A Dance with Dragons Read online

  the hall, Brazen Beasts lowered their spears. Goghor the Giant lumbered forward to place himself before the king’s throne, and the Spotted Cat and Khrazz moved to either side of him to form a wall.

  Bloodbeard laughed. “He’s dead. He won’t bite.”

  Gingerly, so gingerly, the seneschal approached the head, lifted it delicately by the hair. “Admiral Groleo.”

  Ser Barristan glanced toward the throne. He had served so many kings, he could not help but imagine how they might have reacted to this provocation. Aerys would have flinched away in horror, likely cutting himself on the barbs of the Iron Throne, then shrieked at his swordsmen to cut the Yunkishmen to pieces. Robert would have shouted for his hammer to repay Bloodbeard in kind. Even Jaehaerys, reckoned weak by many, would have ordered the arrest of Bloodbeard and the Yunkish slavers.

  Hizdahr sat frozen, a man transfixed. Reznak set the head on a satin pillow at the king’s feet, then scampered away, his mouth twisted up in a moue of distaste. Ser Barristan could smell the seneschal’s heavy floral perfume from several yards away.

  The dead man stared up reproachfully. His beard was brown with caked blood, but a trickle of red still leaked from his neck. From the look of him, it had taken more than one blow to part his head from his body. In the back of the hall, petitioners began to slip away. One of the Brazen Beasts ripped off his brass hawk’s mask and began to spew up his breakfast.

  Barristan Selmy was no stranger to severed heads. This one, though… he had crossed half the world with the old seafarer, from Pentos to Qarth and back again to Astapor. Groleo was a good man. He did not deserve this end. All he ever wanted was to go home. The knight tensed, waiting.

  “This,” King Hizdahr said at last, “this is not… we are not pleased, this… what is the meaning of this… this…”

  The slaver in the maroon tokar produced a parchment. “I have the honor to bear this message from the council of masters.” He unrolled the scroll. “It is here written, ‘Seven entered Meereen to sign the peace accords and witness the celebratory games at the Pit of Daznak. As surety for their safety, seven hostages were tendered us. The Yellow City mourns its noble son Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, who perished cruelly whilst a guest of Meereen. Blood must pay for blood.’”

  Groleo had a wife back in Pentos. Children, grandchildren. Why him, of all the hostages? Jhogo, Hero, and Daario Naharis all commanded fighting men, but Groleo had been an admiral without a fleet. Did they draw straws, or did they think Groleo the least valuable to us, the least likely to provoke reprisal? the knight asked himself… but it was easier to pose that question than to answer it. I have no skill at unraveling such knots.

  “Your Grace,” Ser Barristan called out. “If it please you to recall, the noble Yurkhaz died by happenstance. He stumbled on the steps as he tried to flee the dragon and was crushed beneath the feet of his own slaves and companions. That, or his heart burst in terror. He was old.”

  “Who is this who speaks without the king’s leave?” asked the Yunkish lord in the striped tokar, a small man with a receding chin and teeth too big for his mouth. He reminded Selmy of a rabbit. “Must the lords of Yunkai attend to the natterings of guards?” He shook the pearls that fringed his tokar.

  Hizdahr zo Loraq could not seem to look away from the head. Only when Reznak whispered something in his ear did he finally bestir himself. “Yurkhaz zo Yunzak was your supreme commander,” he said. “Which of you speaks for Yunkai now?”

  “All of us,” said the rabbit. “The council of masters.”

  King Hizdahr found some steel. “Then all of you bear the responsibility for this breach of our peace.”

  The Yunkishman in the breastplate gave answer. “Our peace has not been breached. Blood pays for blood, a life for a life. To show our good faith, we return three of your hostages.” The iron ranks behind him parted. Three Meereenese were ushered forward, clutching at their tokars—two women and a man.

  “Sister,” said Hizdahr zo Loraq, stiffly. “Cousins.” He gestured at the bleeding head. “Remove that from our sight.”

  “The admiral was a man of the sea,” Ser Barristan reminded him. “Mayhaps Your Magnificence might ask the Yunkai’i to return his body to us, so we may bury him beneath the waves?”

  The rabbit-toothed lord waved a hand. “If it please Your Radiance, this shall be done. A sign of our respect.”

