Dany broke her fast under the persimmon tree that grew in the
terrace garden, watching her dragons chase each other about the
apex of the Great Pyramid where the huge bronze harpy once stood.
Meereen had a score of lesser pyramids, but none stood even half as
tall. From here she could see the whole city: the narrow twisty
alleys and wide brick streets, the temples and granaries, hovels
and palaces, brothels and baths, gardens and fountains, the great
red circles of the fighting pits. And beyond the walls was the
pewter sea, the winding Skahazadhan, the dry brown hills, burnt
orchards, and blackened fields. Up here in her garden Dany
sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the
world. Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. Missandei had
told her of the Lord of Harmony, worshiped by the Peaceful People
of Naath; he was the only true god, her little scribe said, the god
who always was and always would be, who made the moon and stars and
earth, and all the creatures that dwelt upon them. Poor Lord of
Harmony. Dany pitied him. It must be terrible to be alone for all
time, attended by hordes of butterfly women you could make or
unmake at a word. Westeros had seven gods at least, though Viserys
had told her that some septons said the seven were only aspects of
a single god, seven facets of a single crystal. That was just
confusing. The red priests believed in two gods, she had heard, but
two who were eternally at war. Dany liked that even less. She would
not want to be eternally at war.
Missandei served her duck eggs and dog sausage, and half a cup
of sweetened wine mixed with the juice of a lime. The honey drew
flies, but a scented candle drove them off. The flies were not so
troublesome up here as they were in the rest of her city, she had
found, something else she liked about the pyramid. “I must
remember to do something about the flies,” Dany said.
“Are there many flies on Naath, Missandei?”
“On Naath there are butterflies,” the scribe
responded in the Common Tongue. “More wine?”
“No. I must hold court soon.” Dany had grown very
fond of Missandei. The little scribe with the big golden eyes was
wise beyond her years. She is brave as well. She had to be, to
survive the life she’s lived. One day she hoped to see this
fabled isle of Naath. Missandei said the Peaceful People made music
instead of war. They did not kill, not even animals; they ate only
fruit and never flesh. The butterfly spirits sacred to their Lord
of Harmony protected their isle against those who would do them
harm. Many conquerors had sailed on Naath to blood their swords,
only to sicken and die. The butterflies do not help them when the
slave ships come raiding, though. “I am going to take you
home one day, Missandei,” Dany promised. If I had made the
same promise to Jorah, would he still have sold me? “I swear
it.”
“This one is content to stay with you, Your Grace. Naath
will be there, always. You are good to this—to me.”
“And you to me.” Dany took the girl by the hand.
“Come help me dress.”
Jhiqui helped Missandei bathe her while Irri was laying out her
clothes. Today she wore a robe of purple samite and a silver sash,
and on her head the three-headed dragon crown the Tourmaline
Brotherhood had given her in Qarth. Her slippers were silver as
well, with heels so high that she was always half afraid she was
about to topple over. When she was dressed, Missandei brought her a
polished silver glass so she could see how she looked. Dany stared
at herself in silence. Is this the face of a conqueror? So far as
she could tell, she still looked like a little girl.
No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps
they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three
dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden
cock, in less than a day. Poor Groleo. He still grieved for his
ship, she knew. If a war galley could ram another ship, why not a
gate? That had been her thought when she commanded the captains to
drive their ships ashore. Their masts had become her battering
rams, and swarms of freedmen had torn their hulls apart to build
mantlets, turtles, catapults, and ladders. The sellwords had given
each ram a bawdy name, and it had been the mainmast of Meraxes—formerly Joso’s Prank—that had broken the eastern gate.
Joso’s Cock, they called it. The fighting had raged bitter
and bloody for most of a day and well into the night before the
wood began to splinter and Meraxes’ iron figurehead, a
laughing jester’s face, came crashing through.
Dany had wanted to lead the attack herself, but to a man her
captains said that would be madness, and her captains never agreed
on anything. Instead she remained in the rear, sitting atop her
silver in a long shirt of mail. She heard the city fall from half a
league away, though, when the defenders’ shouts of defiance
changed to cries of fear. Her dragons had roared as one in that
moment, filling the night with flame. The slaves are rising, she
knew at once. My sewer rats have gnawed off their chains.
When the last resistance had been crushed by the Unsullied and
the sack had run its course, Dany entered her city. The dead were
heaped so high before the broken gate that it took her freedmen
near an hour to make a path for her silver. Joso’s Cock and
the great wooden turtle that had protected it, covered with
horsehides, lay abandoned within. She rode past burned buildings
and broken windows, through brick streets where the gutters were
choked with the stiff and swollen dead. Cheering slaves lifted
bloodstained hands to her as she went by, and called her
“Mother.”
In the plaza before the Great Pyramid, the Meereenese huddled
forlorn. The Great Masters had looked anything but great in the
morning light. Stripped of their jewels and their fringed tokars,
they were contemptible; a herd of old men with shriveled balls and
spotted skin and young men with ridiculous hair. Their women were
either soft and fleshy or as dry as old sticks, their face paint
streaked by tears. “I want your leaders,” Dany told
them. “Give them up, and the rest of you shall be
spared.”
“How many?” one old woman had asked, sobbing.
“How many must you have to spare us?”
“One hundred and sixty-three,” she answered.
She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man
pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when
she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But
later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard
their moans and smelled their bowels and
blood . . .
Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did
it for the children.
Her audience chamber was on the level below, an echoing
high-ceilinged room with walls of purple marble. It was a chilly
place for all its grandeur. There had been a throne there, a
fantastic thing of carved and gilded wood in the shape of a savage
harpy. She had taken one long look and commanded it be broken up
for firewood. “I will not sit in the harpy’s
lap,” she told them. Instead she sat upon a simple ebony
bench. It served, though she had heard the Meereenese muttering
that it did not befit a queen.
Her bloodriders were waiting for her. Silver bells tinkled in
their oiled braids, and they wore the gold and jewels of dead men.
Meereen had been rich beyond imagining. Even her sellswords seemed
sated, at least for now. Across the room, Grey Worm wore the plain
uniform of the Unsullied, his spiked bronze cap beneath one arm.
These at least she could rely on, or so she
hoped . . . and Brown Ben Plumm as well, solid
Ben with his grey-white hair and weathered face, so beloved of her
dragons. And Daario beside him, glittering in gold. Daario and Ben
Plumm, Grey Worm, Irri, Jhiqui,
Missandei . . . as she looked at them Dany
found herself wondering which of them would betray her next. The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I
can trust, if I can flnd them. I will not be alone then. We will be
three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.
“Was the night as quiet as it seemed?” Dany
asked.
“It seems it was, Your Grace,” said Brown Ben
Plumm.
She was pleased. Meereen had been sacked savagely, as new-fallen
cities always were, but Dany was determined that should end now
that the city was hers. She had decreed that murderers were to be
hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their
manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls, and the Unsullied had
filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and soft red worms, but
Meereen was calm again. But for how long?
A fly buzzed her head. Dany waved it off, irritated, but it
returned almost at once. “There are too many flies in this
city.”
Ben Plumm gave a bark of laughter. “There were flies in my
ale this morning. I swallowed one of them.”
“Flies are the dead man’s revenge.” Daario
smiled, and stroked the center prong of his beard. “Corpses
breed maggots, and maggots breed flies.”
“We will rid ourselves of the corpses, then. Starting with
those in the plaza below. Grey Worm, will you see to it?”
“The queen commands, these ones obey.”
“Best bring sacks as well as shovels, Worm,” Brown
Ben counseled. “Well past ripe, those ones. Falling off those
poles in bits and pieces, and crawling
with . . . ”
“He knows. So do I.” Dany remembered the horror she
had felt when she had seen the Plaza of Punishment in Astapor. I
made a horror just as great, but surely they deserved it. Harsh
justice is still justice.
“Your Grace,” said Missandei, “Ghiscari inter
their honored dead in crypts below their manses. If you would boil
the bones clean and return them to their kin, it would be a
kindness.” The widows will curse me all the same. “Let it be
done.” Dany beckoned to Daario. “How many seek audience
this morning?”
“Two have presented themselves to bask in your
radiance.”
