On the walls of Qarth, men beat gongs to herald her coming,
while others blew curious horns that encircled their bodies like
great bronze snakes. A column of camelry emerged from the city as
her honor guards. The riders wore scaled copper armor and snouted
helms with copper tusks and long black silk plumes, and sat high on
saddles inlaid with rubies and garnets. Their camels were dressed
in blankets of a hundred different hues.
“Qarth is the greatest city that ever was or ever will
be,” Pyat Pree had told her, back amongst the bones of Vaes
Tolorro. “It is the center of the world, the gate between
north and south, the bridge between east and west, ancient beyond
memory of man and so magnificent that Saathos the Wise put out his
eyes after gazing upon Qarth for the first time, because he knew
that all he saw thereafter should look squalid and ugly by
comparison.”
Dany took the warlock’s words well salted, but the
magnificence of the great city was not to be denied. Three thick
walls encircled Qarth, elaborately carved. The outer was red
sandstone, thirty feet high and decorated with animals: snakes
slithering, kites flying, fish swimming, intermingled with wolves
of the red waste and striped zorses and monstrous elephants. The
middle wall, forty feet high, was grey granite alive with scenes of
war: the clash of sword and shield and spear, arrows in flight,
heroes at battle and babes being butchered, pyres of the dead. The
innermost wall was fifty feet of black marble, with carvings that
made Dany blush until she told herself that she was being a fool. She
was no maid; if she could look on the grey wall’s scenes of
slaughter, why should she avert her eyes from the sight of men and
women giving pleasure to one another?
The outer gates were banded with copper, the middle with iron;
the innermost were studded with golden eyes. All opened at
Dany’s approach. As she rode her silver into the city, small
children rushed out to scatter flowers in her path. They wore golden
sandals and bright paint, no more.
All the colors that had been missing from Vaes Tolorro had found
their way to Qarth; buildings crowded about her fantastical as a
fever dream in shades of rose, violet, and umber. She passed under
a bronze arch fashioned in the likeness of two snakes mating, their
scales delicate flakes of jade, obsidian, and lapis lazuli. Slim
towers stood taller than any Dany had ever seen, and elaborate
fountains filled every square, wrought in the shapes of griffins
and dragons and manticores.
The Qartheen lined the streets and watched from delicate
balconies that looked too frail to support their weight. They were
tall pale folk in linen and samite and tiger fur, every one a lord
or lady to her eyes. The women wore gowns that left one breast
bare, while the men favored beaded silk skirts. Dany felt shabby
and barbaric as she rode past them in her lionskin robe with black
Drogon on one shoulder. Her Dothraki called the Qartheen
“Milk Men” for their paleness, and Khal Drogo had
dreamed of the day when he might sack the great cities of the east.
She glanced at her bloodriders, their dark almond-shaped eyes
giving no hint of their thoughts. Is it only the plunder they see?
she wondered. How savage we must seem to these Qartheen.
Pyrat Pree conducted her little khalasar down the center of a
great arcade where the city’s ancient heroes stood thrice
life-size on columns of white and green marble. They passed through
a bazaar in a cavernous building whose latticework ceiling was home
to a thousand gaily colored birds. Trees and flowers bloomed on the
terraced walls above the stalls, while below it seemed as if
everything the gods had put into the world was for sale.
Her silver shied as the merchant prince Xaro Xhoan Daxos rode up
to her; the horses could not abide the close presence of camels,
she had found. “If you see here anything that you would
desire, O most beautiful of women, you have only to speak and it is
yours,” Xaro called down from his ornate horned saddle.
“Qarth itself is hers, she has no need of baubles,”
blue-lipped Pyat Pree sang out from her other side. “It shall
be as I promised, Khaleesi. Come with me to the House of the
Undying, and you shall drink of truth and wisdom.”
“Why should she need your Palace of Dust, when I can give
her sunlight and sweet water and silks to sleep in?” Xaro
said to the warlock. “The Thirteen shall set a crown of black
jade and fire opals upon her lovely head.”
“The only palace I desire is the red castle at
King’s Landing, my lord Pyat.” Dany was wary of the
warlock; the maegi Mirri Maz Duur had soured her on those who
played at sorcery. “And if the great of Qarth would give me
gifts, Xaro, let them give me ships and swords to win back what is
rightfully mine.”
Pyat’s blue lips curled upward in a gracious smile.
“it shall be as you command, Khaleesi.” He moved away,
swaying with his camel’s motion, his long beaded robes
trailing behind.
