Stannis IV

He had to admit. The ship was impressive. Arthur's letters had told him the measurements, but it was one thing to know a ship was 120 feet high and 160 long, but entirely another to be cast in the shadow of its golden sails as it pulled into port bearing your own house's sigil on each one.

It certainly made an impression, as little time as he would normally give such things, and he could only imagine how much time the court would waste gossiping about it in the coming weeks.

Still, he did wonder if anyone else noticed the long row of shutters along the middle deck or the way that the railing on the top deck was cut at regular intervals.

No, his son might call this a trading vessel, but should he choose to do so, Arthur could fill this vessel full of the cannons he had been stacking for a year in those storehouses of his. The boy's forge never slept as far as he could tell, and there were likely enough of the things now to arm half of the Royal Fleet with them exclusively, but he would not pry into his son's stores so carelessly. As long as the Royal Fleet could do its duty properly he could keep letting his son build strength for now.

Indeed, the vessel wasn't the only display of strength on parade today. The gangplank was lowered and the disciplined spearman who marched down ahead of his son and wife was another odd but decidedly intimidating sight. His son had explained that they were to be sailing men-at-arms, trained for fighting at sea, but he had only formed the one company so far. Someday he hoped to attach them to every ship, calling them Mar-rines. He had questioned what they had to do with the city, but Arthur had replied that it was unrelated and simply rooted in the same Old Ghischari word.

Either way, they looked competent enough, big men all, and marching in step with each other down the gangplank. They held their spears over their shoulders oddly, but he supposed that was some quirk of their training.

Still, the real surprise was not the disciplined men marching in order, but rather what came after them.

Stannis had traveled more than most men did in their lives in his role as master of ships, but he could honestly say that he has never seen clothing quite like that which his son and wife wore before.

He would be lying if he said it didn't catch him off guard, nothing had warned him of something like this. They were extravagant true, but not in the undignified way that Reachmen or Lannisters favored. There was a certain dignity and austerity in the way the cloth fit around them. While he would not choose to wear it for himself, he could not deny that it was honestly some of the first passable courtly clothing he had seen in his life that wasn't a plain robe.

Of course, he would still be dragged kicking and screaming to the hell before they would manage to put it on him, as the gaze in his wife's eye seemed to suggest was her plan.

There was simply no way.

______________________________________

Stannis groaned and tugged at the obnoxiously high collar as the tournament started in earnest. It had been two days since his family arrived, and with the party from Casterly Rock arriving last evening, the tournament had started in full today. There would be a full six days of feasting before Prince Joffrey's nameday. The first three would have jousts and the latter three Melee's.

For now, he sat quietly in the stands for three he upper nobility as some Reacher Knight unseated some young moron from Dorne, it all mattered fairly little as far as things went. Robert would laugh and cheer and guzzle down ale, and prince Joffrey would grin with every brutal hit.

Stannis had been to far too many tournaments with his brother and the crown prince. It seemed they could not go twenty days without at least a small one these days.

'At least Arthur is enjoying himself.' The boy had shown a rather quick dislike for Kings Landing, something which probably spoke well of his tastes. It had been amusing to no end that the boy had immediately taken to scribing down a sewer system for his new structures at Dragonstone as soon as they had gotten settled into their quarters. Though it had unfortunately left him with no easy excuse to escape his wife, and resulted in him wearing the same overly complex outfit as his son.

Still, they had been receiving appreciative looks form courtiers ever since she had started making them wear the things, so he supposed it was probably just some sort of court-fashion affair, which was his wife's duty to keep track of anyhow.

He smiled gently as he saw Arthur Grin and cheer at a knight helping another unseated man off of the ground. A stark contrast to the silence from the younger boy in the royal box.

'It is good that my son was not Joffrey.' he decided at last. 'I would not support his cruelty and that would drive him mad.'