Daenerys Targaryen wed Khal Drogo with fear and
barbaric splendor in a field beyond the walls of Pentos, for the
Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a man’s
life must be done beneath the open sky.
Drogo had called his khalasar to attend him and they had come,
forty thousand Dothraki warriors and uncounted numbers of women,
children, and slaves. Outside the city walls they camped with their
vast herds, raising palaces of woven grass, eating everything in
sight, and making the good folk of Pentos more anxious with every
passing day.
“My fellow magisters have doubled the size of the city
guard,” Illyrio told them over platters of honey duck and
orange snap peppers one night at the manse that had been
Drogo’s. The khal had joined his khalasar, his estate given
over to Daenerys and her brother until the wedding.
“Best we get Princess Daenerys wedded quickly before they
hand half the wealth of Pentos away to sellswords and
bravos,” Ser Jorah Mormont jested. The exile had offered her
brother his sword the night Dany had been sold to Kbal Drogo;
Viserys had accepted eagerly. Mormont had been their constant
companion ever since.
Magister Illyrio laughed lightly through his forked beard, but
Viserys did not so much as smile. “He can have her tomorrow,
if he likes,” her brother said. He glanced over at Dany, and
she lowered her eyes. “So long as he pays the
price.”
Illyrio waved a languid hand in the air, rings glittering on his
fat fingers. “I have told you, all is settled. Trust me. The
khal has promised you a crown, and you shall have it.”
“Yes, but when?”
“When the khal chooses,” Illyrio said. “He
will have the girl first, and after they are wed he must make his
procession across the plains and present her to the doshkhaleen at
Vaes Dothrak. After that, perhaps. If the omens favor
war.”
Viserys seethed with impatience. “I piss on Dothraki
omens. The Usurper sits on my father’s throne. How long must
I wait?”
Illyrio gave a massive shrug. “You have waited most of
your life, great king. What is another few months, another few
years?”
Ser Jorah, who had traveled as far east as Vaes Dothrak, nodded
in agreement. “I counsel you to be patient, Your Grace. The
Dothraki are true to their word, but they do things in their own
time. A lesser man may beg a favor from the khal, but must never
presume to berate him.”
Viserys bristled. “Guard your tongue, Mormont, or
I’ll have it out. I am no lesser man, I am the rightful Lord
of the Seven Kingdoms. The dragon does not beg.”
Ser Jorah lowered his eyes respectfully. Illyrio smiled
enigmatically and tore a wing from the duck. Honey and grease ran
over his fingers and dripped down into his beard as he nibbled at
the tender meat. There are no more dragons, Dany thought, staring
at her brother, though she did not dare say it aloud.
Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her,
hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but
her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She
stumbled and fell. “You woke the dragon,” he screamed
as he kicked her. “You woke the dragon, you woke the
dragon.” Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her
eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous ripping
sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again,
Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in
the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly.
When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with
a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid . . .
. . . until the day of her wedding came at last.
The ceremony began at dawn and continued until dusk, an endless
day of drinking and feasting and fighting. A mighty earthen ramp
had been raised amid the grass palaces, and there Dany was seated
beside Khal Drogo, above the seething sea of Dothraki. She had never
seen so many people in one place, nor people so strange and
frightening. The horselords might put on rich fabrics and sweet
perfumes when they visited the Free Cities, but out under the open
sky they kept the old ways. Men and women alike wore painted
leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings cinched by
bronze medallion belts, and the warriors greased their long braids
with fat from the rendering pits. They gorged themselves on
horseflesh roasted with honey and peppers, drank themselves blind
on fermented mare’s milk and Illyrio’s fine wines, and
spat jests at each other across the fires, their voices harsh and
alien in Dany’s ears.
Viserys was seated just below her, splendid in a new black wool
tunic with a scarlet dragon on the chest. Illyrio and Ser Jorah sat
beside him. Theirs was a place of high honor, just below the
khal’s own bloodriders, but Dany could see the anger in her
brother’s lilac eyes. He did not like sitting beneath her,
and he fumed when the slaves offered each dish first to the khal
and his bride, and served him from the portions they refused. He
could do nothing but nurse his resentment, so nurse it he did, his
mood growing blacker by the hour at each insult to his person.