“The young queen is wise beyond her years,” Xaro
Xhoan Daxos murmured down at her from his high saddle. “There
is a saying in Qarth. A warlock’s house is built of bones and
lies.”
“Then why do men lower their voices when they speak of the
warlocks of Qarth? All across the east, their power and wisdom are
revered.”
“Once they were mighty,” Xaro agreed, “but now
they are as ludicrous as those feeble old soldiers who boast of
their prowess long after strength and skill have left them. They
read their crumbling scrolls, drink shade-of-the-evening until
their lips turn blue, and hint of dread powers, but they are hollow
husks compared to those who went before. Pyat Pree’s gifts
will turn to dust in your hands, I warn you.” He gave his
camel a lick of his whip and sped away.
“The crow calls the raven black,” muttered Ser Jorah
in the Common Tongue of Westeros. The exile knight rode at her
right hand, as ever. For their entrance into Qarth, he had put away
his Dothraki garb and donned again the plate and mail and wool of
the Seven Kingdoms half a world away. “You would do well to
avoid both those men, Your Grace.”
“Those men will help me to my crown,” she said.
“Xaro has vast wealth, and Pyat Pree—”
“—pretends to
power,” the knight said brusquely. On his dark green surcoat,
the bear of House Mormont stood on its hind legs, black and fierce.
Jorah looked no less ferocious as he scowled at the crowd that
filled the bazaar. “I would not linger here long, my queen. I
mislike the very smell of this place.”
Dany smiled. “Perhaps it’s the camels you’re
smelling. The Qartheen themselves seem sweet enough to my
nose.”
“Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul
ones.” My great bear, Dany thought. I am his queen, but I will always
be his cub as well, and he will always guard me. It made her feel
safe, but sad as well. She wished she could love him better than
she did.
Xaro Xhoan Daxos had offered Dany the hospitality of his home
while she was in the city. She had expected something grand. She
had not expected a palace larger than many a market town. It makes
Magister Illyrio’s manse in Pentos look like a
swineherd’s hovel, she thought. Xaro swore that his home
could comfortably house all of her people and their horses besides;
indeed, it swallowed them. An entire wing was given over to her.
She would have her own gardens, a marble bathing pool, a scrying
tower and warlock’s maze. Slaves would tend her every need.
In her private chambers, the floors were green marble, the walls
draped with colorful silk hangings that shimmered with every breath
of air. “You are too generous,” she told Xaro Xhoan
Daxos.
“For the Mother of Dragons, no gift is too great.”
Xaro was a languid, elegant man with a bald head and a great beak
of a nose crusted with rubies, opals, and flakes of jade. “On
the morrow, you shall feast upon peacock and lark’s tongue,
and hear music worthy of the most beautiful of women. The Thirteen
will come to do you homage, and all the great of Qarth.” All the great of Qarth will come to see my dragons, Dany
thought, yet she thanked Xaro for his kindness before she sent him
on his way. Pyat Pree took his leave as well, vowing to petition
the Undying Ones for an audience. “A honor rare as summer
snows.” Before he left he kissed her bare feet with his pale
blue lips and pressed on her a gift, a jar of ointment that he
swore would let her see the spirits of the air. Last of the three
seekers to depart was Quaithe the shadowbinder. From her Dany
received only a warning. “Beware,” the woman in the red
lacquer mask said.
“Of whom?”
“Of all. They shall come day and night to see the wonder
that has been born again into the world, and when they see they
shall lust. For dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is
power.”
When Quaithe too was gone, Ser Jorah said, “She speaks
truly, my queen . . . though I like her no more
than the others.”
“I do not understand her.” Pyat and Xaro had
showered Dany with promises from the moment they first glimpsed her
dragons, declaring themselves her loyal servants in all things, but
from Quaithe she had gotten only the rare cryptic word. And it
disturbed her that she had never seen the woman’s face.
Remember Mirri Maz Duur, she told herself. Remember treachery. She
turned to her bloodriders. “We will keep our own watch so
long as we are here. See that no one enters this wing of the palace
without my leave, and take care that the dragons are always well
guarded.”
“It shall be done, Khaleesi,” Aggo said.
“We have seen only the parts of Qarth that Pyat Pree
wished us to see,” she went on. “Rakharo, go forth and
look on the rest, and tell me what you find. Take good men with
you—and women, to go places where men are forbidden.”
“As you say, I do, blood of my blood,” said
Rakharo.
“Ser Jorah, find the docks and see what manner of ships
lay at anchor. It has been half a year since I last heard tidings
from the Seven Kingdoms. Perhaps the gods will have blown some good
captain here from Westeros with a ship to carry us home.”