Daario had plundered himself a whole new wardrobe in Meereen,
and to match it he had redyed his trident beard and curly hair a
deep rich purple. It made his eyes look almost purple too, as if he
were some lost Valyrian. “They arrived in the night on the
Indigo Star, a trading galley out of Qarth.” A slaver, you mean. Dany frowned. “Who are
they?”
“The Star’s master and one who claims to speak for
Astapor.”
“I will see the envoy first.”
He proved to be a pale ferret-faced man with ropes of pearls and
spun gold hanging heavy about his neck. “Your Worship!”
he cried. “My name is Ghael. I bring greetings to the Mother
of Dragons from King Cleon of Astapor, Cleon the Great.”
Dany stiffened. “I left a council to rule Astapor. A
healer, a scholar, and a priest.”
“Your Worship, those sly rogues betrayed your trust. It
was revealed that they were scheming to restore the Good Masters to
power and the people to chains. Great Cleon exposed their plots and
hacked their heads off with a cleaver, and the grateful folk of
Astapor have crowned him for his valor.”
“Noble Ghael,” said Missandei, in the dialect of
Astapor, “is this the same Cleon once owned by Grazdan mo
Ullhor?”
Her voice was guileless, yet the question plainly made the envoy
anxious. “The same,” he admitted. “A great
man.”
Missandei leaned close to Dany. “He was a butcher in
Grazdan’s kitchen,” the girl whispered in her ear.
“It was said he could slaughter a pig faster than any man in
Astapor.” I have given Astapor a butcher king. Dany felt ill, but she knew
she must not let the envoy see it. “I will pray that King
Cleon rules well and wisely. What would he have of me?”
Ghael rubbed his mouth. “Perhaps we should speak more
privily, Your Grace?”
“I have no secrets from my captains and
commanders.”
“As you wish. Great Cleon bids me declare his devotion to
the Mother of Dragons. Your enemies are his enemies, he says, and
chief among them are the Wise Masters of Yunkai. He proposes a pact
between Astapor and Meereen, against the Yunkai’i.”
“I swore no harm would come to Yunkai if they released
their slaves,” said Dany.
“These Yunkish dogs cannot be trusted, Your Worship. Even
now they plot against you. New levies have been raised and can be
seen drilling outside the city walls, warships are being built,
envoys have been sent to New Ghis and Volantis in the west, to make
alliances and hire sellswords. They have even dispatched riders to
Vaes Dothrak to bring a khalasar down upon you. Great Cleon bid me
tell you not to be afraid. Astapor remembers. Astapor will not forsake you. To prove his
faith, Great Cleon offers to seal your alliance with a
marriage.”
“A marriage? To me?”
Ghael smiled. His teeth were brown and rotten. “Great
Cleon will give you many strong sons.”
Dany found herself bereft of words, but little Missandei came to
her rescue. “Did his first wife give him sons?”
The envoy looked at her unhappily. “Great Cleon has three
daughters by his first wife. Two of his newer wives are with child.
But he means to put all of them aside if the Mother of Dragons will
consent to wed him.”
“How noble of him,” said Dany. “I will
consider all you’ve said, my lord.” She gave orders
that Ghael be given chambers for the night, somewhere lower in the
pyramid. All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought.
Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. When word of what
had befallen Astapor reached the streets, as it surely would, tens
of thousands of newly freed Meereenese slaves would doubtless
decide to follow her when she went west, for fear of what awaited
them if they stayed . . . yet it might well be
that worse would await them on the march. Even if she emptied every
granary in the city and left Meereen to starve, how could she feed
so many? The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed,
and danger. Ser Jorah had warned her of that. He’d warned her
of so many
things . . . he’d . . . No,
I will not think of Jorah Mormont. Let him keep a little longer.
“I shall see this trader captain,” she announced.
Perhaps he would have some better tidings.
That proved to be a forlorn hope. The master of the Indigo Star
was Qartheen, so he wept copiously when asked about Astapor.
“The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each
pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor
slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs
have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for
the trade, though it will be years before they are
trained.”
The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was.
She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had
once tried to protect, and what had happened to her. It will be the
same in Meereen once I march, she thought. The slaves from the
fighting pits, bred and trained to slaughter, were already proving
themselves unruly and quarrelsome. They seemed to think they owned
the city now, and every man and woman in it. Two of them had been
among the eight she’d hanged. There is no more I can do, she
told herself. “What do you want of me, Captain?”
“Slaves,” he said. “My holds are full to
bursting with ivory, ambergris, zorse hides, and other fine goods.
I would trade them here for slaves, to sell in Lys and
Volantis.”
“We have no slaves for sale,” said Dany.
“My queen?” Daario stepped forward. “The
riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to
sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the
flies.”
Dany was shocked. “They want to be slaves?”
“The ones who come are well spoken and gently born, sweet
queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be
tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests. They will
sleep in soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they
have lost all, and live in fear and squalor.”
“I see.” Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these
tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. “Any man
who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.”
She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor
a man his wife.”
“In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each
time a slave changed hands,” Missandei told her.
“We’ll do the same,” Dany decided. Wars were
won with gold as much as swords. “A tenth part. In gold or
silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or
zorse hides.”
“It shall be done as you command, glorious queen,”
said Daario. “My Stormcrows will collect your tenth.”
if the Stormcrows saw to the collections at least half the gold
would somehow go astray, Dany knew. But the Second Sons were just
as bad, and the Unsullied were as unlettered as they were
incorruptible. “Records must be kept,” she said.
“Seek among the freedmen for men who can read, write, and do
sums.”
His business done, the captain of the Indigo Star bowed and took
his leave. Dany shifted uncomfortably on the ebony bench. She
dreaded what must come next, yet she knew she had put it off too
long already. Yunkai and Astapor, threats of war, marriage
proposals, the march west looming over
all . . . I need my knights. I need their
swords, and I need their counsel. Yet the thought of seeing Jorah
Mormont again made her feel as if she’d swallowed a spoonful
of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing
round her belly. I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I
must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears. “Tell
Belwas to bring my knights,” Dany commanded, before she could
change her mind. “My good knights.”
Strong Belwas was puffing from the climb when he marched them
through the doors, one meaty hand wrapped tight around each
man’s arm. Ser Barristan walked with his head held high, but
Ser Jorah stared at the marble floor as he approached. The one is
proud, the other guilty. The old man had shaved off his white beard. He looked ten years
younger without it. But her balding bear looked older than he had.
They halted before the bench. Strong Belwas stepped back and stood
with his arms crossed across his scarred chest. Ser Jorah cleared
his throat. “Khaleesi . . . ”
She had missed his voice so much, but she had to be stern.
“Be quiet. I will tell you when to speak.” She stood.
“When I sent you down into the sewers, part of me hoped
I’d seen the last of you. It seemed a fitting end for liars,
to drown in slavers’ filth. I thought the gods would deal
with you, but instead you returned to me. My gallant knights of
Westeros, an informer and a turncloak. My brother would have hanged
you both.” Viserys, would have, anyway. She did not know what
Rhaegar would have done. “I will admit you helped win me this
city . . . ”
Ser Jorah’s mouth tightened. “We won you this city.
We sewer rats.”
“Be quiet,” she said
again . . . though there was truth to what he
said. While Joso’s Cock and the other rams were battering the
city gates and her archers were firing flights of flaming arrows
over the walls, Dany had sent two hundred men along the river under
cover of darkness to fire the hulks in the harbor. But that was
only to hide their true purpose. As the flaming ships drew the eyes
of the defenders on the walls, a few half-mad swimmers found the
sewer mouths and pried loose a rusted iron grating. Ser Jorah, Ser
Barristan, Strong Belwas, and twenty brave fools slipped beneath
the brown water and up the brick tunnel, a mixed force of
sellswords, Unsullied, and freedmen. Dany had told them to choose
only men who had no families . . . and
preferably no sense of smell.
They had been lucky as well as brave. It had been a moon’s
turn since the last good rain, and the sewers were only thigh-high.
The oilcloth they’d wrapped around their torches kept them
dry, so they had light. A few of the freedmen were frightened of
the huge rats until Strong Belwas caught one and bit it in two. One
man was killed by a great pale lizard that reared up out of the
dark water to drag him off by the leg, but when next ripples were
spied Ser Jorah butchered the beast with his blade. They took some
wrong turnings, but once they found the surface Strong Belwas led
them to the nearest fighting pit, where they surprised a few guards
and struck the chains off the slaves. Within an hour, half the
fighting slaves in Meereen had risen.