Dany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of
that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she
smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her
eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys
would be if he saw her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might
react. Food was brought to her, steaming joints of meat and thick
black sausages and Dothraki blood pies, and later fruits and
sweetgrass stews and delicate pastries from the kitchens of Pentos,
but she waved it all away. Her stomach was a roil, and she knew she
could keep none of it down.
There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and
jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he
scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language.
Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few
words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all
of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have
welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were
too far below to hear her.
So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine,
afraid to eat, talking silently to herself. I am blood of the
dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of
Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror.
The sun was only a quarter of the way up the sky when she saw
her first man die. Drums were beating as some of the women danced
for the khal. Drogo watched without expression, but his eyes
followed their movements, and from time to time he would toss down
a bronze medallion for the women to fight over.
The warriors were watching too. One of them finally stepped into
the circle, grabbed a dancer by the arm, pushed her down to the
ground, and mounted her right there, as a stallion mounts a mare.
Illyrio had told her that might happen. “The Dothraki mate
like the animals in their herds. There is no privacy in a khalasar,
and they do not understand sin or shame as we do.”
Dany looked away from the coupling, frightened when she realized
what was happening, but a second warrior stepped forward, and a
third, and soon there was no way to avert her eyes. Then two men
seized the same woman. She heard a shout, saw a shove, and in the
blink of an eye the arakhs were out, long razor-sharp blades, half
sword and half scythe. A dance of death began as the warriors
circled and slashed, leaping toward each other, whirling the blades
around their heads, shrieking insults at each clash. No one made a
move to interfere.
It ended as quickly as it began. The arakhs shivered together
faster than Dany could follow, one man missed a step, the other
swung his blade in a flat arc. Steel bit into flesh just above the
Dothraki’s waist, and opened him from backbone to belly
button, spilling his entrails into the dust. As the loser died, the
winner took hold of the nearest woman—not even the one they had
been quarreling over—and had her there and then. Slaves carried off
the body, and the dancing resumed.
Magister Illyrio had warned Dany about this too. “A
Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is deemed a dull
affair,” he had said. Her wedding must have been especially
blessed; before the day was over, a dozen men had died.
As the hours passed, the terror grew in Dany, until it was all
she could do not to scream. She was afraid of the Dothraki, whose
ways seemed alien and monstrous, as if they were beasts in human
skins and not true men at all. She was afraid of her brother, of
what he might do if she failed him. Most of all, she was afraid of
what would happen tonight under the stars, when her brother gave
her up to the hulking giant who sat drinking beside her with a face
as still and cruel as a bronze mask. I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself again.
When at last the sun was low in the sky, Khal Drogo clapped his
hands together, and the drums and the shouting and feasting came to
a sudden halt. Drogo stood and pulled Dany to her feet beside him.
It was time for her bride gifts.
And after the gifts, she knew, after the sun had gone down, it
would be time for the first ride and the consummation of her
marriage. Dany tried to put the thought aside, but it would not
leave her. She hugged herself to try to keep from shaking.
Her brother Viserys gifted her with three handmaids. Dany knew
they had cost him nothing; Illyrio no doubt had provided the girls.
Irri and Jhiqui were copper-skinned Dothraki with black hair and
almond-shaped eyes, Doreah a fair-haired, blue-eyed Lysene girl.
“These are no common servants, sweet sister,” her
brother told her as they were brought forward one by one.
“Illyrio and I selected them personally for you. Irri will
teach you riding, Jhiqui the Dothraki tongue, and Doreah will
instruct you in the womanly arts of love.” He smiled thinly.
“She’s very good, Illyrio and I can both swear to
that.”
Ser Jorah Mormont apologized for his gift. “It is a small
thing, my princess, but all a poor exile could afford,” he
said as he laid a small stack of old books before her. They were
histories and songs of the Seven Kingdoms, she saw, written in the
Common Tongue. She thanked him with all her heart.
Magister Illyrio murmured a command, and four burly slaves
hurried forward, bearing between them a great cedar chest bound in
bronze. When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets
and damasks the Free Cities could produce . . . and resting on top,
nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs. Dany gasped. They were
the most beautiful things she had ever seen, each different than
the others, patterned in such rich colors that at first she thought
they were crusted with jewels, and so large it took both of her
hands to hold one. She lifted it delicately, expecting that it
would be made of some fine porcelain or delicate enamel, or even
blown glass, but it was much heavier than that, as if it were all
of solid stone. The surface of the shell was covered with tiny
scales, and as she turned the egg between her fingers, they
shimmered like polished metal in the light of the setting sun. One
egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and
went depending on how Dany turned it. Another was pale cream
streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea,
yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls. “What are
they?” she asked, her voice hushed and full of wonder.
