Davos and his ship arrive in White Harbor, and Davos is disguised to look like a filthy, common, poor, hard-drinking, sludge-pie eating sailor. Which isn’t that hard. I mean, come on. He’s a rough-looking dude with fingers cut off.
Davos: HEY! Okay, actually I’m not really that offended. I really still think of myself as a man of the people, you know. I haven’t let this “Hand of the King” thing go to my head. Part of me is still that onion smuggler.
Davos looks at the harbor as his ship pulls up. This is hardly how he expected to arrive. He came with Stannis’s proud fleet. But that fleet all broke and abandoned Stannis during a storm. So now he sails in on an unassuming ship, and sees a bunch of new fortifications that have been put up. But it’s not the fortifications that make him unhappy – it’s the warship that he sees. A warship with the name “Lionstar” and flying the banner of King Tommen.
Davos: DAMNIT! The Freys must have beaten me here. Captain, how long are you willing to wait here for me?
Captain: Meh, a day or two I guess. Not much more. If you’re not back by then, I’m sailing away without you.
Davos: Fair enough.
Davos, in his disguise, walks into town through the Seal Gate and checks it out. He takes a big breath and smells a mix of rotting seafood, old beer, puke, and streets full of urine.
Davos: *sniff* Oh yeah! Just like it was when I used to come here. Man, so many memories are flowing back to me. All these shitty bars and restaurants that I used to come to as a smuggler. Those were the days! Still, I’m not here to remember the good old days. I’m here to blend in and go unnoticed. I’m here to learn everything I can which might help me figure out how I can convince Lord Manderly to be on my side.
He goes into the center of town where he sees a famous, old bank. But the bank has closed down and is now full of homeless refugees who have fled the wars.
Davos: Look at those poor souls. They have fled their homes, destroyed by war. Now they have nothing. The safety here is all they have. Nothing else. And yet I’ve come here to bring Manderly and White Harbor back into the war. To bring war to them. Shit, I sort of feel guilty as hell about that. *sigh* But I gotta do what I gotta do.
Davos walks up to an apple vendor.
Davos: An apple, please.
He pays for it and gets one. It is mealy and tatses like absolute shit. Which means it’s probably a Red Delicious, right?! I MEAN COME ON! THOSE THINGS ARE MAY BE RED, BUT THEY ARE NOT DELICIOUS! THE WHOLE THING IS A LIE!
Davos: Soo… MMmmm! Yeah. Love this apple. So tasty. Yeah. *cough*cough*
A worm comes out of the apple and waves hi.
Davos: Sooooo, apple seller… What’s up with Lord Manderly these days?
Apple Seller: Oh, well, he’s doing fine. I was just playing cyvasse with him the other days and went to lunch with is cousin. Seems like the doctor says he needs to cut back on the eel pies a little, but then again that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Anyway, he was telling me about how he has some pain in his right leg and didn’t know what was causing it.
Davos: Oh. Wow. Really?
Apple Seller: NO, NOT REALLY, YOU STUPID MORON! I AM AN APPLE SELLER! I SELL APPLES! HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW HOW LORD MANDERLY IS DOING?! HE’S THE LORD OF THIS CITY! LIKE I OR ANY POOR PERSON WOULD INTERACT WITH HIM ON A DAILY BASIS. What the hell, man? Where exactly are you from?
Davos: Flea Bottom.
Apple Seller: OH! FLEA BOTTOM! So… King’s Landing, huh? Maybe I should ask you HOW THE KING IS DOING!
Davos: Actually, I might be able to answer that question depending on what king you’re talking about.
Apple Seller: *blinks obliviously*
Davos: Look, bro. Sorry for asking. I wasn’t trying to imply that he was your best friend or anything. I just mean what’s the gossip in town? Is he taking sides in this war or anything? It’s been a long time since I’ve been to White Harbor.
Apple Seller: Ah, well he’s been recruiting troops and shit. I dunno.