“You helped win this city,” she repeated stubbornly.
“And you have served me well in the past. Ser Barristan saved
me from the Titan’s Bastard, and from the Sorrowful Man in
Qarth. Ser Jorah saved me from the poisoner in Vaes Dothrak, and
again from Drogo’s bloodriders after my sun-and-stars had
died.” So many people wanted her dead, sometimes she lost
count. “And yet you lied, deceived me, betrayed me.”
She turned to Ser Barristan. “You protected my father for
many years, fought beside my brother on the Trident, but you
abandoned Viserys in his exile and bent your knee to the Usurper
instead. Why? And tell it true.”
“Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was
a . . . a good
knight . . . chivalrous,
brave . . . he spared my life, and the lives of
many others . . . Prince Viserys was only a
boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule,
and . . . forgive me, my queen, but you asked
for truth . . . even as a child, your brother
Viserys oft seemed to be his father’s son, in ways that
Rhaegar never did.”
“His father’s son?” Dany frowned. “What
does that mean?”
The old knight did not blink. “Your father is called
‘the Mad King’ in Westeros. Has no one ever told
you?”
“Viserys did.” The Mad King. “The Usurper
called him that, the Usurper and his dogs.” The Mad King.
“It was a lie.”
“Why ask for truth,” Ser Barristan said softly,
“if you close your ears to it?” He hesitated, then
continued. “I told you before that I used a false name so the
Lannisters would not know that I’d joined you. That was less than
half of it, Your Grace. The truth is, I wanted to watch you for a
time before pledging you my sword. To make certain that you were
not . . . ”
“ . . . my father’s
daughter?” If she was not her father’s daughter, who
was she?
“ . . . mad,” he finished.
“But I see no taint in you.”
“Taint?” Dany bristled.
“I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace.
Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the
Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was
not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and
greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new
Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and
the world holds its breath to see how it will land.”
Jaehaerys. This old man knew my grandfather. The thought gave
her pause. Most of what she knew of Westeros had come from her
brother, and the rest from Ser Jorah. Ser Barristan would have
forgotten more than the two of them had ever known. This man can
tell me what I came from. “So I am a coin in the hands of
some god, is that what you are saying, ser?”
“No,” Ser Barristan replied. “You are the
trueborn heir of Westeros. To the end of my days I shall remain
your faithful knight, should you find me worthy to bear a sword
again. If not, I am content to serve Strong Belwas as his
squire.”
“What if I decide you’re only worthy to be my
fool?” Dany asked scornfully. “Or perhaps my
cook?”
“I would be honored, Your Grace,” Selmy said with
quiet dignity. “I can bake apples and boil beef as well as
any man, and I’ve roasted many a duck over a campfire. I hope
you like them greasy, with charred skin and bloody
bones.”
That made her smile. “I’d have to be mad to eat such
fare. Ben Plumm, come give Ser Barristan your longsword.”
But Whitebeard would not take it. “I flung my sword at
Joffrey’s feet and have not touched one since. Only from the
hand of my queen will I accept a sword again.”
“As you wish.” Dany took the sword from Brown Ben
and offered it hilt first. The old man took it reverently.
“Now kneel,” she told him, “and swear it to my
service.”
He went to one knee and lay the blade before her as he said the
words. Dany scarcely heard them. He was the easy one, she thought.
The other will be harder. When Ser Barristan was done, she turned
to Jorah Mormont. “And now you, ser. Tell me true.”
The big man’s neck was red; whether from anger or shame
she did not know. “I have tried to tell you true, half a
hundred times. I told you Arstan was more than he seemed. I warned
you that Xaro and Pyat Pree were not to be trusted. I warned you—”
“You warned me against everyone except yourself.”
His insolence angered her. He should be humbler. He should beg for
my forgiveness. “Trust no one but Jorah Mormont, you
said . . . and all the time you were the
Spider’s creature!”
“I am no man’s creature. I took the eunuch’s
gold, yes. I learned some ciphers and wrote some letters, but that
was all—”
“All? You spied on me and sold me to my
enemies!”
“For a time.” He said it grudgingly. “I
stopped.”
“When? When did you stop?”
“I made one report from Qarth, but—”
“From Qarth?” Dany had been hoping it had ended much
earlier. “What did you write from Qarth? That you were my man
now, that you wanted no more of their schemes?” Ser Jorah
could not meet her eyes. “When Khal Drogo died, you asked me
to go with you to Yi Ti and the Jade Sea. Was that your wish or
Robert’s?”
“That was to protect you,” he insisted. “To
keep you away from them. I knew what snakes they
were . . . ”
“Snakes? And what are you, ser?” Something
unspeakable occurred to her. “You told them I was carrying
Drogo’s child . . . ”
“Khaleesi . . . ”
“Do not think to deny it, ser,” Ser Barristan said
sharply. “I was there when the eunuch told the council, and
Robert decreed that Her Grace and her child must die. You were the
source, ser. There was even talk that you might do the deed, for a
pardon.”
“A lie.” Ser Jorah’s face darkened. “I
would never . . . Daenerys, it was me who
stopped you from drinking the wine.”
“Yes. And how was it you knew the wine was
poisoned?”
“I . . . I but
suspected . . . the caravan brought a letter
from Varys, he warned me there would be attempts. He wanted you
watched, yes, but not harmed.” He went to his knees.
“If I had not told them someone else would have. You know
that.”
“I know you betrayed me.” She touched her belly,
where her son Rhaego had perished. “I know a poisoner tried
to kill my son, because of you. That’s what I know.”
“No . . . no.” He shook his
head. “I never meant . . . forgive me.
You have to forgive me.”
“Have to?” It was too late. He should have begun by
begging forgiveness. She could not pardon him as she’d
intended. She had dragged the wineseller behind her horse until
there was nothing left of him. Didn’t the man who brought him
deserve the same? This is Jorah, my fierce bear, the right arm that
never failed me. I would be dead without him,
but . . . “I can’t forgive
you,” she said. “I can’t.”
“You forgave the old
man . . . ”
“He lied to me about his name. You sold my secrets to the
men who killed my father and stole my brother’s
throne.”
“I protected you. I fought for you. Killed for
you.” Kissed me, she thought, betrayed me.
“I went down into the sewers like a rat. For
you.” It might have been kinder if you’d died there. Dany said
nothing. There was nothing to say.
“Daenerys,” he said, “I have loved
you.”
And there it was. Three treasons will you know. Once for blood
and once for gold and once for love. “The gods do nothing
without a purpose, they say. You did not die in battle, so it must
be they still have some use for you. But I don’t. I will not
have you near me. You are banished, ser. Go back to your masters in
King’s Landing and collect your pardon, if you can. Or to
Astapor. No doubt the butcher king needs knights.”
“No.” He reached for her. “Daenerys, please,
hear me . . . ”
She slapped his hand away. “Do not ever presume to touch
me again, or to speak my name. You have until dawn to collect your
things and leave this city. If you’re found in Meereen past
break of day, I will have Strong Belwas twist your head off. I
will. Believe that.” She turned her back on him, her skirts
swirling. I cannot bear to see his face. “Remove this liar
from my sight,” she commanded. I must not weep. I must not.
If I weep I will forgive him. Strong Belwas seized Ser Jorah by the
arm and dragged him out. When Dany glanced back, the knight was
walking as if drunk, stumbling and slow. She looked away until she
heard the doors open and close. Then she sank back onto the ebony
bench. He’s gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers,
Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died
inside me, and now Ser Jorah . . .
“The queen has a good heart,” Daario purred through
his deep purple whiskers, “but that one is more dangerous
than all the Oznaks and Meros rolled up in one.” His strong
hands caressed the hilts of his matched blades, those wanton golden
women. “You need not even say the word, my radiance. Only
give the tiniest nod, and your Daario shall fetch you back his ugly
head.”
“Leave him be. The scales are balanced now. Let him go
home.” Dany pictured Jorah moving amongst old gnarled oaks
and tall pines, past flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded
with moss, and little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. She
saw him entering a hall built of huge logs, where dogs slept by the
hearth and the smell of meat and mead hung thick in the smoky air.
“We are done for now,” she told her captains.