The knight frowned. “That would be no kindness. The
Usurper will kill you, sure as sunrise.” Mormont hooked his
thumbs through his swordbelt. “My place is here at your
side.”
“Jhogo can guard me as well. You have more languages than
my bloodriders, and the Dothraki mistrust the sea and those who
sail her. Only you can serve me in this. Go among the ships and
speak to the crews, learn where they are from and where they are
bound and what manner of men command them.”
Reluctantly, the exile nodded. “As you say, my
queen.”
When all the men had gone, her handmaids stripped off the
travel-stained silks she wore, and Dany padded out to where the
marble pool sat in the shade of a portico. The water was
deliciously cool, and the pool was stocked with tiny golden fish
that nibbled curiously at her skin and made her giggle. It felt
good to close her eyes and float, knowing she could rest as long as
she liked. She wondered whether Aegon’s Red Keep had a pool
like this, and fragrant gardens full of lavender and mint. It must,
surely. Viserys always said the Seven Kingdoms were more beautiful
than any other place in the world.
The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had
lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and
swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her
bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in
slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki
sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany
had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full
of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make
my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and
laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride
by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.
But before she could do that she must conquer. The Usurper will kill you, sure as sunrise, Mormont had said.
Robert had slain her gallant brother Rhaegar, and one of his
creatures had crossed the Dothraki sea to poison her and her unborn
son. They said Robert Baratheon was strong as a bull and fearless
in battle, a man who loved nothing better than war. And with him
stood the great lords her brother had named the Usurper’s
dogs, cold-eyed Eddard Stark with his frozen heart, and the golden
Lannisters, father and son, so rich, so powerful, so
treacherous.
How could she hope to overthrow such men? When Khal Drogo had
lived, men trembled and made him gifts to stay his wrath. If they
did not, he took their cities, wealth and wives and all. But his
khalasar had been vast, while hers was meager. Her people had
followed her across the red waste as she chased her comet, and
would follow her across the poison water too, but they would not be
enough. Even her dragons might not be enough. Viserys had believed
that the realm would rise for its rightful
king . . . but Viserys had been a fool, and
fools believe in foolish things.
Her doubts made her shiver. Suddenly the water felt cold to her,
and the little fish prickling at her skin annoying. Dany stood and
climbed from the pool. “Irri,” she called,
“Jhiqui.”
As the handmaids toweled her dry and wrapped her in a sandsilk
robe, Dany’s thoughts went to the three who had sought her
out in the City of Bones. The Bleeding Star led me to Qarth for a
purpose. Here I will find what I need, if I have the strength to
take what is offered, and the wisdom to avoid the traps and snares.
If the gods mean for me to conquer, they will provide, they will
send me a sign, and if not . . . if
not . . .
It was near evenfall and Dany was feeding her dragons when Irri
stepped through the silken curtains to tell her that Ser Jorah had
returned from the docks . . . and not alone.
“Send him in, with whomever he has brought,” she said,
curious.
When they entered, she was seated on a mound of cushions, her
dragons all about her. The man he brought with him wore a cloak of
green and yellow feathers and had skin as black as polished jet.
“Your Grace,” the knight said, “I bring you
Quhuru Mo, captain of the Cinnamon Wind out of Tall Trees
Town.”
The black man knelt. “I am greatly honored, my
queen,” he said; not in the tongue of the Summer Isles, which
Dany did not know, but in the liquid Valyrian of the Nine Free
Cities.
“The honor is mine, Quhuru Mo,” said Dany in the
same language. “Have you come from the Summer
Isles?”
“This is so, Your Grace, but before, not half a year past,
we called at Oldtown. From there I bring you a wondrous
gift.”
“A gift?”
“A gift of news. Dragonmother, Stormborn, I tell you true,
Robert Baratheon is dead.”
Outside her walls, dusk was settling over Qarth, but a sun had
risen in Dany’s heart. “Dead?” she repeated. In
her lap, black Drogon hissed, and pale smoke rose before her face
like a veil. “You are certain? The Usurper is
dead?”
“So it is said in Oldtown, and Dorne, and Lys, and all the
other ports where we have called.” He sent me poisoned wine, yet I live and he is gone. “What
was the manner of his death?” On her shoulder, pale Viserion
flapped wings the color of cream, stirring the air.
“Torn by a monstrous boar whilst hunting in his kingswood,
or so I heard in Oldtown. Others say his queen betrayed him, or his
brother, or Lord Stark who was his Hand. Yet all the tales agree in
this: King Robert is dead and in his grave.”
