The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (70 page)

His girl conveyed the essence of his speech, more politely. “There
are other ways to tempt men, besides the flesh,” Arstan Whitebeard
objected, when she was done.

“Men, yes, but not Unsullied. Plunder interests them no more
than rape. They own nothing but their weapons. We do not even
permit them names.”

“No names?” Dany frowned at the little scribe. “Can that be what
the Good Master said? They have no names?”

“It is so, Your Grace.”

Kraznys stopped in front of a Ghiscari who might have been his
taller fitter brother, and flicked his lash at a small bronze disc on the
swordbelt at his feet. “There is his name. Ask the whore of Westeros
whether she can read Ghiscari glyphs.” When Dany admitted that
she could not, the slaver turned to the Unsullied. “What is your
name?” he demanded.

“This one’s name is Red Flea, your worship.”

The girl repeated their exchange in the Common Tongue.

“And yesterday, what was it?”

“Black Rat, your worship.”

“The day before?”

“Brown Flea, your worship.”

“Before that?”

“This one does not recall, your worship. Blue Toad, perhaps. Or
Blue Worm.”

“Tell her all their names are such,” Kraznys commanded the girl.
“It reminds them that by themselves they are vermin. The name disks
are thrown in an empty cask at duty’s end, and each dawn plucked
up again at random.”

“More madness,” said Arstan, when he heard. “How can any man
possibly remember a new name every day?”

“Those who cannot are culled in training, along with those who
cannot run all day in full pack, scale a mountain in the black of night,
walk across a bed of coals, or slay an infant.”

Dany’s mouth surely twisted at that.
Did he see, or is he blind as
well as cruel?
She turned away quickly, trying to keep her face a mask
until she heard the translation. Only then did she allow herself to say,
“Whose infants do they slay?”

“To win his spiked cap, an Unsullied must go to the slave marts
with a silver mark, find some wailing newborn, and kill it before its
mother’s eyes. In this way, we make certain that there is no weakness
left in them.”

She was feeling faint.
The heat,
she tried to tell herself. “You take
a babe from its mother’s arms, kill it as she watches, and pay for her
pain with a silver coin?”

When the translation was made for him, Kraznys mo Nakloz
laughed aloud. “What a soft mewling fool this one is. Tell the whore
of Westeros that the mark is for the child’s owner, not the mother.
The Unsullied are not permitted to steal.” He tapped his whip against
his leg. “Tell her that few ever fail that test. The dogs are harder for
them, it must be said. We give each boy a puppy on the day that he is
cut. At the end of the first year, he is required to strangle it. Any who
cannot are killed, and fed to the surviving dogs. It makes for a good
strong lesson, we find.”

Arstan Whitebeard tapped the end of his staff on the bricks as he
listened to that.
Tap tap tap.
Slow and steady.
Tap tap tap.
Dany saw
him turn his eyes away, as if he could not bear to look at Kraznys any
longer.

“The Good Master has said that these eunuchs cannot be tempted
with coin or flesh,” Dany told the girl, “but if some enemy of mine
should offer them
freedom
for betraying me...”

“They would kill him out of hand and bring her his head, tell
her that,” the slaver answered. “Other slaves may steal and hoard up
silver in hopes of buying freedom, but an Unsullied would not take
it if the little mare offered it as a gift. They have no life outside their
duty. They are
soldiers,
and that is all.”

“It is soldiers I need,” Dany admitted.

“Tell her it is well she came to Astapor, then. Ask her how large an
army she wishes to buy?”

“How many Unsullied do you have to sell?”

“Eight thousand fully trained and available at present. We sell
them only by the unit, she should know. By the thousand or the
century. Once we sold by the ten, as household guards, but that
proved unsound. Ten is too few. They mingle with other slaves, even
freemen, and forget who and what they are.” Kraznys waited for that
to be rendered in the Common Tongue, and then continued. “This
beggar queen must understand, such wonders do not come cheaply.
In Yunkai and Meereen, slave swordsmen can be had for less than
the price of their swords, but Unsullied are the finest foot in all the
world, and each represents many years of training. Tell her they are
like Valyrian steel, folded over and over and hammered for years on
end, until they are stronger and more resilient than any metal on
earth.”

“I know of Valyrian steel,” said Dany. “Ask the Good Master if the
Unsullied have their own officers.”

“You must set your own officers over them. We train them to obey,
not to think. If it is wits she wants, let her buy scribes.”

“And their gear?”

“Sword, shield, spear, sandals, and quilted tunic are included,”
said Kraznys. “And the spiked caps, to be sure. They will wear such
armor as you wish, but you must provide it.”

Dany could think of no other questions. She looked at Arstan.
“You have lived long in the world, Whitebeard. Now that you have
seen them, what do you say?”

“I say
no,
Your Grace,” the old man answered at once.

“Why?” she asked. “Speak freely.” Dany thought she knew what
he would say, but she wanted the slave girl to hear, so Kraznys mo
Nakloz might hear later.

“My queen,” said Arstan, “there have been no slaves in the Seven
Kingdoms for thousands of years. The old gods and the new alike hold
slavery to be an abomination. Evil. If you should land in Westeros at
the head of a slave army, many good men will oppose you for no other
reason than that. You will do great harm to your cause, and to the
honor of your House.”