  Reznak mo Reznak cleared his throat noisily. “Meaning no offense, yet it seems to me that Her Worship Queen Daenerys gave you… ah… seven hostages. The other three…”

  “The others shall remain our guests,” announced the Yunkish lord in the breastplate, “until the dragons have been destroyed.”

  A hush fell across the hall. Then came the murmurs and the mutters, whispered curses, whispered prayers, the hornets stirring in their hive. “The dragons…” said King Hizdahr.

  “… are monsters, as all men saw in Daznak’s Pit. No true peace is possible whilst they live.”

  Reznak replied. “Her Magnificence Queen Daenerys is Mother of Dragons. Only she can—”

  Bloodbeard’s scorn cut him off. “She is gone. Burned and devoured. Weeds grow through her broken skull.”

  A roar greeted those words. Some began to shout and curse. Others stamped their feet and whistled their approval. It took the Brazen Beasts pounding the butts of their spears against the floor before the hall quieted again.

  Ser Barristan never once took his eyes off Bloodbeard. He came to sack a city, and Hizdahr’s peace has cheated him of his plunder. He will do whatever he must to start the bloodshed.

  Hizdahr zo Loraq rose slowly from his dragon throne. “I must consult my council. This court is done.”

  “All kneel for His Magnificence Hizdahr zo Loraq, Fourteenth of That Ancient Name, King of Meereen, Scion of Ghis, Octarch of the Old Empire, Master of the Skahazadhan, Consort to Dragons and Blood of the Harpy,” the herald shouted. Brazen Beasts swung out amongst the pillars to form a line, then began a slow advance in lockstep, ushering the petitioners from the hall.

  The Dornishmen did not have as far to go as most. As befit his rank and station, Quentyn Martell had been given quarters within the Great Pyramid, two levels down—a handsome suite of rooms with its own privy and walled terrace. Perhaps that was why he and his companions lingered, waiting until the press had lessened before beginning to make their way toward the steps.

  Ser Barristan watched them, thoughtful. What would Daenerys want? he asked himself. He thought he knew. The old knight strode across the hall, his long white cloak rippling behind him. He caught the Dornishmen at the top of the steps. “Your father’s court was never half so lively,” he heard Drinkwater japing.

  “Prince Quentyn,” Selmy called. “Might I beg a word?”

  Quentyn Martell turned. “Ser Barristan. Of course. My chambers are one level down.”

  No. “It is not my place to counsel you, Prince Quentyn… but if I were you, I would not return to my chambers. You and your friends should go down the steps and leave.”

  Prince Quentyn stared. “Leave the pyramid?”

  “Leave the city. Return to Dorne.”

  The Dornishmen exchanged a look. “Our arms and armor are back in our apartments,” said Gerris Drinkwater. “Not to mention most of the coin that we have left.”

  “Swords can be replaced,” said Ser Barristan. “I can provide you with coin enough for passage back to Dorne. Prince Quentyn, the king made note of you today. He frowned.”

  Gerris Drinkwater laughed. “Should we be frightened of Hizdahr zo Loraq? You saw him just now. He quailed before the Yunkishmen. They sent him a head, and he did nothing.”

  Quentyn Martell nodded in agreement. “A prince does well to think before he acts. This king… I do not know what to think of him. The queen warned me against him as well, true, but…”

  “She warned you?” Selmy frowned. “Why are you still here?”

  Prince Quentyn flushed. “The marriage pact—”

  “—was
made by two dead men and contained not a word about the queen or you. It promised your sister’s hand to the queen’s brother, another dead man. It has no force. Until you turned up here, Her Grace was ignorant of its existence. Your father keeps his secrets well, Prince Quentyn. Too well, I fear. If the queen had known of this pact in Qarth, she might never have turned aside for Slaver’s Bay, but you came too late. I have no wish to salt your wounds, but Her Grace has a new husband and an old paramour, and seems to prefer the both of them to you.”

  Anger flashed in the prince’s dark eyes. “This Ghiscari lordling is no fit consort for the queen of the Seven Kingdoms.”

  “That is not for you to judge.” Ser Barristan paused, wondering if he had said too much already. No. Tell him the rest of it. “That day at Daznak’s Pit, some of the food in the royal box was poisoned. It was only chance that Strong Belwas ate it all. The Blue Graces say that only his size and freakish strength have saved him, but it was a near thing. He may yet die.”

