“I never wanted Cressen at that feast. He’d angered me, yes, he’d given me bad counsel, but I did not want him dead. I’d hoped he might be granted a few years of ease and comfort. He had earned that much, at least, but” he ground his teeth together-”but he died. And Pylos serves me ably.”  “Pylos is the least of it. The letter... What did your lords make of it, I wonder?”  Stannis snorted. “Celtigar pronounced it admirable. If I showed him the contents of my privy, he would declare that admirable as well. The others bobbed their heads up and down like a flock of geese, all but Velaryon, who said that steel would decide the matter, not words on parchment. As if I had never suspected. The Others take my lords, I’ll hear your views.”  “Your words were blunt and strong.”  “And true.”  “And true. Yet you have no proof. Of this incest. No more than you did a year ago.”  “There’s proof of a sort at Storm’s End. Robert’s bastard. The one he fathered on my wedding night, in the very bed they’d made up for me and my bride. Delena was a Florent, and a maiden when he took her, so Robert acknowledged the babe. Edric Storm, they call him. He is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder, I would think...  “Yet how are men to see him, if he is at Storm’s End?”  Stannis drummed his fingers on the Painted Table. “It is a difficulty. One of many.” He raised his eyes. “You have more to say about the letter. Well, get on with it. I did not make you a knight so you could learn to mouth empty courtesies. I have my lords for that. Say what you would say, Davos.”  Davos bowed his head. “There was a phrase at the end. How did it go? Done in the Light of the Lord...”  “Yes.” The king’s jaw was clenched.  “Your people will mislike those words.”  “As you did?” said Stannis sharply.  “If you were to say instead, Done in the sight of gods and men, or By the grace of the gods old and new...”  “Have you gone devout on me, smuggler?”   “That was to be my question for you, my liege.”  “Was it now? It sounds as though you love my new god no more than you love my new maester.”  “I do not know this Lord of Light,” Davos admitted, “but I knew the gods we burned this morning. The Smith has kept my ships safe, while the Mother has given me seven strong sons.”  “Your wife has given you seven strong sons. Do you pray to her? It was wood we burned this m............