Davos: Hrm. Interesting. Interesting. Well, it was good talking to you. Actually, I'm lying and it wasn't.
Davos begins to walk away, and motions to throw the rest of his apple in the garbage. Because it’s a red delicious and that’s where mealy red delicious apples belong.
Apple Seller: WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! You gonna throw that core away? There’s good eating in that core, if you don’t want the rest.
Davos: Gross, man. You’re going to eat the rest of my half-eaten, mealy apple with a waving worm in it? That’s how people get mono, man.
Apple Seller: Yeah, eat it myself or just re-sell a half eaten apple to one of these starving refugees for a few pennies. It’s not much, but I can get some value out of it.
Davos hands the apple back to the seller and walks away, shaking his head.
Next he goes to hole-in-the-wall tavern called the Lazy Eel that he used to go all the time when he was a smuggler. I mean this place is THE WORST. The food here is so bad that no locals actually go here. The beer isn’t good either. The whole place is just a trap for sailors and traders who come into town who don’t know any better and come to this place for the absolute worst food at the cheapest prices. I’m not exactly sure what kinds of places the Whitecastle hookers who got murdered by Jack the Ripper used to hang out at, but I imagined they looked pretty much like the Lazy Eel.
The plus side of the Lazy Eel? Soldiers would never come here. So Davos can creep in the corner, listen to the gossip of all the sailors who goes in there talking, and not be detected.
He does exactly that.
Davos: Oh yeah! Juicy sailor gossip, here I come! Sailors hear everything!
Popeye: Did you hear? Tywin Lannister is dead! Killed by his imp son. His corpse smelled so bad that nobody could enter the Sept of Baelor until a hazmat team came in to do DECON.
Captain Crunch: Oh yeah? I heard that the Lady of the Eyrie was killed by some singer, and Littlefinger rules in the Vale. But Bronze Yohn Royce doesn’t like that and he plans to bring him down as soon as he FINDS HIS MISSING SON WHICH HE WON’T STOP CRYING ABOUT!!!
Sailor Moon: Speaking of dead people, I heard that Balon Greyjoy was dead and his brothers are all fighting for the Seastone Chair in some bullshit called a “Kingsmoot.”
Crispus Attucks: I heard Sandor “The Hound” Clegane is roaming round long the Trident and killing people.
Sinbad: That’s nothing. I’m from out East in Essos. Over there, Lys and Tyrosh are embroiled in an epic war! It’s something else. And there is a slave revolt happening even further out.
Horatio Hornblower: Well, I have some local news. Robett Glover is in town, trying to raise some men. But Manderly ain’t having none of it. Lord Eel Pie doesn’t want to get involved in any wars.
Davos: Hrm. Finally some local news. That’s good to hear. But also terrible to hear. Manderly wants to avoid entering the war? Damnit!
Skipper & Gilligan: Speaking of eel pies, who’s hungry to order another one?
All the sailors want more disgusting, filthy eel pies that taste horrible.
Bar Maid: The only flavor we have left is Extra Toe Nail.
Jack Aubrey: That’s fine with all of us.
Davos: *ahem*… Hey there, fellow sailors. It’s just me sitting in the corner here, listening to the rest of you gossip. Instead of talking about eating toenail and eel pies… could you go back to the gossip stuff?
Shipwreck from G.I. Joe: Oh yeah, right. Sorry stranger. I heard that the Ryswells and Dustins launched a surprise attack on the Ironmen and sent them fleeing. Now the Bastard of Bolton is riding south with Hother “Whoresbane” Umber to join an attack on Moat Cailin. The Hornwoods and Cerwyns have joined too.
Captain Nemo: If you ask me, Lord Wyman needs to send some troops as well. Lord Roose Bolton is the Warden of the North now, and so Wyman needs to send troops to support him, lest he get on the wrong side of his Warden.