  The shock was plain on Prince Quentyn’s face. “Poison… meant for Daenerys?”

  “Her or Hizdahr. Perhaps both. The box was his, though. His Grace made all the arrangements. If the poison was his doing… well, he will need a scapegoat. Who better than a rival from a distant land who has no friends at this court? Who better than a suitor the queen spurned?”

  Quentyn Martell went pale. “Me? I would never… you cannot think I had any part in any…”

  That was the truth, or he is a master mummer. “Others might,” said Ser Barristan. “The Red Viper was your uncle. And you have good reason to want King Hizdahr dead.”

  “So do others,” suggested Gerris Drinkwater. “Naharis, for one. The queen’s…”

  “… paramour,” Ser Barristan finished, before the Dornish knight could say anything that might besmirch the queen’s honor. “That is what you call them down in Dorne, is it not?” He did not wait for a reply. “Prince Lewyn was my Sworn Brother. In those days there were few secrets amongst the Kingsguard. I know he kept a paramour. He did not feel there was any shame in that.”

  “No,” said Quentyn, red-faced, “but…”

  “Daario would kill Hizdahr in a heartbeat if he dared,” Ser Barristan went on. “But not with poison. Never. And Daario was not there in any case. Hizdahr would be pleased to blame him for the locusts, all the same… but the king may yet have need of the Stormcrows, and he will lose them if he appears complicit in the death of their captain. No, my prince. If His Grace needs a poisoner, he will look to you.” He had said all that he could safely say. In a few more days, if the gods smiled on them, Hizdahr zo Loraq would no longer rule Meereen… but no good would be served by having Prince Quentyn caught up in the bloodbath that was coming. “If you must remain in Meereen, you would do well to stay away from court and hope Hizdahr forgets you,” Ser Barristan finished, “but a ship for Volantis would be wiser, my prince. Whatever course you choose, I wish you well.”

  Before he had gone three steps, Quentyn Martell called out to him. “Barristan the Bold, they call you.”

  “Some do.” Selmy had won that name when he was ten years old, a new-made squire, yet so vain and proud and foolish that he got it in his head that he could joust with tried and proven knights. So he’d borrowed a warhorse and some plate from Lord Dondarrion’s armory and entered the lists at Blackhaven as a mystery knight. Even the herald laughed. My arms were so thin that when I lowered my lance it was all I could do to keep the point from furrowing the ground. Lord Dondarrion would have been within his rights to pull him off the horse and spank him, but the Prince of Dragonflies had taken pity on the addlepated boy in the ill-fitting armor and accorded him the respect of taking up his challenge. One course was all that it required. Afterward Prince Duncan helped him to his feet and removed his helm. “A boy,” he had proclaimed to the crowd. “A bold boy.” Fifty-three years ago. How many men are still alive who were there at Blackhaven?

  “What name do you think they will give me, should I return to Dorne without Daenerys?” Prince Quentyn asked. “Quentyn the Cautious? Quentyn the Craven? Quentyn the Quail?”

  The Prince Who Came Too Late, the old knight thought… but if a knight of the Kingsguard learns nothing else, he learns to guard his tongue. “Quentyn the Wise,” he suggested. And hoped that it was true.

  THE SPURNED SUITOR

  The hour of ghosts was almost upon them when Ser Gerris Drinkwater returned to the pyramid to report that he had found Beans, Books, and Old Bill Bone in one of Meereen’s less savory cellars, drinking yellow wine and watching naked slaves kill one another with bare hands and filed teeth.

  “Beans pulled a blade and proposed a wager to determine if deserters had bellies full of yellow slime,” Ser Gerris reported, “so I tossed him a dragon and asked if yellow gold would do. He bit the coin and asked what I meant to buy. When I told him he slipped the knife away and asked if I was drunk or mad.”

  “Let him think what he wants, so long as he delivers the message,” said Quentyn.

  “He’ll do that much. I’ll wager you get your meeting too, if only so Rags can have Pretty Meris cut your liver out and fry it up with onions. We should be heeding Selmy. When Barristan the Bold tells you to run, a wise man laces up his boots. We should find a ship for Volantis whilst the port is still open.”

  Just the mention turned Ser Archibald’s cheeks green. “No more ships. I’d sooner hop back to Volantis on one foot.”