It was
all she could do not to run back up the wide marble stairs. Irri
helped her slip from her court clothes and into more comfortable
garb; baggy woolen breeches, a loose felted tunic, a painted
Dothraki vest. “You are trembling, Khaleesi,” the girl
said as she knelt to lace up Dany’s sandals.
“I’m cold,” Dany lied. “Bring me the
book I was reading last night.” She wanted to lose herself in
the words, in other times and other places. The fat leather-bound
volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms.
Children’s stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful
to be true history. All the heroes were tall and handsome, and you
could tell the traitors by their shifty eyes. Yet she loved them
all the same. Last night she had been reading of the three
princesses in the red tower, locked away by the king for the crime
of being beautiful.
When her handmaid brought the book, Dany had no trouble finding
the page where she had left off, but it was no good. She found
herself reading the same passage half a dozen times. Ser Jorah gave
me this book as a bride’s gift, the day I wed Khal Drogo. But
Daario is right, I shouldn’t have banished him. I should have
kept him, or I should have killed him. She played at being a queen,
yet sometimes she still felt like a scared little girl. Viserys
always said what a dolt I was. Was he truly mad? She closed the
book. She could still recall Ser Jorah, if she wished. Or send
Daario to kill him.
Dany fled from the choice, out onto the terrace. She found
Rhaegal asleep beside the pool, a green and bronze coil basking in
the sun. Drogon was perched up atop the pyramid, in the place where
the huge bronze harpy had stood before she had commanded it to be
pulled down. He spread his wings and roared when he spied her.
There was no sign of Viserion, but when she went to the parapet and
scanned the horizon she saw pale wings in the far distance,
sweeping above the river. He is hunting. They grow bolder every
day. Yet it still made her anxious when they flew too far away. One
day one of them may not return, she thought.
“Your Grace?”
She turned to find Ser Barristan behind her. “What more
would you have of me, ser? I spared you, I took you into my
service, now give me some peace.”
“Forgive me, Your Grace. It was
only . . . now that you know who I
am . . . ” The old man hesitated.
“A knight of the Kingsguard is in the king’s presence
day and night. For that reason, our vows require us to protect his
secrets as we would his life. But your father’s secrets by
rights belong to you now, along with his throne,
and . . . I thought perhaps you might have
questions for me.” Questions? She had a hundred questions, a thousand, ten
thousand. Why couldn’t she think of one? “Was my father
truly mad?” she blurted out. Why do I ask that?
“Viserys said this talk of madness was a ploy of the
Usurper’s . . . ”
“Viserys was a child, and the queen sheltered him as much
as she could. Your father always had a little madness in him, I now
believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses
were forgiven. His reign began with such
promise . . . but as the years passed, the
lapses grew more frequent,
until . . . ”
Dany stopped him. “Do I want to hear this now?”
Ser Barristan considered a moment. “Perhaps not. Not
now.”
“Not now,” she agreed. “One day. One day you
must tell me all. The good and the bad. There is some good to be
said of my father, surely?”
“There is, Your Grace. Of him, and those who came before
him. Your grandfather Jaehaerys and his brother, their father
Aegon, your mother . . . and Rhaegar. Him most
of all.”
“I wish I could have known him.” Her voice was
wistful.
“I wish he could have known you,” the old knight
said. “When you are ready, I will tell you all.”
Dany kissed him on the cheek and sent him on his way.
That night her handmaids brought her lamb, with a salad of
raisins and carrots soaked in wine, and a hot flaky bread dripping
with honey. She could eat none of it. Did Rhaegar ever grow so
weary? she wondered. Did Aegon, after his conquest?
Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed
with her, for the first time since the ship. But even as she
shuddered in release and wound her fingers through her
handmaid’s thick black hair, she pretended it was Drogo
holding her . . . only somehow his face kept
turning into Daario’s. If I want Daario I need only say so.
She lay with Irri’s legs entangled in her own. His eyes
looked almost purple today . . .
Dany’s dreams were dark that night, and she woke three
times from half-remembered nightmares. After the third time she was
too restless to return to sleep. Moonlight streamed through the
slanting windows, silvering the marble floors. A cool breeze was
blowing through the open terrace doors. Irri slept soundly beside
her, her lips slightly parted, one dark brown nipple peeping out
above the sleeping silks. For a moment Dany was tempted, but it was
Drogo she wanted, or perhaps Daario. Not Irri. The maid was sweet
and skillful, but all her kisses tasted of duty.
She rose, leaving Irri asleep in the moonlight. Jhiqui and
Missandei slept in their own beds. Dany slipped on a robe and
padded barefoot across the marble floor, out onto the terrace. The
air was chilly, but she liked the feel of grass between her toes
and the sound of the leaves whispering to one another. Wind ripples
chased each other across the surface of the little bathing pool and
made the moon’s reflection dance and shimmer.
She leaned against a low brick parapet to look down upon the
city. Meereen was sleeping too. Lost in dreams of kinder days,
perhaps. Night covered the streets like a black blanket, hiding the
corpses and the grey rats that came up from the sewers to feast on
them, the swarms of stinging flies. Distant torches glimmered red
and yellow where her sentries walked their rounds, and here and
there she saw the faint glow of lanterns bobbing down an alley.
Perhaps one was Ser Jorah, leading his horse slowly toward the
gate. Farewell, old bear. Farewell, betrayer.
She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen,
Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there
was no one in the world that she could trust.
“Your Grace?” Missandei stood at her elbow wrapped
in a bedrobe, wooden sandals on her feet. “I woke, and saw
that you were gone. Did you sleep well? What are you looking
at?”
“My city,” said Dany. “I was looking for a
house with a red door, but by night all the doors are
black.”
“A red door?” Missandei was puzzled. “What
house is this?”
“No house. It does not matter.” Dany took the
younger girl by the hand. “Never lie to me, Missandei. Never
betray me.”
“I never would,” Missandei promised. “Look,
dawn comes.”
The sky had turned a cobalt blue from the horizon to the zenith,
and behind the line of low hills to the east a glow could be seen,
pale gold and oyster pink. Dany held Missandei’s hand as they
watched the sun come up. All the grey bricks became red and yellow
and blue and green and orange. The scarlet sands of the fighting
pits transformed them into bleeding sores before her eyes.
Elsewhere the golden dome of the Temple of the Graces blazed
bright, and bronze stars winked along the walls where the light of
the rising sun touched the spikes on the helms of the Unsullied. On
the terrace, a few flies stirred sluggishly. A bird began to chirp
in the persimmon tree, and then two more. Dany cocked her head to
hear their song, but it was not long before the sounds of the
waking city drowned them out. The sounds of my city.
That morning she summoned her captains and commanders to the
garden, rather than descending to the audience chamber.
“Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros, but
afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I
have brought to Slaver’s Bay is death and ruin. I have been
more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving
on.”
“There is nothing to stay for,” said Brown Ben
Plumm.
“Your Grace, the slavers brought their doom on
themselves,” said Daario Naharis.
“You have brought freedom as well,” Missandei
pointed out.
“Freedom to starve?” asked Dany sharply.
“Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?” Am I mad?
Do I have the taint?
“A dragon,” Ser Barristan said with certainty.
“Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace.”
“But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a
single city?” He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from
them, to gaze out over the city once again. “My children need
time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their
wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of
Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those
I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at
their faces. “I will not march.”
“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked
Rakharo.
“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a
queen.”
Dany broke her fast under the persimmon tree that grew in the
terrace garden, watching her dragons chase each other about the
apex of the Great Pyramid where the huge bronze harpy once stood.
Meereen had a score of lesser pyramids, but none stood even half as
tall. From here she could see the whole city: the narrow twisty
alleys and wide brick streets, the temples and granaries, hovels
and palaces, brothels and baths, gardens and fountains, the great
red circles of the fighting pits. And beyond the walls was the
pewter sea, the winding Skahazadhan, the dry brown hills, burnt
orchards, and blackened fields. Up here in her garden Dany
sometimes felt like a god, living atop the highest mountain in the
world. Do all gods feel so lonely? Some must, surely. Missandei had
told her of the Lord of Harmony, worshiped by the Peaceful People
of Naath; he was the only true god, her little scribe said, the god
who always was and always would be, who made the moon and stars and
earth, and all the creatures that dwelt upon them. Poor Lord of
Harmony. Dany pitied him. It must be terrible to be alone for all
time, attended by hordes of butterfly women you could make or
unmake at a word. Westeros had seven gods at least, though Viserys
had told her that some septons said the seven were only aspects of
a single god, seven facets of a single crystal. That was just
confusing. The red priests believed in two gods, she had heard, but
two who were eternally at war. Dany liked that even less. She would
not want to be eternally at war.