Dany had never looked upon the Usurper’s face, yet seldom
a day had passed when she had not thought of him. His great shadow
had lain across her since the hour of her birth, when she came
forth amidst blood and storm into a world where she no longer had a
place. And now this ebony stranger had lifted that shadow.
“The boy sits the Iron Throne now,” Ser Jorah
said.
“King Joffrey reigns,” Quhuru Mo agreed, “but
the Lannisters rule. Robert’s brothers have fled King’s
Landing. The talk is, they mean to claim the crown. And the Hand
has fallen, Lord Stark who was King Robert’s friend. He has
been seized for treason.”
“Ned Stark a traitor?” Ser Jorah snorted. “Not
bloody likely. The Long Summer will come again before that one
would besmirch his precious honor.”
“What honor could he have?” Dany said. “He was
a traitor to his true king, as were these Lannisters.” It
pleased her to hear that the Usurper’s dogs were fighting
amongst themselves, though she was unsurprised. The same thing
happened when her Drogo died, and his great khalasar tore itself to
pieces. “My brother is dead as well, Viserys who was the true
king,” she told the Summer Islander. “Khal Drogo my
lord husband killed him with a crown of molten gold.” Would
her brother have been any wiser, had he known that the vengeance he
had prayed for was so close at hand?
“Then I grieve for you, Dragonmother, and for bleeding
Westeros, bereft of its rightful king.”
Beneath Dany’s gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the
stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth
gleamed like black needles. “When does your ship return to
Westeros, Captain?”
“Not for a year or more, I fear. From here the Cinnamon
Wind sails east, to make the trader’s circle round the Jade
Sea.”
“I see,” said Dany, disappointed. “I wish you
fair winds and good trading, then. You have brought me a precious
gift.”
“I have been amply repaid, great queen.”
She puzzled at that. “How so?”
His eyes gleamed. “I have seen dragons.”
Dany laughed. “And will see more of them one day, I hope.
Come to me in King’s Landing when I am on my father’s
throne, and you shall have a great reward.”
The Summer Islander promised he would do so, and kissed her
lightly on the fingers as he took his leave. Jhiqui showed him out,
while Ser Jorah Mormont remained.
“Khaleesi,” the knight said when they were alone,
“I should not speak so freely of your plans, if I were you.
This man will spread the tale wherever he goes now.”
“Let him,” she said. “Let the whole world know
my purpose. The Usurper is dead, what does it matter?”
“Not every sailor’s tale is true,” Ser Jorah
cautioned, “and even if Robert be truly dead, his son rules
in his place. This changes nothing, truly.”
“This changes everything.” Dany rose abruptly.
Screeching, her dragons uncoiled and spread their wings. Drogon
flapped and clawed up to the lintel over the archway. The others
skittered across the floor, wingtips scrabbling on the marble.
“Before, the Seven Kingdoms were like my Drogo’s
khalasar, a hundred thousand made as one by his strength. Now they
fly to pieces, even as the khalasar did after my khal lay
dead.”
“The high lords have always fought. Tell me who’s
won and I’ll tell you what it means. Khaleesi, the Seven
Kingdoms are not going to fall into your hands like so many ripe
peaches. You will need a fleet, gold, armies,
alliances—”
“All this I know.” She took his hands in hers and
looked up into his dark suspicious eyes. Sometimes he thinks of me
as a child he must protect, and sometimes as a woman he would like
to bed, but does he ever truly see me as his queen? “I am not
the frightened girl you met in Pentos. I have counted only fifteen
name days, true . . . but I am as old as the
crones in the dosh khaleen and as young as my dragons, Jorah. I
have borne a child, burned a khal, and crossed the red waste and
the Dothraki sea. Mine is the blood of the dragon.”
“As was your brother’s,” he said
stubbornly.
“I am not Viserys.”
“No,” he admitted. “There is more of Rhaegar
in you, I think, but even Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved
that on the Trident, with no more than a warhammer. Even dragons
can die.”
“Dragons die.” She stood on her toes to kiss him
lightly on an unshaven cheek. “But so do
dragonslayers.”
On the walls of Qarth, men beat gongs to herald her coming,
while others blew curious horns that encircled their bodies like
great bronze snakes. A column of camelry emerged from the city as
her honor guards. The riders wore scaled copper armor and snouted
helms with copper tusks and long black silk plumes, and sat high on
saddles inlaid with rubies and garnets. Their camels were dressed
in blankets of a hundred different hues.
