“The gift you begged of me in Qarth. Ships. There are thirteen galleys in the bay. Yours, if you will have them. I have brought you a fleet, to carry you home to Westeros.”
A fleet. It was more than she could hope for, so of course it made her wary. In Qarth, Xaro had offered her thirty ships … for a dragon. “And what price do you ask for these ships?”
“None. I no longer lust for dragons. I saw their work at Astapor on my way here, when my Silken Cloud put in for water. The ships are yours, sweet queen. Thirteen galleys, and men to pull the oars.”
Thirteen. To be sure. Xaro was one of the Thirteen. No doubt he had convinced each of his fellow members to give up one ship. She knew the merchant prince too well to think that he would sacrifice thirteen of his own ships. “I must consider this. May I inspect these ships?”
“You have grown suspicious, Daenerys.”
Always. “I have grown wise, Xaro.”
“Inspect all you wish. When you are satisfied, swear to me that you shall return to Westeros forthwith, and the ships are yours. Swear by your dragons and your seven-faced god and the ashes of your fathers, and go.”
“And if I should decide to wait a year, or three?”
A mournful look crossed Xaro’s face. “That would make me very sad, my sweet delight … for young and strong as you now seem, you shall not live so long. Not here.”
He offers the honeycomb with one hand and shows the whip with the other. “The Yunkai’i are not so fearsome as all that.”
“Not all your enemies are in the Yellow City. Beware men with cold hearts and blue lips. You had not been gone from Qarth a fortnight when Pyat Pree set out with three of his fellow warlocks, to seek for you in Pentos.”
Dany was more amused than afraid. “It is good I turned aside, then. Pentos is half a world from Meereen.”
“This is so,” he allowed, “yet soon or late word must reach them of the dragon queen of Slaver’s Bay.”
“Is that meant to frighten me? I lived in fear for fourteen years, my lord. I woke afraid each morning and went to sleep afraid each night … but my fears were burned away the day I came forth from the fire. Only one thing frightens me now.”
“And what is it that you fear, sweet queen?”
“I am only a foolish young girl.” Dany rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. “But not so foolish as to tell you that. My men shall look at these ships. Then you shall have my answer.”
“As you say.” He touched her bare breast lightly, and whispered, “Let me stay and help persuade you.”
For a moment she was tempted. Perhaps the dancers had stirred her after all. I could close my eyes and pretend that he was Daario. A dream Daario would be safer than the real one. But she pushed the thought aside. “No, my lord. I thank you, but no.” Dany slipped from his arms. “Some other night, perhaps.”
“Some other night.” His mouth was sad, but his eyes seemed more relieved than disappointed.
If I were a dragon, I could fly to Westeros, she thought when he was gone. I would have no need of Xaro or his ships. Dany wondered how many men thirteen galleys could hold. It had taken three to carry her and her khalasar from Qarth to Astapor, but that was before she had acquired eight thousand Unsullied, a thousand sellswords, and a vast horde of freedmen. And the dragons, what am I to do with them? “Drogon,” she whispered softly, “where are you?” For a moment she could almost see him sweeping across the sky, his black wings swallowing the stars.
She turned her back upon the night, to where Barristan Selmy stood silent in the shadows. “My brother once told me a Westerosi riddle. Who listens to everything yet hears nothing?”
“A knight of the Kingsguard.” Selmy’s voice was solemn.
“You heard Xaro make his offer?”
“I did, Your Grace.” The old knight took pains not to look at her bare breast as he spoke to her.
Ser Jorah would not turn his eyes away. He loved me as a woman, where Ser Barristan loves me only as his queen. Mormont had been an informer, reporting to her enemies in Westeros, yet he had given her good counsel too. “What do you think of it? Of him?”
“Of him, little and less. These ships, though … Your Grace, with these ships we might be home before year’s end.”
Dany had never known a home. In Braavos, there had been a house with a red door, but that was all. “Beware of Qartheen bearing gifts, especially merchants of the Thirteen. There is some trap here. Perhaps these ships are rotten, or …”
“If they were so unseaworthy, they could not have crossed the sea from Qarth,” Ser Barristan pointed out, “but Your Grace was wise to insist upon inspection. I will take Admiral Groleo to the galleys at first light with his captains and two score of his sailors. We can crawl over every inch of those ships.”
It was good counsel. “Yes, make it so.” Westeros. Home. But if she left, what would happen to her city? Meereen was never your city, her brother’s voice seemed to whisper. Your cities are across the sea. Your Seven Kingdoms, where your enemies await you. You were born to serve them blood and fire.