Bar Maid: Oh what the hell does Roose Bolton know of honor? He was involved in that terrible Red Wedding! Now who wants more beer that I’ve mixed with dirty bath water?
Donald Duck: *says some nonsense that nobody can understand*
Ishmael: Well, we all know Lord Eel Pie isn’t going to answer the summons and go anywhere himself. He’s too fat. There is no horse that could carry him.
Bar Maid: Fat or think doesn’t matter. The Lannisters got his son as a prisoner, that’s what’s going to make his mind up.
Davos: Hrm. Nobody seems to be talking about King Stannis at all. That could be a good thing. But it could also be a bad thing. How do I expect these Northerners to kneel to King Stannis when they don’t even THINK about him? I bet they don’t even know that he showed up to save the Night’s Watch on the Wall.
Bar Maid: HEY YOU! Man in the corner over there mumbling to yourself… what did you just say?
Davos: Uhm… erm… I said… uhh… “Oh? They have Manderly’s son hostage? I thought that Manderly’s son was killed.”
Bar Maid: They killed Ser Wendel. Ser Wylis is still a prisoner.
Davos: Oh man. This news keeps getting worse and worse. The Freys are here. Manderly doesn’t want to fight. And if he does get pressured into fighting… it would definitely be for King Tommen’s side because he’s obliged to obey Lord Bolton and the Lannisters have his son as a hostage. And to add the cherry on top… nobody here at all has said anything like, “I wish the rightful king, Stannis, would show up and save the day!” There is no good news for me here.
He slouches back into the corner and continues to listen to the gossip, but there is nothing else about the situation here in White Harbor that can help him out. There is some more juicy gossip from the east though.
Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo: --You’re crazy, Hook! Dragons?! Dragons! Now I KNOW you’re lying. The Beggar King has been dead for years. Some horse made him eat a Hot Pocket fresh out of the microwave and it melted his head off.
Captain Hook: That could be true, but maybe it’s not. People pretend to be dead all the time, and it’s half the world away. You haven’t seen Viserys’s corpse, have you?
Bar Maid: Oh please. I’ve never King Robert or King Joffrey’s corpses neither, so maybe they’re alive too. Maybe Baelor the Blessed is alive after all these years too, just having a little nap.
Derek Wildstar: Hey! Viserys wasn’t the only dragon, you know? There was also some babe, right? The prince Aegon. MAYBE HE’S NOT DEAD AND IS STILL ALIVE, USING A DISGUISE SUCH AS “YOUNG GRIFF” OR SOMETHING.
Everyone throws their food at Derek Wildstar and boo him, because that’s a stupid suggestion and everyone knows that GRRM is trying really hard to get us to believe that Young Griff is Aegon.
Some Random Toothless Hooker: Aegon wasn’t the only one. There were also two girls, weren’t there?
Jack the Ripper: Two. Rhagar’s daughter and his sister. Now come with me, Hooker.
Hooker: Okay!
They leave together.
Robinson Crusoe: But the daughter was murdered. The siter, the one that was Viserys’ sister. She’s still alive. What’s her name? Daenella? Danielle? Destiny? Destrii?
Davos: --Daenerys. Oh, sorry to butt in. It’s just that you were saying so many wrong names that it was messing with my OCD and I just had to step in. Anyway, nobody knows what happened to her.
Captain Ron: I DO!!!!!!
Everyone gasps as Captain Ron (AKA Kurt Russell with an Eye Patch from the non-critically acclaimed, non-hit 1992 film) suddenly emerges onto the scene.
Davos: You know what happened to Dany Targaryen?
Captain Ron: Oh yeah, for sure. I saw her all the way back in Qarth, back in ACoK Chapter 63. She was looking for some ship to take her and her three Dragons to Westeros. She had pretty purple eyes, silver hair, and a nice set, if you know what I mean.
Davos: Dude, she’s like 15 or 16.
Captain Ron: Hahaha, whatever dude. If there’s grass on her lawn, she’s ready to get mowed! If you know what I mean!
