. In the cell, Alester laments losses, declares Stannis cannot win, and reveals he sent peace terms to Tywin through Salladhor Saan’s contact: Stannis to renounce his claim and Joffrey’s bastardy in exchange for Dragonstone and Storm’s End, Brightwater restored to Florents, and Shireen betrothed to Tommen.
Alester calls Stannis’s fixation on waking a stone dragon madness and insists peace is the only path. Davos counters that Stannis will not yield or wed Shireen to a presumed incest-born prince, asserting a king can choose to die a king. Unmoved by pragmatism, Davos reaffirms his loyalty, and Alester breaks down weeping.
Who Appears
- Davos SeaworthImprisoned beneath Dragonstone; recovers from illness, resists Melisandre’s temptations, and rejects Alester Florent’s peace terms, affirming Stannis’s resolve.
- MelisandreVisits Davos; preaches R’hllor’s cosmic war, calls Stannis Azor Ahai, tempts Davos to sire a shadow, claims visions foresaw him.
- Alester FlorentStannis’s Hand; imprisoned for sending Tywin peace terms yielding Stannis’s claim and proposing Shireen–Tommen betrothal; despairs.
- Ser Axell FlorentOversees Alester’s confinement; enforcer of the queen’s and Melisandre’s faction at Dragonstone.
- PorridgeDavos’s stronger gaoler; brings porridge, subtly kinder, escorts Alester to the cell.
- LampreyDavos’s sallow gaoler in a soiled velvet doublet; silently serves richer meals.
- Maester PylosTends Davos’s fever and cough with broth, poppy, and leeches, enabling his recovery.