“Dragon’s eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond
Asshai,” said Magister Illyrio. “The eons have turned
them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty.”
“I shall treasure them always.” Dany had heard tales
of such eggs, but she had never seen one, nor thought to see one.
It was a truly magnificent gift, though she knew that Illyrio could
afford to be lavish. He had collected a fortune in horses and
slaves for his part in selling her to Khal Drogo.
The khal’s bloodriders offered her the traditional three
weapons, and splendid weapons they were. Haggo gave her a great
leather whip with a silver handle, Cohollo a magnificent arakh
chased in gold, and Qotho a double-curved dragonbone bow taller
than she was. Magister Illyrio and Ser Jorah had taught her the
traditional refusals for these offerings. “This is a gift
worthy of a great warrior, O blood of my blood, and I am but a
woman. Let my lord husband bear these in my stead.” And so
Khal Drogo too received his “bride gifts.”
Other gifts she was given in plenty by other Dothraki: slippers
and jewels and silver rings for her hair, medallion belts and
painted vests and soft furs, sandsilks and jars of scent, needles
and feathers and tiny bottles of purple glass, and a gown made from
the skin of a thousand mice. “A handsome gift,
Khaleesi,” Magister Illyrio said of the last, after he had
told her what it was. “Most lucky.” The gifts mounted
up around her in great piles, more gifts than she could possibly
imagine, more gifts than she could want or use.
And last of all, Khal Drogo brought forth his own bride gift to
her. An expectant hush rippled out from the center of the camp as
he left her side, growing until it had swallowed the whole
khalasar. When he returned, the dense press of Dothraki gift-givers
parted before him, and he led the horse to her.
She was a young filly, spirited and splendid. Dany knew just
enough about horses to know that this was no ordinary animal. There
was something about her that took the breath away. She was grey as
the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke.
Hesitantly she reached out and stroked the horse’s neck,
ran her fingers through the silver of her mane. Khal Drogo said
something in Dothraki and Magister Illyrio translated.
“Silver for the silver of your hair, the khal
says.”
“She’s beautiful,” Dany murmured.
“She is the pride of the khalasar, “ Illyrio said.
“Custom decrees that the khaleesi must ride a mount worthy of
her place by the side of the khal.”
Drogo stepped forward and put his hands on her waist. He lifted
her up as easily as if she were a child and set her on the thin
Dothraki saddle, so much smaller than the ones she was used to.
Dany sat there uncertain for a moment. No one had told her about
this part. “What should I do?” she asked Illyrio.
It was Ser Jorah Mormont who answered. “Take the reins and
ride. You need not go far.”
Nervously Dany gathered the reins in her hands and slid her feet
into the short stirrups. She was only a fair rider; she had spent
far more time traveling by ship and wagon and palanquin than by
horseback. Praying that she would not fall off and disgrace
herself, she gave the filly the lightest and most timid touch with
her knees.
And for the first time in hours, she forgot to be afraid. Or
perhaps it was for the first time ever.
The silver-grey filly moved with a smooth and silken gait, and
the crowd parted for her, every eye upon them. Dany found herself
moving faster than she had intended, yet somehow it was exciting
rather than terrifying. The horse broke into a trot, and she
smiled. Dothraki scrambled to clear a path. The slightest pressure
with her legs, the lightest touch on the reins, and the filly
responded. She sent it into a gallop, and now the Dothraki were
hooting and laughing and shouting at her as they jumped out of her
way. As she turned to ride back, a firepit loomed ahead, directly
in her path. They were hemmed in on either side, with no room to
stop. A daring she had never known filled Daenerys then, and she
gave the filly her head.
The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings.
When she pulled up before Magister Illyrio, she said,
“Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind.” The
fat Pentoshi stroked his yellow beard as he repeated her words in
Dothraki, and Dany saw her new husband smile for the first
time.
The last sliver of sun vanished behind the high walls of Pentos
to the west just then. Dany had lost all track of time. Khal Drogo
commanded his bloodriders to bring forth his own horse, a lean red
stallion. As the khal was saddling the horse, Viserys slid close to
Dany on her silver, dug his fingers into her leg, and said,
“Please him, sweet sister, or I swear, you will see the
dragon wake as it has never woken before.”