Nobody does.
Davos: That Captain Ron reference got dropped in an April 2018 post of the Jingle. Were we really setting up that to pay off an entire year later?
Captain Ron: *shrugs* Anyway, I was like “No way! There’s more profit trading saffron and cloves than carrying some dragons who will set all my sails on fire.”
With this, Davos has heard enough. The stories about dragons are cool and all, and sailing Essos and looking for dragons were dreams he once had. But now he’s the Hand of the King and he needs to get back to business. He’s not going to get any more sweet intel about Manderly from here. The sailors already gave him everything they could possible give.
Davos: What do I do now? Is it even worth going to see Lord Manderly? No way is he joining Team Stannis now. Not with all this stuff with his hostage son and the Freys here. Besides, Ser Axell Florent told me that I was an ape wearing knight’s clothing. I fit in much better in that seedy bar with those sailors than I do before the court of a Lord. Manderly will never listen to me.
Davos sighs yet again. He knows he’ll likely fail. But can he go back to his King as a failure? Stannis is such a pain in the ass. He has to go. He has to try.
Davos climbs the steep stairs up to the gates of New Castle, where Lord Manderly resides. At the top of the hill, he can see out to the harbors. He sees nearly two dozen warships that are preparing for something.
Davos: What the hell? Lord Eel Pie might be fat, but he’s not totally inactive. He’s doing something with those ships.
He turns and walks to the New Castle gates. He knocks. There is no answer. Then he shouts.
Davos: HEY! OPEN THE DAMN GATES, BUTTHOLES!
Guard: SHUT UP! They’re closed! It’s the middle of the night, dude! What the hell are you doing here?
Davos pulls out his sheet of paper with the royal seal.
Davos: I am here on behalf of the true king, Stannis Baratheon. I am to meet with him and him alone. At once!
Guard: Really? You’re here to meet Manderly on behalf of a king? You smell like vomit, athlete’s foot, and sadness.
Davos: I was just at the Lazy Eel.
Guard: Ah, well that explains that. Come on in.
Davos: HEY! Okay, actually I’m not really that offended. I really still think of myself as a man of the people, you know. I haven’t let this “Hand of the King” thing go to my head. Part of me is still that onion smuggler.
Davos looks at the harbor as his ship pulls up. This is hardly how he expected to arrive. He came with Stannis’s proud fleet. But that fleet all broke and abandoned Stannis during a storm. So now he sails in on an unassuming ship, and sees a bunch of new fortifications that have been put up. But it’s not the fortifications that make him unhappy – it’s the warship that he sees. A warship with the name “Lionstar” and flying the banner of King Tommen.
Davos: DAMNIT! The Freys must have beaten me here. Captain, how long are you willing to wait here for me?
Captain: Meh, a day or two I guess. Not much more. If you’re not back by then, I’m sailing away without you.
Davos: Fair enough.
Davos, in his disguise, walks into town through the Seal Gate and checks it out. He takes a big breath and smells a mix of rotting seafood, old beer, puke, and streets full of urine.
Davos: *sniff* Oh yeah! Just like it was when I used to come here. Man, so many memories are flowing back to me. All these shitty bars and restaurants that I used to come to as a smuggler. Those were the days! Still, I’m not here to remember the good old days. I’m here to blend in and go unnoticed. I’m here to learn everything I can which might help me figure out how I can convince Lord Manderly to be on my side.
He goes into the center of town where he sees a famous, old bank. But the bank has closed down and is now full of homeless refugees who have fled the wars.
Davos: Look at those poor souls. They have fled their homes, destroyed by war. Now they have nothing. The safety here is all they have. Nothing else. And yet I’ve come here to bring Manderly and White Harbor back into the war. To bring war to them. Shit, I sort of feel guilty as hell about that. *sigh* But I gotta do what I gotta do.
Davos walks up to an apple vendor.
Davos: An apple, please.