Missandei served her duck eggs and dog sausage, and half a cup
of sweetened wine mixed with the juice of a lime. The honey drew
flies, but a scented candle drove them off. The flies were not so
troublesome up here as they were in the rest of her city, she had
found, something else she liked about the pyramid. “I must
remember to do something about the flies,” Dany said.
“Are there many flies on Naath, Missandei?”
“On Naath there are butterflies,” the scribe
responded in the Common Tongue. “More wine?”
“No. I must hold court soon.” Dany had grown very
fond of Missandei. The little scribe with the big golden eyes was
wise beyond her years. She is brave as well. She had to be, to
survive the life she’s lived. One day she hoped to see this
fabled isle of Naath. Missandei said the Peaceful People made music
instead of war. They did not kill, not even animals; they ate only
fruit and never flesh. The butterfly spirits sacred to their Lord
of Harmony protected their isle against those who would do them
harm. Many conquerors had sailed on Naath to blood their swords,
only to sicken and die. The butterflies do not help them when the
slave ships come raiding, though. “I am going to take you
home one day, Missandei,” Dany promised. If I had made the
same promise to Jorah, would he still have sold me? “I swear
it.”
“This one is content to stay with you, Your Grace. Naath
will be there, always. You are good to this—to me.”
“And you to me.” Dany took the girl by the hand.
“Come help me dress.”
Jhiqui helped Missandei bathe her while Irri was laying out her
clothes. Today she wore a robe of purple samite and a silver sash,
and on her head the three-headed dragon crown the Tourmaline
Brotherhood had given her in Qarth. Her slippers were silver as
well, with heels so high that she was always half afraid she was
about to topple over. When she was dressed, Missandei brought her a
polished silver glass so she could see how she looked. Dany stared
at herself in silence. Is this the face of a conqueror? So far as
she could tell, she still looked like a little girl.
No one was calling her Daenerys the Conqueror yet, but perhaps
they would. Aegon the Conqueror had won Westeros with three
dragons, but she had taken Meereen with sewer rats and a wooden
cock, in less than a day. Poor Groleo. He still grieved for his
ship, she knew. If a war galley could ram another ship, why not a
gate? That had been her thought when she commanded the captains to
drive their ships ashore. Their masts had become her battering
rams, and swarms of freedmen had torn their hulls apart to build
mantlets, turtles, catapults, and ladders. The sellwords had given
each ram a bawdy name, and it had been the mainmast of Meraxes—formerly Joso’s Prank—that had broken the eastern gate.
Joso’s Cock, they called it. The fighting had raged bitter
and bloody for most of a day and well into the night before the
wood began to splinter and Meraxes’ iron figurehead, a
laughing jester’s face, came crashing through.
Dany had wanted to lead the attack herself, but to a man her
captains said that would be madness, and her captains never agreed
on anything. Instead she remained in the rear, sitting atop her
silver in a long shirt of mail. She heard the city fall from half a
league away, though, when the defenders’ shouts of defiance
changed to cries of fear. Her dragons had roared as one in that
moment, filling the night with flame. The slaves are rising, she
knew at once. My sewer rats have gnawed off their chains.
When the last resistance had been crushed by the Unsullied and
the sack had run its course, Dany entered her city. The dead were
heaped so high before the broken gate that it took her freedmen
near an hour to make a path for her silver. Joso’s Cock and
the great wooden turtle that had protected it, covered with
horsehides, lay abandoned within. She rode past burned buildings
and broken windows, through brick streets where the gutters were
choked with the stiff and swollen dead. Cheering slaves lifted
bloodstained hands to her as she went by, and called her
“Mother.”
In the plaza before the Great Pyramid, the Meereenese huddled
forlorn. The Great Masters had looked anything but great in the
morning light. Stripped of their jewels and their fringed tokars,
they were contemptible; a herd of old men with shriveled balls and
spotted skin and young men with ridiculous hair. Their women were
either soft and fleshy or as dry as old sticks, their face paint
streaked by tears. “I want your leaders,” Dany told
them. “Give them up, and the rest of you shall be
spared.”
“How many?” one old woman had asked, sobbing.
“How many must you have to spare us?”
“One hundred and sixty-three,” she answered.
She had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man
pointing at the next. The anger was fierce and hot inside her when
she gave the command; it made her feel like an avenging dragon. But
later, when she passed the men dying on the posts, when she heard
their moans and smelled their bowels and
blood . . .
Dany put the glass aside, frowning. It was just. It was. I did
it for the children.
Her audience chamber was on the level below, an echoing
high-ceilinged room with walls of purple marble. It was a chilly
place for all its grandeur. There had been a throne there, a
fantastic thing of carved and gilded wood in the shape of a savage
harpy. She had taken one long look and commanded it be broken up
for firewood. “I will not sit in the harpy’s
lap,” she told them. Instead she sat upon a simple ebony
bench. It served, though she had heard the Meereenese muttering
that it did not befit a queen.
Her bloodriders were waiting for her. Silver bells tinkled in
their oiled braids, and they wore the gold and jewels of dead men.
Meereen had been rich beyond imagining. Even her sellswords seemed
sated, at least for now. Across the room, Grey Worm wore the plain
uniform of the Unsullied, his spiked bronze cap beneath one arm.
These at least she could rely on, or so she
hoped . . . and Brown Ben Plumm as well, solid
Ben with his grey-white hair and weathered face, so beloved of her
dragons. And Daario beside him, glittering in gold. Daario and Ben
Plumm, Grey Worm, Irri, Jhiqui,
Missandei . . . as she looked at them Dany
found herself wondering which of them would betray her next. The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I
can trust, if I can flnd them. I will not be alone then. We will be
three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.
“Was the night as quiet as it seemed?” Dany
asked.
“It seems it was, Your Grace,” said Brown Ben
Plumm.
She was pleased. Meereen had been sacked savagely, as new-fallen
cities always were, but Dany was determined that should end now
that the city was hers. She had decreed that murderers were to be
hanged, that looters were to lose a hand, and rapists their
manhood. Eight killers swung from the walls, and the Unsullied had
filled a bushel basket with bloody hands and soft red worms, but
Meereen was calm again. But for how long?
A fly buzzed her head. Dany waved it off, irritated, but it
returned almost at once. “There are too many flies in this
city.”
Ben Plumm gave a bark of laughter. “There were flies in my
ale this morning. I swallowed one of them.”
“Flies are the dead man’s revenge.” Daario
smiled, and stroked the center prong of his beard. “Corpses
breed maggots, and maggots breed flies.”
“We will rid ourselves of the corpses, then. Starting with
those in the plaza below. Grey Worm, will you see to it?”
“The queen commands, these ones obey.”
“Best bring sacks as well as shovels, Worm,” Brown
Ben counseled. “Well past ripe, those ones. Falling off those
poles in bits and pieces, and crawling
with . . . ”
“He knows. So do I.” Dany remembered the horror she
had felt when she had seen the Plaza of Punishment in Astapor. I
made a horror just as great, but surely they deserved it. Harsh
justice is still justice.
“Your Grace,” said Missandei, “Ghiscari inter
their honored dead in crypts below their manses. If you would boil
the bones clean and return them to their kin, it would be a
kindness.” The widows will curse me all the same. “Let it be
done.” Dany beckoned to Daario. “How many seek audience
this morning?”
“Two have presented themselves to bask in your
radiance.”
Daario had plundered himself a whole new wardrobe in Meereen,
and to match it he had redyed his trident beard and curly hair a
deep rich purple. It made his eyes look almost purple too, as if he
were some lost Valyrian. “They arrived in the night on the
Indigo Star, a trading galley out of Qarth.” A slaver, you mean. Dany frowned. “Who are
they?”
“The Star’s master and one who claims to speak for
Astapor.”
“I will see the envoy first.”
He proved to be a pale ferret-faced man with ropes of pearls and
spun gold hanging heavy about his neck. “Your Worship!”
he cried. “My name is Ghael. I bring greetings to the Mother
of Dragons from King Cleon of Astapor, Cleon the Great.”
