celiatully:

kittenbalerion:

Part 1

It is not the first time in her life that Marya has been homeless.  Once when she was ten, just after her father had died and her mother hadn’t been able to find a place to live for four weeks, and then again when her mother had learned she was pregnant with Dale and thrown her from the house.  Davos had been off with his smuggling, and she hadn’t been able to find a place to stay until he’d come back and married her.  

Now’s different, though.  Now she sleeps on the hard stone floor of a tiny sept just off Fishmonger’s Square, Dale, Allard, and Matthos curled about her.  The septon is a fat old thing, and he looks haggard every day, as people come to him begging for food, for shelter.  It was the Mother that saved me and my sons, septon, she had pleaded, we won’t be a bother, won’t ask for food, I’ve a job, I promise—just a roof overhead until my husband returns, and he had relented.

Marya spends her days hiking up to the Street of Sisters, and Goodwife Marilyn’s washhouse, ignoring the protests of her swollen ankles, and pausing every few minutes to catch her breath.  This babe, this fourth one, is bigger than Matthos had been and he drains the breath right out of her when she moves.

But move she must, for the coin that she brings back every day keeps her boys fed, and the only reason that Septon Farryn had allowed them to stay was that they wouldn’t ask him for food.  There is food in the city, at least.  In his defeat, Lord Tyrell does not deny trade to the new Baratheon king, and there is even some spring breads coming down from the riverlands now that the fighting there is done.  

So it wasn’t treason after all, Davos, she thinks as she closes her eyes and leans against a the wall of a motherhouse.  It wasn’t treason go bring Lord Stannis his onions, then.  Lord Stannis is brother to the king, now.  Mayhaps he may even reward Davos his service.  But Marya would not know.  She has not heard from Davos, nor from any of his friends.  She’d told them where they were staying, for when he came back to the city he would undoubtedly be horrified to see the ruin that was the pot shop over which they had lived.  A problem for another day, she thinks, resting her hand on her stomach.  Her next boy kicks, and she winces.  You stop your fighting, she wants to tell him.  I don’t need trouble from you just yet.  Not while Dale is quiet and Allard is weepy and Matthos is too young to understand what’s going on.  You keep your kicks to yourself.

The sept is full of people when she returns, and Dale is not waiting for her when she pushes her way inside.  She looks around and sees him, and Allard, and even little Matthos crowding around a man on a bench—a man with a beard and a fancy cloak and—

She leans against the wall and closes her eyes because he’s there, he’s back, and he’s dressed like a lord.  And his arms are around her and he even smells all clean, not like the sea, not like her Davos.

“You took your time coming back,” she said to him.  "And where did you get this?  Was it a gift from Lord Stannis?“

He chuckles delightedly. “Forgive me, Marya.  I was on Cape Wrath, looking at our new home.”

"Cape Wr—new home?” she stares at him and he reaches out and takes her hand in his and—"Davos, what happened to your hand?“

"Lord Stannis took my fingers for smuggling." 

Marya raises her eyebrows and says, sharply, “He needed your smuggling.”

"He did,” Davos agreed.  "And I was also rewarded.  You speak now to Ser Davos Seaworth, a knight of Cape Wrath.  Marya—we have a castle!“  

Marya clutches at him, afraid of falling over even as the fourth kicks her again.  She’d lived through much in her life—work that didn’t pay more than a few pennies, fear and homelessness, her children nearly being burned alive—and Davos…

"Seaworth,” she murmurs.  "You have a name now.“

"And so do you, Marya,” he says excitedly.  "Marya Seaworth.  For the sea has made our worth, and a knightly sigil of onions.“

"Onions,” she sighs.  "It couldn’t have been something bolder.“  And then she smiles—truly smiles, a great one that spreads across her face.  "And I never have to wash that old shrew’s sheets ever again!”  She throws her arms around her husband’s neck.  If he’s a knight, does that make her a lady?  She wonders if there’s ever been a lady who started out a washerwoman before.

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