He pays for it and gets one. It is mealy and tatses like absolute shit. Which means it’s probably a Red Delicious, right?! I MEAN COME ON! THOSE THINGS ARE MAY BE RED, BUT THEY ARE NOT DELICIOUS! THE WHOLE THING IS A LIE!
Davos: Soo… MMmmm! Yeah. Love this apple. So tasty. Yeah. *cough*cough*
A worm comes out of the apple and waves hi.
Davos: Sooooo, apple seller… What’s up with Lord Manderly these days?
Apple Seller: Oh, well, he’s doing fine. I was just playing cyvasse with him the other days and went to lunch with is cousin. Seems like the doctor says he needs to cut back on the eel pies a little, but then again that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Anyway, he was telling me about how he has some pain in his right leg and didn’t know what was causing it.
Davos: Oh. Wow. Really?
Apple Seller: NO, NOT REALLY, YOU STUPID MORON! I AM AN APPLE SELLER! I SELL APPLES! HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW HOW LORD MANDERLY IS DOING?! HE’S THE LORD OF THIS CITY! LIKE I OR ANY POOR PERSON WOULD INTERACT WITH HIM ON A DAILY BASIS. What the hell, man? Where exactly are you from?
Davos: Flea Bottom.
Apple Seller: OH! FLEA BOTTOM! So… King’s Landing, huh? Maybe I should ask you HOW THE KING IS DOING!
Davos: Actually, I might be able to answer that question depending on what king you’re talking about.
Apple Seller: *blinks obliviously*
Davos: Look, bro. Sorry for asking. I wasn’t trying to imply that he was your best friend or anything. I just mean what’s the gossip in town? Is he taking sides in this war or anything? It’s been a long time since I’ve been to White Harbor.
Apple Seller: Ah, well he’s been recruiting troops and shit. I dunno.
Davos: Hrm. Interesting. Interesting. Well, it was good talking to you. Actually, I'm lying and it wasn't.
Davos begins to walk away, and motions to throw the rest of his apple in the garbage. Because it’s a red delicious and that’s where mealy red delicious apples belong.
Apple Seller: WHOA! WHOA! WHOA! You gonna throw that core away? There’s good eating in that core, if you don’t want the rest.
Davos: Gross, man. You’re going to eat the rest of my half-eaten, mealy apple with a waving worm in it? That’s how people get mono, man.
Apple Seller: Yeah, eat it myself or just re-sell a half eaten apple to one of these starving refugees for a few pennies. It’s not much, but I can get some value out of it.
Davos hands the apple back to the seller and walks away, shaking his head.
Next he goes to hole-in-the-wall tavern called the Lazy Eel that he used to go all the time when he was a smuggler. I mean this place is THE WORST. The food here is so bad that no locals actually go here. The beer isn’t good either. The whole place is just a trap for sailors and traders who come into town who don’t know any better and come to this place for the absolute worst food at the cheapest prices. I’m not exactly sure what kinds of places the Whitecastle hookers who got murdered by Jack the Ripper used to hang out at, but I imagined they looked pretty much like the Lazy Eel.
The plus side of the Lazy Eel? Soldiers would never come here. So Davos can creep in the corner, listen to the gossip of all the sailors who goes in there talking, and not be detected.
He does exactly that.
Davos: Oh yeah! Juicy sailor gossip, here I come! Sailors hear everything!
Popeye: Did you hear? Tywin Lannister is dead! Killed by his imp son. His corpse smelled so bad that nobody could enter the Sept of Baelor until a hazmat team came in to do DECON.
Captain Crunch: Oh yeah? I heard that the Lady of the Eyrie was killed by some singer, and Littlefinger rules in the Vale. But Bronze Yohn Royce doesn’t like that and he plans to bring him down as soon as he FINDS HIS MISSING SON WHICH HE WON’T STOP CRYING ABOUT!!!
