Godric Borrell

Godric Borrell, Lord of Sweetsister, Shield of Sisterton, Master of Breakwater Castle, and Keeper of the Night Lamp, is a blunt, fleshy man with webbed fingers and a face as brutal as the coast he rules. He presides over a damp, torch-lit hall where the sea pounds the foundations and the roof leaks, and he judges men by their usefulness rather than their titles. When Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight and Hand of King Stannis, is washed up on his shore after the storms scatter the royal fleet, Borrell does not simply hand him over to the Lannisters or the Freys; he feeds him sister's stew, questions him, and measures the political winds before deciding what to do with him.

Rule and Reputation

Borrell is the master of Breakwater Castle, a damp, dark keep where the sea rumbles beneath the floor and the hall is lit by only a few tallow candles. He is an ugly man, big and fleshy, with an oarsman's thick shoulders, a bald head, a lumpy nose broken with veins, and a webbing between the middle fingers of his right hand—a mark of the old Sistermen blood. He rules Sweetsister with a pragmatist's eye, aware that his islands are small and poor, and that the great kings of Westeros rarely bother with them. His forebears were pirate kings until the Starks came down with fire and sword, and the Sistermen have since confined themselves to wrecking, using false lights to draw unwary captains to their doom on stormy nights. Borrell himself keeps a Night Lamp, a beacon meant to warn of shoals, but he admits that the sea is a treacherous, cruel thing, and he has profited from its wrecks—forty chests of pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and a pound of saffron taken off a sloe-eyed maid that smashed against his rocks.

Encounter with Davos Seaworth

When Davos is brought before him, bound and dripping, after being put ashore by Salladhor Saan, Borrell does not rush to judgment. He cuts Davos free, demands to see his maimed hand—the shortened fingers that prove he is the onion knight—and then questions him over a meal of sister's stew, a creamy concoction of leeks, carrots, barley, turnips, clams, cod, and crabmeat swimming in heavy cream and butter, spiced with saffron and cracked black pepper. Borrell is well-informed: he knows that Tywin Lannister is dead, killed by his dwarf son; that the Imp has escaped; that the Freys have arrived in White Harbor with the bones of Wyman Manderly's son; and that Lord Manderly means to bend the knee to the Iron Throne, not to Stannis. He tells Davos that the Lionstar put in at Sisterton twelve days ago, full of Freys making for White Harbor, and that Lord Wyman has made a pact with Lord Walder, to be sealed with a marriage. He also recounts the old tale of how Ned Stark passed through Sisterton during Robert's Rebellion, crossing the Bite with a fisherman's daughter, and how his own father sent Stark on his way with his head still on his shoulders, saying, "If you lose, you were never here."

Political Calculations

Borrell is not a man of honor in the chivalric sense; he is a man of survival. He has no love for northmen, remembering the Rape of the Three Sisters two thousand years ago, and he bears a grudge against Stannis, who as Robert's master of ships once sent a fleet into his port without leave and made him hang a dozen friends. He tells Davos that he could send him to White Harbor, or to some cold wet hell, and that Sunderland would sell him to the queen for a pot of Lannister gold. Yet he also nurses doubts about the winning side. When Davos points out that Tywin Lannister is dead and that the child king Tommen may not prevail against Stannis, Borrell listens. He recalls Ned Stark's words, spoken in this very hall: "In this world only winter is certain." In the end, he does not betray Davos. He feeds him, gives him dry clothes, and lets him go on his way, repeating the same formula his father used with Ned Stark: "No more than I was." He is a man who hedges his bets, keeps his options open, and survives by knowing when to act and when to look the other way.