The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (68 page)

“Once for blood and once for gold and once for love.” Dany was
not like to forget. “Mirri Maz Duur was the first.”

“Which means two traitors yet remain...and now these two appear.
I find that troubling, yes. Never forget, Robert offered a lordship to
the man who slays you.”

Dany leaned forward and yanked Viserion’s tail, to pull him off his
green brother. Her blanket fell away from her chest as she moved. She
grabbed it hastily and covered herself again. “The Usurper is dead,”
she said.

“But his son rules in his place.” Ser Jorah lifted his gaze, and his
dark eyes met her own. “A dutiful son pays his father’s debts. Even
blood debts.”

“This boy Joffrey might want me dead...if he recalls that I’m alive.
What has that to do with Belwas and Arstan Whitebeard? The old
man does not even wear a sword. You’ve seen that.”

“Aye. And I have seen how deftly he handles that staff of his.
Recall how he killed that manticore in Qarth? It might as easily have
been your throat he crushed.”

“Might have been, but was not,” she pointed out. “It was a stinging
manticore meant to slay me. He saved my life.”

“Khaleesi,
has it occurred to you that Whitebeard and Belwas
might have been in league with the assassin? It might all have been a
ploy to win your trust.”

Her sudden laughter made Drogon hiss, and sent Viserion flapping
to his perch above the porthole. “The ploy worked well.”

The exile knight did not return her smile. “These are Illyrio’s ships,
Illyrio’s captains, Illyrio’s sailors...and Strong Belwas and Arstan are
his men as well, not yours.”

“Magister Illyrio has protected me in the past. Strong Belwas says
that he wept when he heard my brother was dead.”

“Yes,” said Mormont, “but did he weep for Viserys, or for the plans
he had made with him?”

“His plans need not change. Magister Illyrio is a friend to House
Targaryen, and wealthy...”

“He was not born wealthy. In the world as I have seen it, no man
grows rich by kindness. The warlocks said the second treason would
be for
gold
. What does Illyrio Mopatis love more than gold?”

“His skin.” Across the cabin Drogon stirred, steam rising from his
nostrils. “Mirri Maz Duur betrayed me. I burned her for it.”

“Mirri Maz Duur was in your power. In Pentos, you shall be in
Illyrio’s power. It is not the same. I know the magister as well as you.
He is a devious man, and clever—”

“I need clever men about me if I am to win the Iron Throne.”

Ser Jorah snorted. “That wineseller who tried to poison you was a
clever man as well. Clever men hatch ambitious schemes.”

Dany drew her legs up beneath the blanket. “You will protect me.
You, and my bloodriders.”

“Four men?
Khaleesi,
you believe you know Illyrio Mopatis, very
well. Yet you insist on surrounding yourself with men you do not
know, like this puffed-up eunuch and the world’s oldest squire. Take
a lesson from Pyat Pree and Xaro Xhoan Daxos.”

He means well,
Dany reminded herself.
He does all he does for love.
“It seems to me that a queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a
queen who trusts everyone. Every man I take into my service is a risk,
I understand that, but how am I to win the Seven Kingdoms without
such risks? Am I to conquer Westeros with one exile knight and three
Dothraki bloodriders?”

His jaw set stubbornly. “Your path is dangerous, I will not deny
that. But if you blindly trust in every liar and schemer who crosses it,
you will end as your brothers did.”

His obstinance made her angry.
He treats me like some child.
“Strong
Belwas could not scheme his way to breakfast. And what lies has
Arstan Whitebeard told me?”

“He is not what he pretends to be. He speaks to you more boldly
than any squire would dare.”

“He spoke frankly at my command. He knew my brother.”

“A great many men knew your brother. Your Grace, in Westeros
the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard sits on the small council, and
serves the king with his wits as well as his steel. If I am the first of your
Queensguard, I pray you, hear me out. I have a plan to put to you.”

“What plan? Tell me.”

“Illyrio Mopatis wants you back in Pentos, under his roof. Very
well, go to him...but in your own time, and not alone. Let us see how
loyal and obedient these new subjects of yours truly are. Command
Groleo to change course for Slaver’s Bay.”

Dany was not certain she liked the sound of that at all. Everything
she’d ever heard of the flesh marts in the great slave cities of Yunkai,
Meereen, and Astapor was dire and frightening. “What is there for
me in Slaver’s Bay?”

“An army,” said Ser Jorah. “If Strong Belwas is so much to your
liking you can buy hundreds more like him out of the fighting pits of
Meereen...but it is Astapor I’d set my sails for. In Astapor you can buy
Unsullied.”

“The slaves in the spiked bronze hats?” Dany had seen Unsullied
guards in the Free Cities, posted at the gates of magisters, archons,
and dynasts. “Why should I want Unsullied? They don’t even ride
horses, and most of them are fat.”

“The Unsullied you may have seen in Pentos and Myr were house
hold guards. That’s soft service, and eunuchs tend to plumpness in
any case. Food is the only vice allowed them. To judge all Unsullied
by a few old household slaves is like judging all squires by Arstan
Whitebeard, Your Grace. Most are strong, and skilled, and supremely
disciplined. Put ashore in Astapor and continue on to Pentos over
land. It will take longer, yes...but when you break bread with Magister
Illyrio, you will have a thousand swords behind you, not just four.”