“Yet I must have some army,” Dany said. “The boy Joffrey will not
give me the Iron Throne for asking politely.”

“When the day comes that you raise your banners, half of Westeros
will be with you,” Whitebeard promised. “Your brother Rhaegar is
still remembered, with great love.”

“And my father?” Dany said.

The old man hesitated before saying, “King Aerys is also
remembered. He gave the realm many years of peace. Your Grace,
you have no need of slaves. Magister Illyrio can keep you safe while
your dragons grow, and send secret envoys across the narrow sea on
your behalf, to sound out the high lords for your cause.”

“Those same high lords who abandoned my father to the Kingslayer
and bent the knee to Robert the Usurper?”

“Even those who bent their knees may yearn in their hearts for the
return of the dragons.”

“May,”
said Dany. That was such a slippery word,
may
. In any
language. She turned back to Kraznys mo Nakloz and his slave girl. “I
must consider carefully.”

The slaver shrugged. “Tell her to consider quickly. There are many
other buyers. Only three days past I showed these same Unsullied to
a corsair king who hopes to buy them all.”

“The corsair wanted only a hundred, your worship,” Dany heard
the slave girl say.

He poked her with the end of the whip. “Corsairs are all liars. He’ll
buy them all. Tell her that, girl.”

Dany knew she would take more than a hundred, if she took any
at all. “Remind your Good Master of who I am. Remind him that I
am Daenerys Stormborn, Mother of Dragons, the Unburnt, trueborn
queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. My blood is the blood of
Aegon the Conqueror, and of old Valyria before him.”

Yet her words did not move the plump perfumed slaver, even when
rendered in his own ugly tongue. “Old Ghis ruled an empire when
the Valyrians were still fucking sheep,” he growled at the poor little
scribe, “and we are the sons of the harpy.” He gave a shrug. “My
tongue is wasted wagging at women. East or west, it makes no matter,
they cannot decide until they have been pampered and flattered and
stuffed with sweetmeats. Well, if this is my fate, so be it. Tell the whore
that if she requires a guide to our sweet city, Kraznys mo Nakloz will
gladly serve her...and service her as well, if she is more woman than
she looks.”

“Good Master Kraznys would be most pleased to show you Astapor
while you ponder, Your Grace,” the translator said.

“I will feed her jellied dog brains, and a fine rich stew of red octopus
and unborn puppy.” He wiped his lips.

“Many delicious dishes can be had here, he says.”

“Tell her how pretty the pyramids are at night,” the slaver growled.
“Tell her I will lick honey off her breasts, or allow her to lick honey off
mine if she prefers.”

“Astapor is most beautiful at dusk, Your Grace,” said the slave
girl. “The Good Masters light silk lanterns on every terrace, so all
the pyramids glow with colored lights. Pleasure barges ply the Worm,
playing soft music and calling at the little islands for food and wine
and other delights.”

“Ask her if she wishes to view our fighting pits,” Kraznys added.
“Douquor’s Pit has a fine folly scheduled for the evening. A bear and
three small boys. One boy will be rolled in honey, one in blood, and
one in rotting fish, and she may wager on which the bear will eat
first.”

Tap tap tap,
Dany heard. Arstan Whitebeard’s face was still, but
his staff beat out his rage.
Tap tap tap.
She made herself smile. “I have
my own bear on
Balerion
,” she told the translator, “and he may well
eat me if I do not return to him.”

“See,” said Kraznys when her words were translated. “It is not the
woman who decides, it is this man she runs to. As ever!”

“Thank the Good Master for his patient kindness,” Dany said,
“and tell him that I will think on all I learned here.” She gave her
arm to Arstan Whitebeard, to lead her back across the plaza to her
litter. Aggo and Jhogo fell in to either side of them, walking with
the bowlegged swagger all the horselords affected when forced to
dismount and stride the earth like common mortals.

Dany climbed into her litter frowning, and beckoned Arstan to
climb in beside her. A man as old as him should not be walking in
such heat. She did not close the curtains as they got underway. With
the sun beating down so fiercely on this city of red brick, every stray
breeze was to be cherished, even if it did come with a swirl of fine red
dust.
Besides, I need to see.

Astapor was a queer city, even to the eyes of one who had walked
within the House of Dust and bathed in the Womb of the World
beneath the Mother of Mountains. All the streets were made of the
same red brick that had paved the plaza. So too were the stepped
pyramids, the deep-dug fighting pits with their rings of descending
seats, the sulfurous fountains and gloomy wine caves, and the ancient
walls that encircled them.
So many bricks,
she thought,
and so old
and crumbling.
Their fine red dust was everywhere, dancing down the
gutters at each gust of wind. Small wonder so many Astapori women
veiled their faces; the brick dust stung the eyes worse than sand.

“Make way!” Jhogo shouted as he rode before her litter. “Make
way for the Mother of Dragons!” But when he uncoiled the great
silver-handled whip that Dany had given him, and made to crack it in
the air, she leaned out and told him nay. “Not in this place, blood of
my blood,” she told him, in his own tongue. “These bricks have heard
too much of the sound of whips.”