Dany stiffened. “I left a council to rule Astapor. A
healer, a scholar, and a priest.”
“Your Worship, those sly rogues betrayed your trust. It
was revealed that they were scheming to restore the Good Masters to
power and the people to chains. Great Cleon exposed their plots and
hacked their heads off with a cleaver, and the grateful folk of
Astapor have crowned him for his valor.”
“Noble Ghael,” said Missandei, in the dialect of
Astapor, “is this the same Cleon once owned by Grazdan mo
Ullhor?”
Her voice was guileless, yet the question plainly made the envoy
anxious. “The same,” he admitted. “A great
man.”
Missandei leaned close to Dany. “He was a butcher in
Grazdan’s kitchen,” the girl whispered in her ear.
“It was said he could slaughter a pig faster than any man in
Astapor.” I have given Astapor a butcher king. Dany felt ill, but she knew
she must not let the envoy see it. “I will pray that King
Cleon rules well and wisely. What would he have of me?”
Ghael rubbed his mouth. “Perhaps we should speak more
privily, Your Grace?”
“I have no secrets from my captains and
commanders.”
“As you wish. Great Cleon bids me declare his devotion to
the Mother of Dragons. Your enemies are his enemies, he says, and
chief among them are the Wise Masters of Yunkai. He proposes a pact
between Astapor and Meereen, against the Yunkai’i.”
“I swore no harm would come to Yunkai if they released
their slaves,” said Dany.
“These Yunkish dogs cannot be trusted, Your Worship. Even
now they plot against you. New levies have been raised and can be
seen drilling outside the city walls, warships are being built,
envoys have been sent to New Ghis and Volantis in the west, to make
alliances and hire sellswords. They have even dispatched riders to
Vaes Dothrak to bring a khalasar down upon you. Great Cleon bid me
tell you not to be afraid. Astapor remembers. Astapor will not forsake you. To prove his
faith, Great Cleon offers to seal your alliance with a
marriage.”
“A marriage? To me?”
Ghael smiled. His teeth were brown and rotten. “Great
Cleon will give you many strong sons.”
Dany found herself bereft of words, but little Missandei came to
her rescue. “Did his first wife give him sons?”
The envoy looked at her unhappily. “Great Cleon has three
daughters by his first wife. Two of his newer wives are with child.
But he means to put all of them aside if the Mother of Dragons will
consent to wed him.”
“How noble of him,” said Dany. “I will
consider all you’ve said, my lord.” She gave orders
that Ghael be given chambers for the night, somewhere lower in the
pyramid. All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought.
Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror. When word of what
had befallen Astapor reached the streets, as it surely would, tens
of thousands of newly freed Meereenese slaves would doubtless
decide to follow her when she went west, for fear of what awaited
them if they stayed . . . yet it might well be
that worse would await them on the march. Even if she emptied every
granary in the city and left Meereen to starve, how could she feed
so many? The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed,
and danger. Ser Jorah had warned her of that. He’d warned her
of so many
things . . . he’d . . . No,
I will not think of Jorah Mormont. Let him keep a little longer.
“I shall see this trader captain,” she announced.
Perhaps he would have some better tidings.
That proved to be a forlorn hope. The master of the Indigo Star
was Qartheen, so he wept copiously when asked about Astapor.
“The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each
pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor
slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs
have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for
the trade, though it will be years before they are
trained.”
The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was.
She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had
once tried to protect, and what had happened to her. It will be the
same in Meereen once I march, she thought. The slaves from the
fighting pits, bred and trained to slaughter, were already proving
themselves unruly and quarrelsome. They seemed to think they owned
the city now, and every man and woman in it. Two of them had been
among the eight she’d hanged. There is no more I can do, she
told herself. “What do you want of me, Captain?”
“Slaves,” he said. “My holds are full to
bursting with ivory, ambergris, zorse hides, and other fine goods.
I would trade them here for slaves, to sell in Lys and
Volantis.”
“We have no slaves for sale,” said Dany.
“My queen?” Daario stepped forward. “The
riverside is full of Meereenese, begging leave to be allowed to
sell themselves to this Qartheen. They are thicker than the
flies.”
Dany was shocked. “They want to be slaves?”
“The ones who come are well spoken and gently born, sweet
queen. Such slaves are prized. In the Free Cities they will be
tutors, scribes, bed slaves, even healers and priests. They will
sleep in soft beds, eat rich foods, and dwell in manses. Here they
have lost all, and live in fear and squalor.”
“I see.” Perhaps it was not so shocking, if these
tales of Astapor were true. Dany thought a moment. “Any man
who wishes to sell himself into slavery may do so. Or woman.”
She raised a hand. “But they may not sell their children, nor
a man his wife.”
“In Astapor the city took a tenth part of the price, each
time a slave changed hands,” Missandei told her.
“We’ll do the same,” Dany decided. Wars were
won with gold as much as swords. “A tenth part. In gold or
silver coin, or ivory. Meereen has no need of saffron, cloves, or
zorse hides.”
“It shall be done as you command, glorious queen,”
said Daario. “My Stormcrows will collect your tenth.”
if the Stormcrows saw to the collections at least half the gold
would somehow go astray, Dany knew. But the Second Sons were just
as bad, and the Unsullied were as unlettered as they were
incorruptible. “Records must be kept,” she said.
“Seek among the freedmen for men who can read, write, and do
sums.”
His business done, the captain of the Indigo Star bowed and took
his leave. Dany shifted uncomfortably on the ebony bench. She
dreaded what must come next, yet she knew she had put it off too
long already. Yunkai and Astapor, threats of war, marriage
proposals, the march west looming over
all . . . I need my knights. I need their
swords, and I need their counsel. Yet the thought of seeing Jorah
Mormont again made her feel as if she’d swallowed a spoonful
of flies; angry, agitated, sick. She could almost feel them buzzing
round her belly. I am the blood of the dragon. I must be strong. I
must have fire in my eyes when I face them, not tears. “Tell
Belwas to bring my knights,” Dany commanded, before she could
change her mind. “My good knights.”
Strong Belwas was puffing from the climb when he marched them
through the doors, one meaty hand wrapped tight around each
man’s arm. Ser Barristan walked with his head held high, but
Ser Jorah stared at the marble floor as he approached. The one is
proud, the other guilty. The old man had shaved off his white beard. He looked ten years
younger without it. But her balding bear looked older than he had.
They halted before the bench. Strong Belwas stepped back and stood
with his arms crossed across his scarred chest. Ser Jorah cleared
his throat. “Khaleesi . . . ”
She had missed his voice so much, but she had to be stern.
“Be quiet. I will tell you when to speak.” She stood.
“When I sent you down into the sewers, part of me hoped
I’d seen the last of you. It seemed a fitting end for liars,
to drown in slavers’ filth. I thought the gods would deal
with you, but instead you returned to me. My gallant knights of
Westeros, an informer and a turncloak. My brother would have hanged
you both.” Viserys, would have, anyway. She did not know what
Rhaegar would have done. “I will admit you helped win me this
city . . . ”
Ser Jorah’s mouth tightened. “We won you this city.
We sewer rats.”
“Be quiet,” she said
again . . . though there was truth to what he
said. While Joso’s Cock and the other rams were battering the
city gates and her archers were firing flights of flaming arrows
over the walls, Dany had sent two hundred men along the river under
cover of darkness to fire the hulks in the harbor. But that was
only to hide their true purpose. As the flaming ships drew the eyes
of the defenders on the walls, a few half-mad swimmers found the
sewer mouths and pried loose a rusted iron grating. Ser Jorah, Ser
Barristan, Strong Belwas, and twenty brave fools slipped beneath
the brown water and up the brick tunnel, a mixed force of
sellswords, Unsullied, and freedmen. Dany had told them to choose
only men who had no families . . . and
preferably no sense of smell.
They had been lucky as well as brave. It had been a moon’s
turn since the last good rain, and the sewers were only thigh-high.
The oilcloth they’d wrapped around their torches kept them
dry, so they had light. A few of the freedmen were frightened of
the huge rats until Strong Belwas caught one and bit it in two. One
man was killed by a great pale lizard that reared up out of the
dark water to drag him off by the leg, but when next ripples were
spied Ser Jorah butchered the beast with his blade. They took some
wrong turnings, but once they found the surface Strong Belwas led
them to the nearest fighting pit, where they surprised a few guards
and struck the chains off the slaves. Within an hour, half the
fighting slaves in Meereen had risen.