Sailor Moon: Speaking of dead people, I heard that Balon Greyjoy was dead and his brothers are all fighting for the Seastone Chair in some bullshit called a “Kingsmoot.”
Crispus Attucks: I heard Sandor “The Hound” Clegane is roaming round long the Trident and killing people.
Sinbad: That’s nothing. I’m from out East in Essos. Over there, Lys and Tyrosh are embroiled in an epic war! It’s something else. And there is a slave revolt happening even further out.
Horatio Hornblower: Well, I have some local news. Robett Glover is in town, trying to raise some men. But Manderly ain’t having none of it. Lord Eel Pie doesn’t want to get involved in any wars.
Davos: Hrm. Finally some local news. That’s good to hear. But also terrible to hear. Manderly wants to avoid entering the war? Damnit!
Skipper & Gilligan: Speaking of eel pies, who’s hungry to order another one?
All the sailors want more disgusting, filthy eel pies that taste horrible.
Bar Maid: The only flavor we have left is Extra Toe Nail.
Jack Aubrey: That’s fine with all of us.
Davos: *ahem*… Hey there, fellow sailors. It’s just me sitting in the corner here, listening to the rest of you gossip. Instead of talking about eating toenail and eel pies… could you go back to the gossip stuff?
Shipwreck from G.I. Joe: Oh yeah, right. Sorry stranger. I heard that the Ryswells and Dustins launched a surprise attack on the Ironmen and sent them fleeing. Now the Bastard of Bolton is riding south with Hother “Whoresbane” Umber to join an attack on Moat Cailin. The Hornwoods and Cerwyns have joined too.
Captain Nemo: If you ask me, Lord Wyman needs to send some troops as well. Lord Roose Bolton is the Warden of the North now, and so Wyman needs to send troops to support him, lest he get on the wrong side of his Warden.
Bar Maid: Oh what the hell does Roose Bolton know of honor? He was involved in that terrible Red Wedding! Now who wants more beer that I’ve mixed with dirty bath water?
Donald Duck: *says some nonsense that nobody can understand*
Ishmael: Well, we all know Lord Eel Pie isn’t going to answer the summons and go anywhere himself. He’s too fat. There is no horse that could carry him.
Bar Maid: Fat or think doesn’t matter. The Lannisters got his son as a prisoner, that’s what’s going to make his mind up.
Davos: Hrm. Nobody seems to be talking about King Stannis at all. That could be a good thing. But it could also be a bad thing. How do I expect these Northerners to kneel to King Stannis when they don’t even THINK about him? I bet they don’t even know that he showed up to save the Night’s Watch on the Wall.
Bar Maid: HEY YOU! Man in the corner over there mumbling to yourself… what did you just say?
Davos: Uhm… erm… I said… uhh… “Oh? They have Manderly’s son hostage? I thought that Manderly’s son was killed.”
Bar Maid: They killed Ser Wendel. Ser Wylis is still a prisoner.
Davos: Oh man. This news keeps getting worse and worse. The Freys are here. Manderly doesn’t want to fight. And if he does get pressured into fighting… it would definitely be for King Tommen’s side because he’s obliged to obey Lord Bolton and the Lannisters have his son as a hostage. And to add the cherry on top… nobody here at all has said anything like, “I wish the rightful king, Stannis, would show up and save the day!” There is no good news for me here.
He slouches back into the corner and continues to listen to the gossip, but there is nothing else about the situation here in White Harbor that can help him out. There is some more juicy gossip from the east though.
Edmond Dantès, the Count of Monte Cristo: --You’re crazy, Hook! Dragons?! Dragons! Now I KNOW you’re lying. The Beggar King has been dead for years. Some horse made him eat a Hot Pocket fresh out of the microwave and it melted his head off.
Captain Hook: That could be true, but maybe it’s not. People pretend to be dead all the time, and it’s half the world away. You haven’t seen Viserys’s corpse, have you?
