“If Stannis thinks the fat man will ride the stag, he’s wrong. The Lionstar put in at Sisterton twelve days ago to fill her water casks. Do you know her? Crimson sails and a gold lion on her prow. And full of Freys, making for White Harbor.”
“Freys?” That was the last thing that Davos would have expected. “The Freys killed Lord Wyman’s son, we heard.”
“Aye,” Lord Godric said, “and the fat man was so wroth that he took a vow to live on bread and wine till he had his vengeance. But before the day was out, he was stuffing clams and cakes into his mouth again. There’s ships that go between the Sisters and White Harbor all the time. We sell them crabs and fish and goat cheese, they sell us wood and wool and hides. From all I hear, his lordship’s fatter than ever. So much for vows. Words are wind, and the wind from Manderly’s mouth means no more than the wind escaping out his bottom.” The lord tore off another chunk of bread to swipe out his trencher. “The Freys were bringing the fat fool a bag of bones. Some call that courtesy, to bring a man his dead son’s bones. Had it been my son, I would have returned the courtesy and thanked the Freys before I hanged them, but the fat man’s too noble for that.” He stuffed the bread into his mouth, chewed, swallowed. “I had the Freys to supper. One sat just where you’re sitting now.”
—Lord Godric Borrell and Lord Davos Seaworth in Davos’s first chapter, A Dance with Dragons
So the first time we hear about the Freys and the Manderlys in Dance, it’s in the context of eating a lot, the Manderlys not taking vengeance, and having the Freys to supper. Oh, Lord Borrell. “The fat man” ends up having the Freys to supper, too—only when he stuffs his mouth, it ain’t with bread.