“You helped win this city,” she repeated stubbornly.
“And you have served me well in the past. Ser Barristan saved
me from the Titan’s Bastard, and from the Sorrowful Man in
Qarth. Ser Jorah saved me from the poisoner in Vaes Dothrak, and
again from Drogo’s bloodriders after my sun-and-stars had
died.” So many people wanted her dead, sometimes she lost
count. “And yet you lied, deceived me, betrayed me.”
She turned to Ser Barristan. “You protected my father for
many years, fought beside my brother on the Trident, but you
abandoned Viserys in his exile and bent your knee to the Usurper
instead. Why? And tell it true.”
“Some truths are hard to hear. Robert was
a . . . a good
knight . . . chivalrous,
brave . . . he spared my life, and the lives of
many others . . . Prince Viserys was only a
boy, it would have been years before he was fit to rule,
and . . . forgive me, my queen, but you asked
for truth . . . even as a child, your brother
Viserys oft seemed to be his father’s son, in ways that
Rhaegar never did.”
“His father’s son?” Dany frowned. “What
does that mean?”
The old knight did not blink. “Your father is called
‘the Mad King’ in Westeros. Has no one ever told
you?”
“Viserys did.” The Mad King. “The Usurper
called him that, the Usurper and his dogs.” The Mad King.
“It was a lie.”
“Why ask for truth,” Ser Barristan said softly,
“if you close your ears to it?” He hesitated, then
continued. “I told you before that I used a false name so the
Lannisters would not know that I’d joined you. That was less than
half of it, Your Grace. The truth is, I wanted to watch you for a
time before pledging you my sword. To make certain that you were
not . . . ”
“ . . . my father’s
daughter?” If she was not her father’s daughter, who
was she?
“ . . . mad,” he finished.
“But I see no taint in you.”
“Taint?” Dany bristled.
“I am no maester to quote history at you, Your Grace.
Swords have been my life, not books. But every child knows that the
Targaryens have always danced too close to madness. Your father was
not the first. King Jaehaerys once told me that madness and
greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new
Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and
the world holds its breath to see how it will land.” Jaehaerys. This old man knew my grandfather. The thought gave
her pause. Most of what she knew of Westeros had come from her
brother, and the rest from Ser Jorah. Ser Barristan would have
forgotten more than the two of them had ever known. This man can
tell me what I came from. “So I am a coin in the hands of
some god, is that what you are saying, ser?”
“No,” Ser Barristan replied. “You are the
trueborn heir of Westeros. To the end of my days I shall remain
your faithful knight, should you find me worthy to bear a sword
again. If not, I am content to serve Strong Belwas as his
squire.”
“What if I decide you’re only worthy to be my
fool?” Dany asked scornfully. “Or perhaps my
cook?”
“I would be honored, Your Grace,” Selmy said with
quiet dignity. “I can bake apples and boil beef as well as
any man, and I’ve roasted many a duck over a campfire. I hope
you like them greasy, with charred skin and bloody
bones.”
That made her smile. “I’d have to be mad to eat such
fare. Ben Plumm, come give Ser Barristan your longsword.”
But Whitebeard would not take it. “I flung my sword at
Joffrey’s feet and have not touched one since. Only from the
hand of my queen will I accept a sword again.”
“As you wish.” Dany took the sword from Brown Ben
and offered it hilt first. The old man took it reverently.
“Now kneel,” she told him, “and swear it to my
service.”
He went to one knee and lay the blade before her as he said the
words. Dany scarcely heard them. He was the easy one, she thought.
The other will be harder. When Ser Barristan was done, she turned
to Jorah Mormont. “And now you, ser. Tell me true.”
The big man’s neck was red; whether from anger or shame
she did not know. “I have tried to tell you true, half a
hundred times. I told you Arstan was more than he seemed. I warned
you that Xaro and Pyat Pree were not to be trusted. I warned you—”
“You warned me against everyone except yourself.”
His insolence angered her. He should be humbler. He should beg for
my forgiveness. “Trust no one but Jorah Mormont, you
said . . . and all the time you were the
Spider’s creature!”
“I am no man’s creature. I took the eunuch’s
gold, yes. I learned some ciphers and wrote some letters, but that
was all—”
“All? You spied on me and sold me to my
enemies!”
“For a time.” He said it grudgingly. “I
stopped.”
“When? When did you stop?”
“I made one report from Qarth, but—”
“From Qarth?” Dany had been hoping it had ended much
earlier. “What did you write from Qarth? That you were my man
now, that you wanted no more of their schemes?” Ser Jorah
could not meet her eyes. “When Khal Drogo died, you asked me
to go with you to Yi Ti and the Jade Sea. Was that your wish or
Robert’s?”
“That was to protect you,” he insisted. “To
keep you away from them. I knew what snakes they
were . . . ”
“Snakes? And what are you, ser?” Something
unspeakable occurred to her. “You told them I was carrying
Drogo’s child . . . ”
“Khaleesi . . . ”
“Do not think to deny it, ser,” Ser Barristan said
sharply. “I was there when the eunuch told the council, and
Robert decreed that Her Grace and her child must die. You were the
source, ser. There was even talk that you might do the deed, for a
pardon.”
“A lie.” Ser Jorah’s face darkened. “I
would never . . . Daenerys, it was me who
stopped you from drinking the wine.”
“Yes. And how was it you knew the wine was
poisoned?”
“I . . . I but
suspected . . . the caravan brought a letter
from Varys, he warned me there would be attempts. He wanted you
watched, yes, but not harmed.” He went to his knees.
“If I had not told them someone else would have. You know
that.”
“I know you betrayed me.” She touched her belly,
where her son Rhaego had perished. “I know a poisoner tried
to kill my son, because of you. That’s what I know.”
“No . . . no.” He shook his
head. “I never meant . . . forgive me.
You have to forgive me.”
“Have to?” It was too late. He should have begun by
begging forgiveness. She could not pardon him as she’d
intended. She had dragged the wineseller behind her horse until
there was nothing left of him. Didn’t the man who brought him
deserve the same? This is Jorah, my fierce bear, the right arm that
never failed me. I would be dead without him,
but . . . “I can’t forgive
you,” she said. “I can’t.”
“You forgave the old
man . . . ”
“He lied to me about his name. You sold my secrets to the
men who killed my father and stole my brother’s
throne.”
“I protected you. I fought for you. Killed for
you.” Kissed me, she thought, betrayed me.
“I went down into the sewers like a rat. For
you.” It might have been kinder if you’d died there. Dany said
nothing. There was nothing to say.
“Daenerys,” he said, “I have loved
you.”
And there it was. Three treasons will you know. Once for blood
and once for gold and once for love. “The gods do nothing
without a purpose, they say. You did not die in battle, so it must
be they still have some use for you. But I don’t. I will not
have you near me. You are banished, ser. Go back to your masters in
King’s Landing and collect your pardon, if you can. Or to
Astapor. No doubt the butcher king needs knights.”
“No.” He reached for her. “Daenerys, please,
hear me . . . ”
She slapped his hand away. “Do not ever presume to touch
me again, or to speak my name. You have until dawn to collect your
things and leave this city. If you’re found in Meereen past
break of day, I will have Strong Belwas twist your head off. I
will. Believe that.” She turned her back on him, her skirts
swirling. I cannot bear to see his face. “Remove this liar
from my sight,” she commanded. I must not weep. I must not.
If I weep I will forgive him. Strong Belwas seized Ser Jorah by the
arm and dragged him out. When Dany glanced back, the knight was
walking as if drunk, stumbling and slow. She looked away until she
heard the doors open and close. Then she sank back onto the ebony
bench. He’s gone, then. My father and my mother, my brothers,
Ser Willem Darry, Drogo who was my sun-and-stars, his son who died
inside me, and now Ser Jorah . . .
“The queen has a good heart,” Daario purred through
his deep purple whiskers, “but that one is more dangerous
than all the Oznaks and Meros rolled up in one.” His strong
hands caressed the hilts of his matched blades, those wanton golden
women. “You need not even say the word, my radiance. Only
give the tiniest nod, and your Daario shall fetch you back his ugly
head.”