The fear came back to her then, with her brother’s words.
She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not
ready for what was about to happen to her.
They rode out together as the stars came out, leaving the
khalasar and the grass palaces behind. Khal Drogo spoke no word to
her, but drove his stallion at a hard trot through the gathering
dusk. The tiny silver bells in his long braid rang softly as he
rode. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she whispered
aloud as she followed, trying to keep her courage up. “I am
the blood of the dragon. I am the blood of the dragon.” The
dragon was never afraid.
Afterward she could not say how far or how long they had ridden,
but it was full dark when they stopped at a grassy place beside a
small stream. Drogo swung off his horse and lifted her down from
hers. She felt as fragile as glass in his hands, her limbs as weak
as water. She stood there helpless and trembling in her wedding
silks while he secured the horses, and when he turned to look at
her, she began to cry.
Khal Drogo stared at her tears, his face strangely empty of
expression. “No,” he said. He lifted his hand and
rubbed away the tears roughly with a callused thumb.
“You speak the Common Tongue,” Dany said in
wonder.
“No,” he said again.
Perhaps he had only that word, she thought, but it was one word
more than she had known he had, and somehow it made her feel a
little better. Drogo touched her hair lightly, sliding the
silver-blond strands between his fingers and murmuring softly in
Dothraki. Dany did not understand the words, yet there was warmth
in the tone, a tenderness she had never expected from this man.
He put his finger under her chin and lifted her head, so she was
looking up into his eyes. Drogo towered over her as he towered over
everyone. Taking her lightly under the arms, he lifted her and
seated her on a rounded rock beside the stream. Then he sat on the
ground facing her, legs crossed beneath him, their faces finally at
a height. “No,” he said.
“Is that the only word you know?” she asked him.
Drogo did not reply. His long heavy braid was coiled in the dirt
beside him. He pulled it over his right shoulder and began to
remove the bells from his hair, one by one. After a moment Dany
leaned forward to help. When they were done, Drogo gestured. She
understood. Slowly, carefully, she began to undo his braid.
It took a long time. All the while he sat there silently,
watching her. When she was done, he shook his head, and his hair
spread out behind him like a river of darkness, oiled and gleaming.
She had never seen hair so long, so black, so thick.
Then it was his turn. He began to undress her.
His fingers were deft and strangely tender. He removed her silks
one by one, carefully, while Dany sat unmoving, silent, looking at
his eyes. When he bared her small breasts, she could not help
herself. She averted her eyes and covered herself with her hands.
“No,” Drogo said. He pulled her hands away from her
breasts, gently but firmly, then lifted her face again to make her
look at him. “No,” he repeated.
“No,” she echoed back at him.
He stood her up then and pulled her close to remove the last of
her silks. The night air was chilly on her bare skin. She shivered,
and gooseflesh covered her arms and legs. She was afraid of what
would come next, but for a while nothing happened. Khal Drogo sat
with his legs crossed, looking at her, drinking in her body with
his eyes.
After a while he began to touch her. Lightly at first, then
harder. She could sense the fierce strength in his hands, but he
never hurt her. He held her hand in his own and brushed her
fingers, one by one. He ran a hand gently down her leg. He stroked
her face, tracing the curve of her ears, running a finger gently
around her mouth. He put both hands in her hair and combed it with
his fingers. He turned her around, massaged her shoulders, slid a
knuckle down the path of her spine.
It seemed as if hours passed before his hands finally went to
her breasts. He stroked the soft skin underneath until it tingled.
He circled her nipples with his thumbs, pinched them between thumb
and forefinger, then began to pull at her, very lightly at first,
then more insistently, until her nipples stiffened and began to
ache.
He stopped then, and drew her down onto his lap. Dany was
flushed and breathless, her heart fluttering in her chest. He
cupped her face in his huge hands and looked into his eyes.
“No?” he said, and she knew it was a question.
She took his hand and moved it down to the wetness between her
thighs. “Yes,” she whispered as she put his finger
inside her.
Daenerys Targaryen wed Khal Drogo with fear and
barbaric splendor in a field beyond the walls of Pentos, for the
Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a man’s
life must be done beneath the open sky.
Drogo had called his khalasar to attend him and they had come,
forty thousand Dothraki warriors and uncounted numbers of women,
children, and slaves. Outside the city walls they camped with their
vast herds, raising palaces of woven grass, eating everything in
sight, and making the good folk of Pentos more anxious with every
passing day.