“Qarth is the greatest city that ever was or ever will
be,” Pyat Pree had told her, back amongst the bones of Vaes
Tolorro. “It is the center of the world, the gate between
north and south, the bridge between east and west, ancient beyond
memory of man and so magnificent that Saathos the Wise put out his
eyes after gazing upon Qarth for the first time, because he knew
that all he saw thereafter should look squalid and ugly by
comparison.”
Dany took the warlock’s words well salted, but the
magnificence of the great city was not to be denied. Three thick
walls encircled Qarth, elaborately carved. The outer was red
sandstone, thirty feet high and decorated with animals: snakes
slithering, kites flying, fish swimming, intermingled with wolves
of the red waste and striped zorses and monstrous elephants. The
middle wall, forty feet high, was grey granite alive with scenes of
war: the clash of sword and shield and spear, arrows in flight,
heroes at battle and babes being butchered, pyres of the dead. The
innermost wall was fifty feet of black marble, with carvings that
made Dany blush until she told herself that she was being a fool. She
was no maid; if she could look on the grey wall’s scenes of
slaughter, why should she avert her eyes from the sight of men and
women giving pleasure to one another?
The outer gates were banded with copper, the middle with iron;
the innermost were studded with golden eyes. All opened at
Dany’s approach. As she rode her silver into the city, small
children rushed out to scatter flowers in her path. They wore golden
sandals and bright paint, no more.
All the colors that had been missing from Vaes Tolorro had found
their way to Qarth; buildings crowded about her fantastical as a
fever dream in shades of rose, violet, and umber. She passed under
a bronze arch fashioned in the likeness of two snakes mating, their
scales delicate flakes of jade, obsidian, and lapis lazuli. Slim
towers stood taller than any Dany had ever seen, and elaborate
fountains filled every square, wrought in the shapes of griffins
and dragons and manticores.
The Qartheen lined the streets and watched from delicate
balconies that looked too frail to support their weight. They were
tall pale folk in linen and samite and tiger fur, every one a lord
or lady to her eyes. The women wore gowns that left one breast
bare, while the men favored beaded silk skirts. Dany felt shabby
and barbaric as she rode past them in her lionskin robe with black
Drogon on one shoulder. Her Dothraki called the Qartheen
“Milk Men” for their paleness, and Khal Drogo had
dreamed of the day when he might sack the great cities of the east.
She glanced at her bloodriders, their dark almond-shaped eyes
giving no hint of their thoughts. Is it only the plunder they see?
she wondered. How savage we must seem to these Qartheen.
Pyrat Pree conducted her little khalasar down the center of a
great arcade where the city’s ancient heroes stood thrice
life-size on columns of white and green marble. They passed through
a bazaar in a cavernous building whose latticework ceiling was home
to a thousand gaily colored birds. Trees and flowers bloomed on the
terraced walls above the stalls, while below it seemed as if
everything the gods had put into the world was for sale.
Her silver shied as the merchant prince Xaro Xhoan Daxos rode up
to her; the horses could not abide the close presence of camels,
she had found. “If you see here anything that you would
desire, O most beautiful of women, you have only to speak and it is
yours,” Xaro called down from his ornate horned saddle.
“Qarth itself is hers, she has no need of baubles,”
blue-lipped Pyat Pree sang out from her other side. “It shall
be as I promised, Khaleesi. Come with me to the House of the
Undying, and you shall drink of truth and wisdom.”
“Why should she need your Palace of Dust, when I can give
her sunlight and sweet water and silks to sleep in?” Xaro
said to the warlock. “The Thirteen shall set a crown of black
jade and fire opals upon her lovely head.”
“The only palace I desire is the red castle at
King’s Landing, my lord Pyat.” Dany was wary of the
warlock; the maegi Mirri Maz Duur had soured her on those who
played at sorcery. “And if the great of Qarth would give me
gifts, Xaro, let them give me ships and swords to win back what is
rightfully mine.”
Pyat’s blue lips curled upward in a gracious smile.
“it shall be as you command, Khaleesi.” He moved away,
swaying with his camel’s motion, his long beaded robes
trailing behind.
“The young queen is wise beyond her years,” Xaro
Xhoan Daxos murmured down at her from his high saddle. “There
is a saying in Qarth. A warlock’s house is built of bones and
lies.”
“Then why do men lower their voices when they speak of the
warlocks of Qarth? All across the east, their power and wisdom are
revered.”