  Volantis, Quentyn thought. Then Lys, then home. Back the way I came, empty-handed. Three brave men dead, for what?

  It would be sweet to see the Greenblood again, to visit Sunspear and the Water Gardens and breathe the clean sweet mountain air of Yronwood in place of the hot, wet, filthy humors of Slaver’s Bay. His father would speak no word of rebuke, Quentyn knew, but the disappointment would be there in his eyes. His sister would be scornful, the Sand Snakes would mock him with smiles sharp as swords, and Lord Yronwood, his second father, who had sent his own son along to keep him safe…

  “I will not keep you here,” Quentyn told his friends. “My father laid this task on me, not you. Go home, if that is what you want. By whatever means you like. I am staying.”

  The big man shrugged. “Then Drink and me are staying too.”

  The next night, Denzo D’han turned up at Prince Quentyn’s door to talk terms. “He will meet with you on the morrow, by the spice market. Look for a door marked with a purple lotus. Knock twice and call for freedom.”

  “Agreed,” said Quentyn. “Arch and Gerris will be with me. He can bring two men as well. No more.”

  “If it please my prince.” The words were polite enough, but Denzo’s tone was edged with malice, and the eyes of the warrior poet gleamed bright with mockery. “Come at sunset. And see that you are not followed.”

  The Dornishmen left the Great Pyramid an hour shy of sunset in case they took a wrong turn or had difficulty finding the purple lotus. Quentyn and Gerris wore their sword belts. The big man had his warhammer slung across his broad back.

  “It is still not too late to abandon this folly,” Gerris said, as they made their way down a foetid alley toward the old spice market. The smell of piss was in the air, and they could hear the rumble of a corpse cart’s iron-rimmed wheels off ahead. “Old Bill Bone used to say that Pretty Maris could stretch out a man’s dying for a moon’s turn. We lied to them, Quent. Used them to get us here, then went over to the Stormcrows.”

  “As we were commanded.”

  “Tatters never meant for us to do it for real, though,” put in the big man. “His other boys, Ser Orson and Dick Straw, Hungerford, Will of the Woods, that lot, they’re still down in some dungeon thanks to us. Old Rags can’t have liked that much.”

  “No,” Prince Quentyn said, “but he likes gold.”

  Gerris laughed. “A pity we have none. Do you trust this peace, Quent? I don’t. Half the city is calling the dragonslayer a hero, and the other half spits blood at the mention of his name.”

 
“Harzoo,” the big man said.

  Quentyn frowned. “His name was Harghaz.”

  “Hizdahr, Humzum, Hagnag, what does it matter? I call them all Harzoo. He was no dragonslayer. All he did was get his arse roasted black and crispy.”

  “He was brave.” Would I have the courage to face that monster with nothing but a spear?

  “He died bravely, is what you mean.”

  “He died screaming,” said Arch.

  Gerris put a hand on Quentyn’s shoulder. “Even if the queen returns, she’ll still be married.”

  “Not if I give King Harzoo a little smack with my hammer,” suggested the big man.

  “Hizdahr,” said Quentyn. “His name is Hizdahr.”

  “One kiss from my hammer and no one will care what his name was,” said Arch.

  They do not see. His friends had lost sight of his true purpose here. The road leads through her, not to her. Daenerys is the means to the prize, not the prize itself. “‘The dragon has three heads,’ she said to me. ‘My marriage need not be the end of all your hopes,’ she said. ‘I know why you are here. For fire and blood.’ I have Targaryen blood in me, you know that. I can trace my lineage back—”

  “Fuck your lineage,” said Gerris. “The dragons won’t care about your blood, except maybe how it tastes. You cannot tame a dragon with a history lesson. They’re monsters, not maesters. Quent, is this truly what you want to do?”

  “This is what I have to do. For Dorne. For my father. For Cletus and Will and Maester Kedry.”

  “They’re dead,” said Gerris. “They won’t care.”

  “All dead,” Quentyn agreed. “For what? To bring me here, so I might wed the dragon queen. A grand adventure, Cletus called it. Demon roads and stormy seas, and at the end of it the most beautiful woman in the world. A tale to tell our grandchildren. But Cletus will never father a child, unless he left a bastard in the belly of that tavern wench he liked. Will will never have his wedding. Their deaths should have some meaning.”