“My fellow magisters have doubled the size of the city
guard,” Illyrio told them over platters of honey duck and
orange snap peppers one night at the manse that had been
Drogo’s. The khal had joined his khalasar, his estate given
over to Daenerys and her brother until the wedding.
“Best we get Princess Daenerys wedded quickly before they
hand half the wealth of Pentos away to sellswords and
bravos,” Ser Jorah Mormont jested. The exile had offered her
brother his sword the night Dany had been sold to Kbal Drogo;
Viserys had accepted eagerly. Mormont had been their constant
companion ever since.
Magister Illyrio laughed lightly through his forked beard, but
Viserys did not so much as smile. “He can have her tomorrow,
if he likes,” her brother said. He glanced over at Dany, and
she lowered her eyes. “So long as he pays the
price.”
Illyrio waved a languid hand in the air, rings glittering on his
fat fingers. “I have told you, all is settled. Trust me. The
khal has promised you a crown, and you shall have it.”
“Yes, but when?”
“When the khal chooses,” Illyrio said. “He
will have the girl first, and after they are wed he must make his
procession across the plains and present her to the doshkhaleen at
Vaes Dothrak. After that, perhaps. If the omens favor
war.”
Viserys seethed with impatience. “I piss on Dothraki
omens. The Usurper sits on my father’s throne. How long must
I wait?”
Illyrio gave a massive shrug. “You have waited most of
your life, great king. What is another few months, another few
years?”
Ser Jorah, who had traveled as far east as Vaes Dothrak, nodded
in agreement. “I counsel you to be patient, Your Grace. The
Dothraki are true to their word, but they do things in their own
time. A lesser man may beg a favor from the khal, but must never
presume to berate him.”
Viserys bristled. “Guard your tongue, Mormont, or
I’ll have it out. I am no lesser man, I am the rightful Lord
of the Seven Kingdoms. The dragon does not beg.”
Ser Jorah lowered his eyes respectfully. Illyrio smiled
enigmatically and tore a wing from the duck. Honey and grease ran
over his fingers and dripped down into his beard as he nibbled at
the tender meat. There are no more dragons, Dany thought, staring
at her brother, though she did not dare say it aloud.
Yet that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her,
hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, but
her body seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She
stumbled and fell. “You woke the dragon,” he screamed
as he kicked her. “You woke the dragon, you woke the
dragon.” Her thighs were slick with blood. She closed her
eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, there was a hideous ripping
sound and the crackling of some great fire. When she looked again,
Viserys was gone, great columns of flame rose all around, and in
the midst of them was the dragon. It turned its great head slowly.
When its molten eyes found hers, she woke, shaking and covered with
a fine sheen of sweat. She had never been so afraid . . .
. . . until the day of her wedding came at last.
The ceremony began at dawn and continued until dusk, an endless
day of drinking and feasting and fighting. A mighty earthen ramp
had been raised amid the grass palaces, and there Dany was seated
beside Khal Drogo, above the seething sea of Dothraki. She had never
seen so many people in one place, nor people so strange and
frightening. The horselords might put on rich fabrics and sweet
perfumes when they visited the Free Cities, but out under the open
sky they kept the old ways. Men and women alike wore painted
leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings cinched by
bronze medallion belts, and the warriors greased their long braids
with fat from the rendering pits. They gorged themselves on
horseflesh roasted with honey and peppers, drank themselves blind
on fermented mare’s milk and Illyrio’s fine wines, and
spat jests at each other across the fires, their voices harsh and
alien in Dany’s ears.
Viserys was seated just below her, splendid in a new black wool
tunic with a scarlet dragon on the chest. Illyrio and Ser Jorah sat
beside him. Theirs was a place of high honor, just below the
khal’s own bloodriders, but Dany could see the anger in her
brother’s lilac eyes. He did not like sitting beneath her,
and he fumed when the slaves offered each dish first to the khal
and his bride, and served him from the portions they refused. He
could do nothing but nurse his resentment, so nurse it he did, his
mood growing blacker by the hour at each insult to his person.
Dany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of
that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she
smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her
eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys
would be if he saw her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might
react. Food was brought to her, steaming joints of meat and thick
black sausages and Dothraki blood pies, and later fruits and
sweetgrass stews and delicate pastries from the kitchens of Pentos,
but she waved it all away. Her stomach was a roil, and she knew she
could keep none of it down.