“Leave him be. The scales are balanced now. Let him go
home.” Dany pictured Jorah moving amongst old gnarled oaks
and tall pines, past flowering thornbushes, grey stones bearded
with moss, and little creeks running icy down steep hillsides. She
saw him entering a hall built of huge logs, where dogs slept by the
hearth and the smell of meat and mead hung thick in the smoky air.
“We are done for now,” she told her captains.
It was
all she could do not to run back up the wide marble stairs. Irri
helped her slip from her court clothes and into more comfortable
garb; baggy woolen breeches, a loose felted tunic, a painted
Dothraki vest. “You are trembling, Khaleesi,” the girl
said as she knelt to lace up Dany’s sandals.
“I’m cold,” Dany lied. “Bring me the
book I was reading last night.” She wanted to lose herself in
the words, in other times and other places. The fat leather-bound
volume was full of songs and stories from the Seven Kingdoms.
Children’s stories, if truth be told; too simple and fanciful
to be true history. All the heroes were tall and handsome, and you
could tell the traitors by their shifty eyes. Yet she loved them
all the same. Last night she had been reading of the three
princesses in the red tower, locked away by the king for the crime
of being beautiful.
When her handmaid brought the book, Dany had no trouble finding
the page where she had left off, but it was no good. She found
herself reading the same passage half a dozen times. Ser Jorah gave
me this book as a bride’s gift, the day I wed Khal Drogo. But
Daario is right, I shouldn’t have banished him. I should have
kept him, or I should have killed him. She played at being a queen,
yet sometimes she still felt like a scared little girl. Viserys
always said what a dolt I was. Was he truly mad? She closed the
book. She could still recall Ser Jorah, if she wished. Or send
Daario to kill him.
Dany fled from the choice, out onto the terrace. She found
Rhaegal asleep beside the pool, a green and bronze coil basking in
the sun. Drogon was perched up atop the pyramid, in the place where
the huge bronze harpy had stood before she had commanded it to be
pulled down. He spread his wings and roared when he spied her.
There was no sign of Viserion, but when she went to the parapet and
scanned the horizon she saw pale wings in the far distance,
sweeping above the river. He is hunting. They grow bolder every
day. Yet it still made her anxious when they flew too far away. One
day one of them may not return, she thought.
“Your Grace?”
She turned to find Ser Barristan behind her. “What more
would you have of me, ser? I spared you, I took you into my
service, now give me some peace.”
“Forgive me, Your Grace. It was
only . . . now that you know who I
am . . . ” The old man hesitated.
“A knight of the Kingsguard is in the king’s presence
day and night. For that reason, our vows require us to protect his
secrets as we would his life. But your father’s secrets by
rights belong to you now, along with his throne,
and . . . I thought perhaps you might have
questions for me.” Questions? She had a hundred questions, a thousand, ten
thousand. Why couldn’t she think of one? “Was my father
truly mad?” she blurted out. Why do I ask that?
“Viserys said this talk of madness was a ploy of the
Usurper’s . . . ”
“Viserys was a child, and the queen sheltered him as much
as she could. Your father always had a little madness in him, I now
believe. Yet he was charming and generous as well, so his lapses
were forgiven. His reign began with such
promise . . . but as the years passed, the
lapses grew more frequent,
until . . . ”
Dany stopped him. “Do I want to hear this now?”
Ser Barristan considered a moment. “Perhaps not. Not
now.”
“Not now,” she agreed. “One day. One day you
must tell me all. The good and the bad. There is some good to be
said of my father, surely?”
“There is, Your Grace. Of him, and those who came before
him. Your grandfather Jaehaerys and his brother, their father
Aegon, your mother . . . and Rhaegar. Him most
of all.”
“I wish I could have known him.” Her voice was
wistful.
“I wish he could have known you,” the old knight
said. “When you are ready, I will tell you all.”
Dany kissed him on the cheek and sent him on his way.
That night her handmaids brought her lamb, with a salad of
raisins and carrots soaked in wine, and a hot flaky bread dripping
with honey. She could eat none of it. Did Rhaegar ever grow so
weary? she wondered. Did Aegon, after his conquest?
Later, when the time came for sleep, Dany took Irri into bed
with her, for the first time since the ship. But even as she
shuddered in release and wound her fingers through her
handmaid’s thick black hair, she pretended it was Drogo
holding her . . . only somehow his face kept
turning into Daario’s. If I want Daario I need only say so.
She lay with Irri’s legs entangled in her own. His eyes
looked almost purple today . . .
Dany’s dreams were dark that night, and she woke three
times from half-remembered nightmares. After the third time she was
too restless to return to sleep. Moonlight streamed through the
slanting windows, silvering the marble floors. A cool breeze was
blowing through the open terrace doors. Irri slept soundly beside
her, her lips slightly parted, one dark brown nipple peeping out
above the sleeping silks. For a moment Dany was tempted, but it was
Drogo she wanted, or perhaps Daario. Not Irri. The maid was sweet
and skillful, but all her kisses tasted of duty.
She rose, leaving Irri asleep in the moonlight. Jhiqui and
Missandei slept in their own beds. Dany slipped on a robe and
padded barefoot across the marble floor, out onto the terrace. The
air was chilly, but she liked the feel of grass between her toes
and the sound of the leaves whispering to one another. Wind ripples
chased each other across the surface of the little bathing pool and
made the moon’s reflection dance and shimmer.
She leaned against a low brick parapet to look down upon the
city. Meereen was sleeping too. Lost in dreams of kinder days,
perhaps. Night covered the streets like a black blanket, hiding the
corpses and the grey rats that came up from the sewers to feast on
them, the swarms of stinging flies. Distant torches glimmered red
and yellow where her sentries walked their rounds, and here and
there she saw the faint glow of lanterns bobbing down an alley.
Perhaps one was Ser Jorah, leading his horse slowly toward the
gate. Farewell, old bear. Farewell, betrayer.
She was Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, khaleesi and queen,
Mother of Dragons, slayer of warlocks, breaker of chains, and there
was no one in the world that she could trust.
“Your Grace?” Missandei stood at her elbow wrapped
in a bedrobe, wooden sandals on her feet. “I woke, and saw
that you were gone. Did you sleep well? What are you looking
at?”
“My city,” said Dany. “I was looking for a
house with a red door, but by night all the doors are
black.”
“A red door?” Missandei was puzzled. “What
house is this?”
“No house. It does not matter.” Dany took the
younger girl by the hand. “Never lie to me, Missandei. Never
betray me.”
“I never would,” Missandei promised. “Look,
dawn comes.”
The sky had turned a cobalt blue from the horizon to the zenith,
and behind the line of low hills to the east a glow could be seen,
pale gold and oyster pink. Dany held Missandei’s hand as they
watched the sun come up. All the grey bricks became red and yellow
and blue and green and orange. The scarlet sands of the fighting
pits transformed them into bleeding sores before her eyes.
Elsewhere the golden dome of the Temple of the Graces blazed
bright, and bronze stars winked along the walls where the light of
the rising sun touched the spikes on the helms of the Unsullied. On
the terrace, a few flies stirred sluggishly. A bird began to chirp
in the persimmon tree, and then two more. Dany cocked her head to
hear their song, but it was not long before the sounds of the
waking city drowned them out. The sounds of my city.
That morning she summoned her captains and commanders to the
garden, rather than descending to the audience chamber.
“Aegon the Conqueror brought fire and blood to Westeros, but
afterward he gave them peace, prosperity, and justice. But all I
have brought to Slaver’s Bay is death and ruin. I have been
more khal than queen, smashing and plundering, then moving
on.”
“There is nothing to stay for,” said Brown Ben
Plumm.
“Your Grace, the slavers brought their doom on
themselves,” said Daario Naharis.
“You have brought freedom as well,” Missandei
pointed out.
“Freedom to starve?” asked Dany sharply.
“Freedom to die? Am I a dragon, or a harpy?” Am I mad?
Do I have the taint?
“A dragon,” Ser Barristan said with certainty.
“Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace.”
“But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a
single city?” He had no answer to that. Dany turned away from
them, to gaze out over the city once again. “My children need
time to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their
wings. And I need the same. I will not let this city go the way of
Astapor. I will not let the harpy of Yunkai chain up those
I’ve freed all over again.” She turned back to look at
their faces. “I will not march.”
“What will you do then, Khaleesi?” asked
Rakharo.
“Stay,” she said. “Rule. And be a
queen.”