“Once they were mighty,” Xaro agreed, “but now
they are as ludicrous as those feeble old soldiers who boast of
their prowess long after strength and skill have left them. They
read their crumbling scrolls, drink shade-of-the-evening until
their lips turn blue, and hint of dread powers, but they are hollow
husks compared to those who went before. Pyat Pree’s gifts
will turn to dust in your hands, I warn you.” He gave his
camel a lick of his whip and sped away.
“The crow calls the raven black,” muttered Ser Jorah
in the Common Tongue of Westeros. The exile knight rode at her
right hand, as ever. For their entrance into Qarth, he had put away
his Dothraki garb and donned again the plate and mail and wool of
the Seven Kingdoms half a world away. “You would do well to
avoid both those men, Your Grace.”
“Those men will help me to my crown,” she said.
“Xaro has vast wealth, and Pyat Pree—”
“—pretends to
power,” the knight said brusquely. On his dark green surcoat,
the bear of House Mormont stood on its hind legs, black and fierce.
Jorah looked no less ferocious as he scowled at the crowd that
filled the bazaar. “I would not linger here long, my queen. I
mislike the very smell of this place.”
Dany smiled. “Perhaps it’s the camels you’re
smelling. The Qartheen themselves seem sweet enough to my
nose.”
“Sweet smells are sometimes used to cover foul
ones.” My great bear, Dany thought. I am his queen, but I will always
be his cub as well, and he will always guard me. It made her feel
safe, but sad as well. She wished she could love him better than
she did.
Xaro Xhoan Daxos had offered Dany the hospitality of his home
while she was in the city. She had expected something grand. She
had not expected a palace larger than many a market town. It makes
Magister Illyrio’s manse in Pentos look like a
swineherd’s hovel, she thought. Xaro swore that his home
could comfortably house all of her people and their horses besides;
indeed, it swallowed them. An entire wing was given over to her.
She would have her own gardens, a marble bathing pool, a scrying
tower and warlock’s maze. Slaves would tend her every need.
In her private chambers, the floors were green marble, the walls
draped with colorful silk hangings that shimmered with every breath
of air. “You are too generous,” she told Xaro Xhoan
Daxos.
“For the Mother of Dragons, no gift is too great.”
Xaro was a languid, elegant man with a bald head and a great beak
of a nose crusted with rubies, opals, and flakes of jade. “On
the morrow, you shall feast upon peacock and lark’s tongue,
and hear music worthy of the most beautiful of women. The Thirteen
will come to do you homage, and all the great of Qarth.” All the great of Qarth will come to see my dragons, Dany
thought, yet she thanked Xaro for his kindness before she sent him
on his way. Pyat Pree took his leave as well, vowing to petition
the Undying Ones for an audience. “A honor rare as summer
snows.” Before he left he kissed her bare feet with his pale
blue lips and pressed on her a gift, a jar of ointment that he
swore would let her see the spirits of the air. Last of the three
seekers to depart was Quaithe the shadowbinder. From her Dany
received only a warning. “Beware,” the woman in the red
lacquer mask said.
“Of whom?”
“Of all. They shall come day and night to see the wonder
that has been born again into the world, and when they see they
shall lust. For dragons are fire made flesh, and fire is
power.”
When Quaithe too was gone, Ser Jorah said, “She speaks
truly, my queen . . . though I like her no more
than the others.”
“I do not understand her.” Pyat and Xaro had
showered Dany with promises from the moment they first glimpsed her
dragons, declaring themselves her loyal servants in all things, but
from Quaithe she had gotten only the rare cryptic word. And it
disturbed her that she had never seen the woman’s face.
Remember Mirri Maz Duur, she told herself. Remember treachery. She
turned to her bloodriders. “We will keep our own watch so
long as we are here. See that no one enters this wing of the palace
without my leave, and take care that the dragons are always well
guarded.”
“It shall be done, Khaleesi,” Aggo said.
“We have seen only the parts of Qarth that Pyat Pree
wished us to see,” she went on. “Rakharo, go forth and
look on the rest, and tell me what you find. Take good men with
you—and women, to go places where men are forbidden.”
“As you say, I do, blood of my blood,” said
Rakharo.
“Ser Jorah, find the docks and see what manner of ships
lay at anchor. It has been half a year since I last heard tidings
from the Seven Kingdoms. Perhaps the gods will have blown some good
captain here from Westeros with a ship to carry us home.”
The knight frowned. “That would be no kindness. The
Usurper will kill you, sure as sunrise.” Mormont hooked his
thumbs through his swordbelt. “My place is here at your
side.”