There was no one to talk to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and
jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he
scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language.
Dothraki was incomprehensible to her, and the khal knew only a few
words of the bastard Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all
of the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms. She would even have
welcomed the conversation of Illyrio and her brother, but they were
too far below to hear her.
So she sat in her wedding silks, nursing a cup of honeyed wine,
afraid to eat, talking silently to herself. I am blood of the
dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of
Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror.
The sun was only a quarter of the way up the sky when she saw
her first man die. Drums were beating as some of the women danced
for the khal. Drogo watched without expression, but his eyes
followed their movements, and from time to time he would toss down
a bronze medallion for the women to fight over.
The warriors were watching too. One of them finally stepped into
the circle, grabbed a dancer by the arm, pushed her down to the
ground, and mounted her right there, as a stallion mounts a mare.
Illyrio had told her that might happen. “The Dothraki mate
like the animals in their herds. There is no privacy in a khalasar,
and they do not understand sin or shame as we do.”
Dany looked away from the coupling, frightened when she realized
what was happening, but a second warrior stepped forward, and a
third, and soon there was no way to avert her eyes. Then two men
seized the same woman. She heard a shout, saw a shove, and in the
blink of an eye the arakhs were out, long razor-sharp blades, half
sword and half scythe. A dance of death began as the warriors
circled and slashed, leaping toward each other, whirling the blades
around their heads, shrieking insults at each clash. No one made a
move to interfere.
It ended as quickly as it began. The arakhs shivered together
faster than Dany could follow, one man missed a step, the other
swung his blade in a flat arc. Steel bit into flesh just above the
Dothraki’s waist, and opened him from backbone to belly
button, spilling his entrails into the dust. As the loser died, the
winner took hold of the nearest woman—not even the one they had
been quarreling over—and had her there and then. Slaves carried off
the body, and the dancing resumed.
Magister Illyrio had warned Dany about this too. “A
Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is deemed a dull
affair,” he had said. Her wedding must have been especially
blessed; before the day was over, a dozen men had died.
As the hours passed, the terror grew in Dany, until it was all
she could do not to scream. She was afraid of the Dothraki, whose
ways seemed alien and monstrous, as if they were beasts in human
skins and not true men at all. She was afraid of her brother, of
what he might do if she failed him. Most of all, she was afraid of
what would happen tonight under the stars, when her brother gave
her up to the hulking giant who sat drinking beside her with a face
as still and cruel as a bronze mask. I am the blood of the dragon, she told herself again.
When at last the sun was low in the sky, Khal Drogo clapped his
hands together, and the drums and the shouting and feasting came to
a sudden halt. Drogo stood and pulled Dany to her feet beside him.
It was time for her bride gifts.
And after the gifts, she knew, after the sun had gone down, it
would be time for the first ride and the consummation of her
marriage. Dany tried to put the thought aside, but it would not
leave her. She hugged herself to try to keep from shaking.
Her brother Viserys gifted her with three handmaids. Dany knew
they had cost him nothing; Illyrio no doubt had provided the girls.
Irri and Jhiqui were copper-skinned Dothraki with black hair and
almond-shaped eyes, Doreah a fair-haired, blue-eyed Lysene girl.
“These are no common servants, sweet sister,” her
brother told her as they were brought forward one by one.
“Illyrio and I selected them personally for you. Irri will
teach you riding, Jhiqui the Dothraki tongue, and Doreah will
instruct you in the womanly arts of love.” He smiled thinly.
“She’s very good, Illyrio and I can both swear to
that.”
Ser Jorah Mormont apologized for his gift. “It is a small
thing, my princess, but all a poor exile could afford,” he
said as he laid a small stack of old books before her. They were
histories and songs of the Seven Kingdoms, she saw, written in the
Common Tongue. She thanked him with all her heart.