Bar Maid: Oh please. I’ve never King Robert or King Joffrey’s corpses neither, so maybe they’re alive too. Maybe Baelor the Blessed is alive after all these years too, just having a little nap.
Derek Wildstar: Hey! Viserys wasn’t the only dragon, you know? There was also some babe, right? The prince Aegon. MAYBE HE’S NOT DEAD AND IS STILL ALIVE, USING A DISGUISE SUCH AS “YOUNG GRIFF” OR SOMETHING.
Everyone throws their food at Derek Wildstar and boo him, because that’s a stupid suggestion and everyone knows that GRRM is trying really hard to get us to believe that Young Griff is Aegon.
Some Random Toothless Hooker: Aegon wasn’t the only one. There were also two girls, weren’t there?
Jack the Ripper: Two. Rhagar’s daughter and his sister. Now come with me, Hooker.
Hooker: Okay!
They leave together.
Robinson Crusoe: But the daughter was murdered. The siter, the one that was Viserys’ sister. She’s still alive. What’s her name? Daenella? Danielle? Destiny? Destrii?
Davos: --Daenerys. Oh, sorry to butt in. It’s just that you were saying so many wrong names that it was messing with my OCD and I just had to step in. Anyway, nobody knows what happened to her.
Captain Ron: I DO!!!!!!
Everyone gasps as Captain Ron (AKA Kurt Russell with an Eye Patch from the non-critically acclaimed, non-hit 1992 film) suddenly emerges onto the scene.
Davos: You know what happened to Dany Targaryen?
Captain Ron: Oh yeah, for sure. I saw her all the way back in Qarth, back in ACoK Chapter 63. She was looking for some ship to take her and her three Dragons to Westeros. She had pretty purple eyes, silver hair, and a nice set, if you know what I mean.
Davos: Dude, she’s like 15 or 16.
Captain Ron: Hahaha, whatever dude. If there’s grass on her lawn, she’s ready to get mowed! If you know what I mean!
Nobody does.
Davos: That Captain Ron reference got dropped in an April 2018 post of the Jingle. Were we really setting up that to pay off an entire year later?
Captain Ron: *shrugs* Anyway, I was like “No way! There’s more profit trading saffron and cloves than carrying some dragons who will set all my sails on fire.”
With this, Davos has heard enough. The stories about dragons are cool and all, and sailing Essos and looking for dragons were dreams he once had. But now he’s the Hand of the King and he needs to get back to business. He’s not going to get any more sweet intel about Manderly from here. The sailors already gave him everything they could possible give.
Davos: What do I do now? Is it even worth going to see Lord Manderly? No way is he joining Team Stannis now. Not with all this stuff with his hostage son and the Freys here. Besides, Ser Axell Florent told me that I was an ape wearing knight’s clothing. I fit in much better in that seedy bar with those sailors than I do before the court of a Lord. Manderly will never listen to me.
Davos sighs yet again. He knows he’ll likely fail. But can he go back to his King as a failure? Stannis is such a pain in the ass. He has to go. He has to try.
Davos climbs the steep stairs up to the gates of New Castle, where Lord Manderly resides. At the top of the hill, he can see out to the harbors. He sees nearly two dozen warships that are preparing for something.
Davos: What the hell? Lord Eel Pie might be fat, but he’s not totally inactive. He’s doing something with those ships.
He turns and walks to the New Castle gates. He knocks. There is no answer. Then he shouts.
Davos: HEY! OPEN THE DAMN GATES, BUTTHOLES!
Guard: SHUT UP! They’re closed! It’s the middle of the night, dude! What the hell are you doing here?
Davos pulls out his sheet of paper with the royal seal.
Davos: I am here on behalf of the true king, Stannis Baratheon. I am to meet with him and him alone. At once!
Guard: Really? You’re here to meet Manderly on behalf of a king? You smell like vomit, athlete’s foot, and sadness.
Davos: I was just at the Lazy Eel.
Guard: Ah, well that explains that. Come on in.
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