“Jhogo can guard me as well. You have more languages than
my bloodriders, and the Dothraki mistrust the sea and those who
sail her. Only you can serve me in this. Go among the ships and
speak to the crews, learn where they are from and where they are
bound and what manner of men command them.”
Reluctantly, the exile nodded. “As you say, my
queen.”
When all the men had gone, her handmaids stripped off the
travel-stained silks she wore, and Dany padded out to where the
marble pool sat in the shade of a portico. The water was
deliciously cool, and the pool was stocked with tiny golden fish
that nibbled curiously at her skin and made her giggle. It felt
good to close her eyes and float, knowing she could rest as long as
she liked. She wondered whether Aegon’s Red Keep had a pool
like this, and fragrant gardens full of lavender and mint. It must,
surely. Viserys always said the Seven Kingdoms were more beautiful
than any other place in the world.
The thought of home disquieted her. If her sun-and-stars had
lived, he would have led his khalasar across the poison water and
swept away her enemies, but his strength had left the world. Her
bloodriders remained, sworn to her for life and skilled in
slaughter, but only in the ways of the horselords. The Dothraki
sacked cities and plundered kingdoms, they did not rule them. Dany
had no wish to reduce King’s Landing to a blackened ruin full
of unquiet ghosts. She had supped enough on tears. I want to make
my kingdom beautiful, to fill it with fat men and pretty maids and
laughing children. I want my people to smile when they see me ride
by, the way Viserys said they smiled for my father.
But before she could do that she must conquer. The Usurper will kill you, sure as sunrise, Mormont had said.
Robert had slain her gallant brother Rhaegar, and one of his
creatures had crossed the Dothraki sea to poison her and her unborn
son. They said Robert Baratheon was strong as a bull and fearless
in battle, a man who loved nothing better than war. And with him
stood the great lords her brother had named the Usurper’s
dogs, cold-eyed Eddard Stark with his frozen heart, and the golden
Lannisters, father and son, so rich, so powerful, so
treacherous.
How could she hope to overthrow such men? When Khal Drogo had
lived, men trembled and made him gifts to stay his wrath. If they
did not, he took their cities, wealth and wives and all. But his
khalasar had been vast, while hers was meager. Her people had
followed her across the red waste as she chased her comet, and
would follow her across the poison water too, but they would not be
enough. Even her dragons might not be enough. Viserys had believed
that the realm would rise for its rightful
king . . . but Viserys had been a fool, and
fools believe in foolish things.
Her doubts made her shiver. Suddenly the water felt cold to her,
and the little fish prickling at her skin annoying. Dany stood and
climbed from the pool. “Irri,” she called,
“Jhiqui.”
As the handmaids toweled her dry and wrapped her in a sandsilk
robe, Dany’s thoughts went to the three who had sought her
out in the City of Bones. The Bleeding Star led me to Qarth for a
purpose. Here I will find what I need, if I have the strength to
take what is offered, and the wisdom to avoid the traps and snares.
If the gods mean for me to conquer, they will provide, they will
send me a sign, and if not . . . if
not . . .
It was near evenfall and Dany was feeding her dragons when Irri
stepped through the silken curtains to tell her that Ser Jorah had
returned from the docks . . . and not alone.
“Send him in, with whomever he has brought,” she said,
curious.
When they entered, she was seated on a mound of cushions, her
dragons all about her. The man he brought with him wore a cloak of
green and yellow feathers and had skin as black as polished jet.
“Your Grace,” the knight said, “I bring you
Quhuru Mo, captain of the Cinnamon Wind out of Tall Trees
Town.”
The black man knelt. “I am greatly honored, my
queen,” he said; not in the tongue of the Summer Isles, which
Dany did not know, but in the liquid Valyrian of the Nine Free
Cities.
“The honor is mine, Quhuru Mo,” said Dany in the
same language. “Have you come from the Summer
Isles?”
“This is so, Your Grace, but before, not half a year past,
we called at Oldtown. From there I bring you a wondrous
gift.”
“A gift?”
“A gift of news. Dragonmother, Stormborn, I tell you true,
Robert Baratheon is dead.”
Outside her walls, dusk was settling over Qarth, but a sun had
risen in Dany’s heart. “Dead?” she repeated. In
her lap, black Drogon hissed, and pale smoke rose before her face
like a veil. “You are certain? The Usurper is
dead?”
“So it is said in Oldtown, and Dorne, and Lys, and all the
other ports where we have called.” He sent me poisoned wine, yet I live and he is gone. “What
was the manner of his death?” On her shoulder, pale Viserion
flapped wings the color of cream, stirring the air.