Magister Illyrio murmured a command, and four burly slaves
hurried forward, bearing between them a great cedar chest bound in
bronze. When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets
and damasks the Free Cities could produce . . . and resting on top,
nestled in the soft cloth, three huge eggs. Dany gasped. They were
the most beautiful things she had ever seen, each different than
the others, patterned in such rich colors that at first she thought
they were crusted with jewels, and so large it took both of her
hands to hold one. She lifted it delicately, expecting that it
would be made of some fine porcelain or delicate enamel, or even
blown glass, but it was much heavier than that, as if it were all
of solid stone. The surface of the shell was covered with tiny
scales, and as she turned the egg between her fingers, they
shimmered like polished metal in the light of the setting sun. One
egg was a deep green, with burnished bronze flecks that came and
went depending on how Dany turned it. Another was pale cream
streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea,
yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls. “What are
they?” she asked, her voice hushed and full of wonder.
“Dragon’s eggs, from the Shadow Lands beyond
Asshai,” said Magister Illyrio. “The eons have turned
them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty.”
“I shall treasure them always.” Dany had heard tales
of such eggs, but she had never seen one, nor thought to see one.
It was a truly magnificent gift, though she knew that Illyrio could
afford to be lavish. He had collected a fortune in horses and
slaves for his part in selling her to Khal Drogo.
The khal’s bloodriders offered her the traditional three
weapons, and splendid weapons they were. Haggo gave her a great
leather whip with a silver handle, Cohollo a magnificent arakh
chased in gold, and Qotho a double-curved dragonbone bow taller
than she was. Magister Illyrio and Ser Jorah had taught her the
traditional refusals for these offerings. “This is a gift
worthy of a great warrior, O blood of my blood, and I am but a
woman. Let my lord husband bear these in my stead.” And so
Khal Drogo too received his “bride gifts.”
Other gifts she was given in plenty by other Dothraki: slippers
and jewels and silver rings for her hair, medallion belts and
painted vests and soft furs, sandsilks and jars of scent, needles
and feathers and tiny bottles of purple glass, and a gown made from
the skin of a thousand mice. “A handsome gift,
Khaleesi,” Magister Illyrio said of the last, after he had
told her what it was. “Most lucky.” The gifts mounted
up around her in great piles, more gifts than she could possibly
imagine, more gifts than she could want or use.
And last of all, Khal Drogo brought forth his own bride gift to
her. An expectant hush rippled out from the center of the camp as
he left her side, growing until it had swallowed the whole
khalasar. When he returned, the dense press of Dothraki gift-givers
parted before him, and he led the horse to her.
She was a young filly, spirited and splendid. Dany knew just
enough about horses to know that this was no ordinary animal. There
was something about her that took the breath away. She was grey as
the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke.
Hesitantly she reached out and stroked the horse’s neck,
ran her fingers through the silver of her mane. Khal Drogo said
something in Dothraki and Magister Illyrio translated.
“Silver for the silver of your hair, the khal
says.”
“She’s beautiful,” Dany murmured.
“She is the pride of the khalasar, “ Illyrio said.
“Custom decrees that the khaleesi must ride a mount worthy of
her place by the side of the khal.”
Drogo stepped forward and put his hands on her waist. He lifted
her up as easily as if she were a child and set her on the thin
Dothraki saddle, so much smaller than the ones she was used to.
Dany sat there uncertain for a moment. No one had told her about
this part. “What should I do?” she asked Illyrio.
It was Ser Jorah Mormont who answered. “Take the reins and
ride. You need not go far.”
Nervously Dany gathered the reins in her hands and slid her feet
into the short stirrups. She was only a fair rider; she had spent
far more time traveling by ship and wagon and palanquin than by
horseback. Praying that she would not fall off and disgrace
herself, she gave the filly the lightest and most timid touch with
her knees.
And for the first time in hours, she forgot to be afraid. Or
perhaps it was for the first time ever.
The silver-grey filly moved with a smooth and silken gait, and
the crowd parted for her, every eye upon them. Dany found herself
moving faster than she had intended, yet somehow it was exciting
rather than terrifying. The horse broke into a trot, and she
smiled. Dothraki scrambled to clear a path. The slightest pressure
with her legs, the lightest touch on the reins, and the filly
responded. She sent it into a gallop, and now the Dothraki were
hooting and laughing and shouting at her as they jumped out of her
way. As she turned to ride back, a firepit loomed ahead, directly
in her path. They were hemmed in on either side, with no room to
stop. A daring she had never known filled Daenerys then, and she
gave the filly her head.
The silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings.
When she pulled up before Magister Illyrio, she said,
“Tell Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind.” The
fat Pentoshi stroked his yellow beard as he repeated her words in
Dothraki, and Dany saw her new husband smile for the first
time.