  Gerris pointed to where a corpse slumped against a brick wall, attended by a cloud of glistening green flies. “Did his death have meaning?”

  Quentyn looked at the body with distaste. “He died of the flux. Stay well away from him.” The pale mare was inside the city walls. Small wonder that the streets seemed so empty. “The Unsullied will send a corpse cart for him.”

  “No doubt. But that was not my question. Men’s lives have meaning, not their deaths. I loved Will and Cletus too, but this will not bring them back to us. This is a mistake, Quent. You cannot trust in sellswords.”

  “They are men like any other men. They want gold, glory, power. That’s all I am trusting in.” That, and my own destiny. I am a prince of Dorne, and the blood of dragons is in my veins.

  The sun had sunk below the city wall by the time they found the purple lotus, painted on the weathered wooden door of a low brick hovel squatting amidst a row of similar hovels in the shadow of the great yellow-and-green pyramid of Rhazdar. Quentyn knocked twice, as instructed. A gruff voice answered through the door, growling something unintelligible in the mongrel tongue of Slaver’s Bay, an ugly blend of Old Ghiscari and High Valyrian. The prince answered in the same tongue. “Freedom.”

  The door opened. Gerris entered first, for caution’s sake, with Quentyn close behind him and the big man bringing up the rear. Within, the air was hazy with bluish smoke, whose sweet smell could not quite cover up the deeper stinks of piss and sour wine and rotting meat. The space was much larger than it had seemed from without, stretching off to right and left into the adjoining hovels. What had appeared to be a dozen structures from the street turned into one long hall inside.

  At this hour the house was less than half full. A few of the patrons favored the Dornishmen with looks bored or hostile or curious. The rest were crowded around the pit at the far end of the room, where a pair of naked men were slashing at each other with knives whilst the watchers cheered them on.

  Quentyn saw no sign of the men they had come to meet. Then a door he had not seen before swung open, and an old woman emerged, a shriveled thing in a dark red tokar fringed with tiny golden skulls. Her skin was white as mare’s milk, her hair so thin that he could see the scalp beneath. “Dorne,” she said, “I be Zahrina. Purple Lotus. Go down here, you find them.” She held the door and gestured them through.

  Beyond was a flight of wooden steps, steep and twisting. This time the big man led the way and Gerris was the rear guard, with the prince between them. An undercellar. It was a long way down, and so dark that Quentyn had to feel his way to keep from slipping. Near the bottom Ser Archibald pulled his dagger.

  They emerged in a brick vault thrice the size of the winesink above. Huge wooden vats lined the walls as far as the prince could see. A red lantern hung on a hook just inside the door, and a greasy black candle flickered on an overturned barrel serving as a table. That was the only light.

  Caggo Corpsekiller was pacing by the wine vats, his black arakh hanging at his hip. Pretty Meris stood cradling a crossbow, her eyes as cold and dead as two grey stones. Denzo D’han barred the door once the Dornishmen were inside, then took up a position in front of it, arms crossed against his chest.

  One too many, Quentyn thought.

  The Tattered Prince himself was seated at the table, nursing a cup of wine. In the yellow candlelight his silver-grey hair seemed almost golden, though the pouches underneath his eyes were etched as large as saddlebags. He wore a brown wool traveler’s cloak, with silvery chain mail glimmering underneath. Did that betoken treachery or simple prudence? An old sellsword is a cautious sellsword. Quentyn approached his table. “My lord. You look different without your cloak.”

  “My ragged raiment?” The Pentoshi gave a shrug. “A poor thing… yet those tatters fill my foes with fear, and on the battlefield the sight of my rags blowing in the wind emboldens my men more than any banner. And if I want to move unseen, I need only slip it off to become plain and unremarkable.” He gestured at the bench across from him. “Sit. I understand you are a prince. Would that I had known. Will you drink? Zahrina offers food as well. Her bread is stale and her stew is unspeakable. Grease and salt, with a morsel or two of meat. Dog, she says, but I think rat is more likely. It will not kill you, though. I have found that it is only when the food is tempting that one must beware. Poisoners invariably choose the choicest dishes.”

  “You brought three men,” Ser Gerris pointed out, with an edge in his voice. “We agreed on two apiece.”