“Torn by a monstrous boar whilst hunting in his kingswood,
or so I heard in Oldtown. Others say his queen betrayed him, or his
brother, or Lord Stark who was his Hand. Yet all the tales agree in
this: King Robert is dead and in his grave.”
Dany had never looked upon the Usurper’s face, yet seldom
a day had passed when she had not thought of him. His great shadow
had lain across her since the hour of her birth, when she came
forth amidst blood and storm into a world where she no longer had a
place. And now this ebony stranger had lifted that shadow.
“The boy sits the Iron Throne now,” Ser Jorah
said.
“King Joffrey reigns,” Quhuru Mo agreed, “but
the Lannisters rule. Robert’s brothers have fled King’s
Landing. The talk is, they mean to claim the crown. And the Hand
has fallen, Lord Stark who was King Robert’s friend. He has
been seized for treason.”
“Ned Stark a traitor?” Ser Jorah snorted. “Not
bloody likely. The Long Summer will come again before that one
would besmirch his precious honor.”
“What honor could he have?” Dany said. “He was
a traitor to his true king, as were these Lannisters.” It
pleased her to hear that the Usurper’s dogs were fighting
amongst themselves, though she was unsurprised. The same thing
happened when her Drogo died, and his great khalasar tore itself to
pieces. “My brother is dead as well, Viserys who was the true
king,” she told the Summer Islander. “Khal Drogo my
lord husband killed him with a crown of molten gold.” Would
her brother have been any wiser, had he known that the vengeance he
had prayed for was so close at hand?
“Then I grieve for you, Dragonmother, and for bleeding
Westeros, bereft of its rightful king.”
Beneath Dany’s gentle fingers, green Rhaegal stared at the
stranger with eyes of molten gold. When his mouth opened, his teeth
gleamed like black needles. “When does your ship return to
Westeros, Captain?”
“Not for a year or more, I fear. From here the Cinnamon
Wind sails east, to make the trader’s circle round the Jade
Sea.”
“I see,” said Dany, disappointed. “I wish you
fair winds and good trading, then. You have brought me a precious
gift.”
“I have been amply repaid, great queen.”
She puzzled at that. “How so?”
His eyes gleamed. “I have seen dragons.”
Dany laughed. “And will see more of them one day, I hope.
Come to me in King’s Landing when I am on my father’s
throne, and you shall have a great reward.”
The Summer Islander promised he would do so, and kissed her
lightly on the fingers as he took his leave. Jhiqui showed him out,
while Ser Jorah Mormont remained.
“Khaleesi,” the knight said when they were alone,
“I should not speak so freely of your plans, if I were you.
This man will spread the tale wherever he goes now.”
“Let him,” she said. “Let the whole world know
my purpose. The Usurper is dead, what does it matter?”
“Not every sailor’s tale is true,” Ser Jorah
cautioned, “and even if Robert be truly dead, his son rules
in his place. This changes nothing, truly.”
“This changes everything.” Dany rose abruptly.
Screeching, her dragons uncoiled and spread their wings. Drogon
flapped and clawed up to the lintel over the archway. The others
skittered across the floor, wingtips scrabbling on the marble.
“Before, the Seven Kingdoms were like my Drogo’s
khalasar, a hundred thousand made as one by his strength. Now they
fly to pieces, even as the khalasar did after my khal lay
dead.”
“The high lords have always fought. Tell me who’s
won and I’ll tell you what it means. Khaleesi, the Seven
Kingdoms are not going to fall into your hands like so many ripe
peaches. You will need a fleet, gold, armies,
alliances—”
“All this I know.” She took his hands in hers and
looked up into his dark suspicious eyes. Sometimes he thinks of me
as a child he must protect, and sometimes as a woman he would like
to bed, but does he ever truly see me as his queen? “I am not
the frightened girl you met in Pentos. I have counted only fifteen
name days, true . . . but I am as old as the
crones in the dosh khaleen and as young as my dragons, Jorah. I
have borne a child, burned a khal, and crossed the red waste and
the Dothraki sea. Mine is the blood of the dragon.”
“As was your brother’s,” he said
stubbornly.
“I am not Viserys.”
“No,” he admitted. “There is more of Rhaegar
in you, I think, but even Rhaegar could be slain. Robert proved
that on the Trident, with no more than a warhammer. Even dragons
can die.”
“Dragons die.” She stood on her toes to kiss him
lightly on an unshaven cheek. “But so do
dragonslayers.”