The last sliver of sun vanished behind the high walls of Pentos
to the west just then. Dany had lost all track of time. Khal Drogo
commanded his bloodriders to bring forth his own horse, a lean red
stallion. As the khal was saddling the horse, Viserys slid close to
Dany on her silver, dug his fingers into her leg, and said,
“Please him, sweet sister, or I swear, you will see the
dragon wake as it has never woken before.”
The fear came back to her then, with her brother’s words.
She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not
ready for what was about to happen to her.
They rode out together as the stars came out, leaving the
khalasar and the grass palaces behind. Khal Drogo spoke no word to
her, but drove his stallion at a hard trot through the gathering
dusk. The tiny silver bells in his long braid rang softly as he
rode. “I am the blood of the dragon,” she whispered
aloud as she followed, trying to keep her courage up. “I am
the blood of the dragon. I am the blood of the dragon.” The
dragon was never afraid.
Afterward she could not say how far or how long they had ridden,
but it was full dark when they stopped at a grassy place beside a
small stream. Drogo swung off his horse and lifted her down from
hers. She felt as fragile as glass in his hands, her limbs as weak
as water. She stood there helpless and trembling in her wedding
silks while he secured the horses, and when he turned to look at
her, she began to cry.
Khal Drogo stared at her tears, his face strangely empty of
expression. “No,” he said. He lifted his hand and
rubbed away the tears roughly with a callused thumb.
“You speak the Common Tongue,” Dany said in
wonder.
“No,” he said again.
Perhaps he had only that word, she thought, but it was one word
more than she had known he had, and somehow it made her feel a
little better. Drogo touched her hair lightly, sliding the
silver-blond strands between his fingers and murmuring softly in
Dothraki. Dany did not understand the words, yet there was warmth
in the tone, a tenderness she had never expected from this man.
He put his finger under her chin and lifted her head, so she was
looking up into his eyes. Drogo towered over her as he towered over
everyone. Taking her lightly under the arms, he lifted her and
seated her on a rounded rock beside the stream. Then he sat on the
ground facing her, legs crossed beneath him, their faces finally at
a height. “No,” he said.
“Is that the only word you know?” she asked him.
Drogo did not reply. His long heavy braid was coiled in the dirt
beside him. He pulled it over his right shoulder and began to
remove the bells from his hair, one by one. After a moment Dany
leaned forward to help. When they were done, Drogo gestured. She
understood. Slowly, carefully, she began to undo his braid.
It took a long time. All the while he sat there silently,
watching her. When she was done, he shook his head, and his hair
spread out behind him like a river of darkness, oiled and gleaming.
She had never seen hair so long, so black, so thick.
Then it was his turn. He began to undress her.
His fingers were deft and strangely tender. He removed her silks
one by one, carefully, while Dany sat unmoving, silent, looking at
his eyes. When he bared her small breasts, she could not help
herself. She averted her eyes and covered herself with her hands.
“No,” Drogo said. He pulled her hands away from her
breasts, gently but firmly, then lifted her face again to make her
look at him. “No,” he repeated.
“No,” she echoed back at him.
He stood her up then and pulled her close to remove the last of
her silks. The night air was chilly on her bare skin. She shivered,
and gooseflesh covered her arms and legs. She was afraid of what
would come next, but for a while nothing happened. Khal Drogo sat
with his legs crossed, looking at her, drinking in her body with
his eyes.
After a while he began to touch her. Lightly at first, then
harder. She could sense the fierce strength in his hands, but he
never hurt her. He held her hand in his own and brushed her
fingers, one by one. He ran a hand gently down her leg. He stroked
her face, tracing the curve of her ears, running a finger gently
around her mouth. He put both hands in her hair and combed it with
his fingers. He turned her around, massaged her shoulders, slid a
knuckle down the path of her spine.
It seemed as if hours passed before his hands finally went to
her breasts. He stroked the soft skin underneath until it tingled.
He circled her nipples with his thumbs, pinched them between thumb
and forefinger, then began to pull at her, very lightly at first,
then more insistently, until her nipples stiffened and began to
ache.
He stopped then, and drew her down onto his lap. Dany was
flushed and breathless, her heart fluttering in her chest. He
cupped her face in his huge hands and looked into his eyes.
“No?” he said, and she knew it was a question.
She took his hand and moved it down to the wetness between her
thighs. “Yes,” she whispered as she put his finger
inside her.