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Renly is not a year when he learns who his brothers are; when the stormy young boys who take turns visiting him begin to make sense—their forms and manners (one broad and boisterous, the other slight and reserved), their habits (whether they bring him gifts or not, whether they pick him up, how many times they laugh), their smiles (one there, the other not there). He tries to memorize their postures and the tilts of their heads, the way they pronounce their words.
These demi-gods, he thinks, long before he knows what that word means.
When Renly learns to walk (waddle, stumble, then scamper the rest of the way on all fours), he follows them around as though they are princes, and he their loyal guard.
It is like this: Renly holds Robert’s hand every chance he gets. He clambers up on his big brother’s lap and listens wide-eyed while Rob humors him with stories—tales of valiant knights and great kings, palaces of gold and the most beautiful queen the world had ever seen, her eyes like a wolf’s. Everybody loves Robert, Renly knows, and it is a privilege to spend time with him. When he’s in a good mood he takes Renly to the lake to fish or swim or lie in the sun, and Renly thinks that he couldn’t be happier, that it will always be like this: Renly and Robert against the world.
It’s not, of course. But by the time Renly realizes it, he’s found Loras and a different kind of salvation.
It is like this: when Renly falls and cuts his knee open, Robert waves a hand and tells him to stop being such a baby before getting into Ned Stark’s car. It’s then some sort of culture shock to be scooped up by Stannis, wordlessly and out of nowhere, but he is in pain and his heart has been broken and it’s nice to be carried around like this. When Stannis sets him down on the kitchen counter to clean the wound, Renly is almost tempted to touch his face, just to make sure he’s a person, if he only knew he would not flinch away. He focuses on not crying instead, and being very quiet, and thinking about what a conqueror would do if he were wounded while waiting for Stannis to scold him. He doesn’t. He finds him a band-aid with cars on it, brusquely kisses his forehead, and walks away.
When the plane crashes, they stand in a straight line in front of the coffin, Robert and Stannis on either side of Renly, each holding one of his hands. None of them cry. Renly wears black for a day, Robert for a week, Stannis for a year. He’s always mourning something, Robert rolls his eyes, and Renly laughs even though he doesn’t understand the joke.
They fight all the time. At night Renly can hear them—Robert shouting and then the silence afterwards, Stannis replying in measured tones. (Renly has never heard his other brother raise his voice and he decides very early on that this is a sort of skill: being yelled at and never reciprocating.) (Or, maybe it is that Stannis’ replies are such unwavering knife-wounds, and Rob cannot help but reciprocate in the only way he knows how, loudly, maybe he is completely justified, this sort of hero of his.) (Renly loses sleep trying to figure it out though he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, though it’s none of his business and it doesn’t matter why Robert is constantly at a boiling point and why Stannis is so cold and why they simply cannot get along—it’s just that, Renly is five now and he knows that one of them must be the bad guy but he can’t decide who it is. And he thinks, it can’t be Robert, who picks him up over his shoulders and wrestles with him when he comes home from school and winks at him before heading out every morning. Who is a Greek god of sorts. Who is brilliant and daring, the heir of the Baratheon company. Renly also thinks, he doesn’t want it to be Stannis either, who always helps him put his toys away after he’s made a mess in the living room, and takes care of him when he has a stomach ache, and even reads to him from time to time. Who does not shine, but stays steady. Renly doesn’t want anyone to be the villain. He thinks, Could it be me? and falls asleep.)
Uncle Cressen looks after them even though Robert is always at the Starks’ and Stannis, sixteen, insists he can take care of himself. Renly doesn’t understand what the big deal is, because the more the merrier. Anyway, Uncle Cressen plays soldiers with him and tells him stories the way Robert used to, and once in a while when Robert comes home he does the same. Stannis keeps to himself which is just fine, because even when he’s around he doesn’t talk much, and even when he talks he never has anything cheerful or exciting to say. Despite their small family, Storm’s End has always been an impressive estate, worth much more than the sum of its inhabitants, and its large staff ensures that Renly does not grow up lonely. They dote on him the way their parents doted on Robert, and he is happy. There are hiccups as there are in every family, yet no one can say that Renly Baratheon isn’t a happy child. No one can say that Renly Baratheon isn’t cared for, nor loved, and no one can say that Renly Baratheon lacks for attention.
When seven monsters strangle him in his sleep at night he has two beds to choose from. He does not panic.
Robert mostly sleeps like a rock so that when he slips under the covers, stuffed bear in hand (stuffing half coming out), he can snuggle right into his arms without waking him up, and no big deal will be made. Sometimes Robert will stir and kiss his hair and say, “I’ll kill ‘em in the morning,” and Renly will know he means the monsters. When he goes to Stannis instead his brother jolts up and scoots over, barely touching him. It’s okay. When he goes to Stannis it’s normally because he doesn’t want to fall back asleep, because he can’t get the sharp teeth out of his mind and sometimes it’s easier to be with someone who tells you you’re being absolutely ridiculous than someone who is ready to walk straight into their gaping jaws. He tells him stories. They’re not very good ones, because Stannis isn’t creative, but he tries, and Renly rests his head on his chest, and by the time morning breaks he can hardly remember what it was in his room that frightened him so much in the first place.
*
So who, then, could predict that in just fifteen years, Robert would be found face down in his study in a pool of his own bile, poisoned at the hands of his beautiful wife? That the remaining Baratheon brothers, estranged and shaken with rage, will get in a delirious kitchen knife fight one night, threatening one another’s lives—that Stannis will cut a gash so deep in Renly’s shoulder that he will be rushed to the emergency room, and the two will not speak for the next nine years? That Cersei Lannister will fashion herself CEO of Baratheon & Bros, that Ned Stark will die?
Renly is not a day old when his brothers peek into his crib, flushed-pink and laughing, already a crown of golden brown hair on his head, reaching up to touch their faces.