There is wisdom in this, yes,
Dany thought,
but...
“How am I to
buy a thousand slave soldiers? All I have of value is the crown the
Tourmaline Brotherhood gave me.”

“Dragons will be as great a wonder in Astapor as they were in
Qarth. It may be that the slavers will shower you with gifts, as the
Qartheen did. If not...these ships carry more than your Dothraki and
their horses. They took on trade goods at Qarth, I’ve been through
the holds and seen for myself. Bolts of silk and bales of tiger skin,
amber and jade carvings, saffron, myrrh...slaves are cheap, Your
Grace. Tiger skins are costly.”

“Those are
Illyrio’s
tiger skins,” she objected.

“And Illyrio is a friend to House Targaryen.”

“All the more reason not to steal his goods.”

“What use are wealthy friends if they will not put their wealth
at your disposal, my queen? If Magister Illyrio would deny you, he is
only Xaro Xhoan Daxos with four chins. And if he is sincere in his
devotion to your cause, he will not begrudge you three shiploads of
trade goods. What better use for his tiger skins than to buy you the
beginnings of an army?”

That’s true.
Dany felt a rising excitement. “There will be dangers
on such a long march....”

“There are dangers at sea as well. Corsairs and pirates hunt the
southern route, and north of Valyria the Smoking Sea is demon
haunted. The next storm could sink or scatter us, a kraken could pull
us under...or we might find ourselves becalmed again, and die of thirst
as we wait for the wind to rise. A march will have different dangers,
my queen, but none greater.”

“What if Captain Groleo refuses to change course, though? And
Arstan, Strong Belwas, what will they do?”

Ser Jorah stood. “Perhaps it’s time you found that out.”

“Yes!”
she decided. “I’ll do it!” Dany threw back the coverlets and
hopped from the bunk. “I’ll see the captain at once, command him to
set course for Astapor.” She bent over her chest, threw open the lid,
and seized the first garment to hand, a pair of loose sandsilk trousers.
“Hand me my medallion belt,” she commanded Jorah, as she pulled the
sandsilk up over her hips. “And my vest—” she started to say, turning.

Ser Jorah slid his arms around her.

“Oh,” was all Dany had time to say, as he pulled her close and
pressed his lips down on hers. He smelled of sweat and salt and
leather, and the iron studs on his jerkin dug into her naked breasts as
he crushed her hard against him. One hand held her by the shoulder
while the other slid down her spine to the small of her back, and her
mouth opened for his tongue, though she never told it to.
His beard
is scratchy,
she thought,
but his mouth is sweet.
The Dothraki wore no
beards, only long mustaches, and only Khal Drogo had ever kissed
her before.
He should not be doing this. I am his queen, not his woman.

It was a long kiss, though how long Dany could not have said.
When it ended, Ser Jorah let go of her, and she took a quick step
backward. “You...you should not have...”

“I should not have waited so long,” he finished for her. “I should
have kissed you in Qarth, in Vaes Tolorro. I should have kissed you in
the red waste, every night and every day. You were made to be kissed,
often and well.” His eyes were on her breasts.

Dany covered them with her hands, before her nipples could
betray her. “I...that was not fitting. I am your queen.”

“My queen,” he said, “and the bravest, sweetest, and most beautiful
woman I have ever seen. Daenerys—”

“Your Grace!”

“Your Grace,” he conceded,
"the dragon has three heads
...remember?
You have wondered at that, ever since you heard it from the warlocks
in the House of Dust. Well, here’s your meaning: Balerion, Meraxes,
and Vhagar, ridden by Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya. The three-
headed dragon of House Targaryen—three dragons, and
three riders
.”

“Yes,” said Dany, “but my brothers are dead.”

“Rhaenys and Visenya were Aegon’s wives as well as his sisters.
You have no brothers, but you can take husbands. And I tell you truly,
Daenerys, there is no man in all the world who will ever be half so
true to you as me.”

Unsullied in Astapor

In the center of the Plaza of Pride stood a red brick fountain whose
waters smelled of brimstone, and in the center of the fountain a
monstrous harpy made of hammered bronze. Twenty feet tall she
reared. She had a woman’s face, with gilded hair, ivory eyes, and
pointed ivory teeth. Water gushed yellow from her heavy breasts. But
in place of arms she had the wings of a bat or a dragon, her legs were
the legs of an eagle, and behind she wore a scorpion’s curled and
venomous tail.

The harpy of Ghis,
Dany thought. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand
years ago, if she remembered true; its legions shattered by the might
of young Valyria, its mighty brick walls pulled down, its streets and
buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields
sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so
too its people; these Astapori were mongrels, Ser Jorah said. Even the
Ghiscari tongue was largely forgotten; the slave cities spoke the High
Valyrian of their conquerors, or what they had made of it.

Yet the symbol of the Old Empire still endured here, though this
bronze monster had a heavy chain dangling from her talons, an open
manacle at either end.
The harpy of Ghis had a thunderbolt in her claws.
This is the harpy of Astapor.

“Tell the Westerosi whore to lower her eyes,” the slaver Kraznys
mo Nakloz complained to the slave girl who spoke for him. “I deal
in meat, not metal. The bronze is not for sale. Tell her to look at the
soldiers. Even the dim purple eyes of a sunset savage can see how
magnificent my creatures are, surely.”