Ser Barristan cleared his throat and said, “This warlock that the merchant spoke of …”
“Pyat Pree.” She tried to recall his face, but all she could see were his lips. The wine of the warlocks had turned them blue. Shade-of-the-evening, it was called. “If a warlock’s spell could kill me, I would be dead by now. I left their palace all in ashes.” Drogon saved me when they would have drained my life from me. Drogon burned them all.
“As you say, Your Grace. Still. I will be watchful.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “I know you will. Come, walk me back down to the feast.”
The next morning Dany woke as full of hope as she had been since first she came to Slaver’s Bay. Daario would soon be at her side once more, and together they would sail for Westeros. For home. One of her young hostages brought her morning meal, a plump shy girl named Mezzara, whose father ruled the pyramid of Merreq, and Dany gave her a happy hug and thanked her with a kiss.
“Xaro Xhoan Daxos has offered me thirteen galleys,” she told Irri and Jhiqui as they were dressing her for court.
“Thirteen is a bad number, Khaleesi,” murmured Jhiqui, in the Dothraki tongue. “It is known.”
“It is known,” Irri agreed.
“Thirty would be better,” Daenerys agreed. “Three hundred better still. But thirteen may suffice to carry us to Westeros.”
The two Dothraki girls exchanged a look. “The poison water is accursed, Khaleesi,” said Irri. “Horses cannot drink it.”
“I do not intend to drink it,” Dany promised them.
Only four petitioners awaited her that morning. As ever, Lord Ghael was the first to present himself, looking even more wretched than usual. “Your Radiance,” he moaned, as he fell to the marble at her feet, “the armies of the Yunkai’i descend on Astapor. I beg you, come south with all your strength!”
“I warned your king that this war of his was folly,” Dany reminded him. “He would not listen.”
“Great Cleon sought only to strike down the vile slavers of Yunkai.”
“Great Cleon is a slaver himself.”
“I know that the Mother of Dragons will not abandon us in our hour of peril. Lend us your Unsullied to defend our walls.”
And if I do, who will defend my walls? “Many of my freedmen were slaves in Astapor. Perhaps some will wish to help defend your king. That is their choice, as free men. I gave Astapor its freedom. It is up to you to defend it.”
“We are all dead, then. You gave us death, not freedom.” Ghael leapt to his feet and spat into her face.
Strong Belwas seized him by the shoulder and slammed him down onto the marble so hard that Dany heard Ghael’s teeth crack. The Shavepate would have done worse, but she stopped him.
“Enough,” she said, dabbing at her cheek with the end of her tokar. “No one has ever died from spittle. Take him away.”
They dragged him out feet first, leaving several b
roken teeth and a trail of blood behind. Dany would gladly have sent the rest of the petitioners away … but she was still their queen, so she heard them out and did her best to give them justice.
Late that afternoon Admiral Groleo and Ser Barristan returned from their inspection of the galleys. Dany assembled her council to hear them. Grey Worm was there for the Unsullied, Skahaz mo Kandaq for the Brazen Beasts. In the absence of her bloodriders, a wizened jaqqa rhan called Rommo, squint-eyed and bowlegged, came to speak for her Dothraki. Her freedmen were represented by the captains of the three companies she had formed—Mollono Yos Dob of the Stalwart Shields, Symon Stripeback of the Free Brothers, Marselen of the Mother’s Men. Reznak mo Reznak hovered at the queen’s elbow, and Strong Belwas stood behind her with his huge arms crossed. Dany would not lack for counsel.
Groleo had been a most unhappy man since they had broken up his ship to build the siege engines that won Meereen for her. Dany had tried to console him by naming him her lord admiral, but it was a hollow honor; the Meereenese fleet had sailed for Yunkai when Dany’s host approached the city, so the old Pentoshi was an admiral without ships. Yet now he was smiling through his ragged salt-streaked beard in a way that the queen could scarce remember.
“The ships are sound, then?” she said, hoping.
“Sound enough, Your Grace. They are old ships, aye, but most are well maintained. The hull of the Pureborn Princess is worm-eaten. I’d not want to take her beyond the sight of land. The Narraqqa could stand a new rudder and lines, and the Banded Lizard has some cracked oars, but they will serve. The rowers are slaves, but if we offer them an honest oarsman’s wage, most will stay with us. Rowing’s all they know. Those who leave can be replaced from my own crews. It is a long hard voyage to Westeros, but these ships are sound enough to get us there, I’d judge.”
Reznak mo Reznak gave a piteous moan. “Then it is true. Your Worship means to abandon us.” He wrung his hands. “The Yunkai’i will restore the Great Masters the instant you are gone, and we who have so faithfully served your cause will be put to the sword, our sweet wives and maiden daughters raped and enslaved.”
“Not mine,” grumbled Skahaz Shavepate. “I will kill them first, with mine own hand.” He slapped his sword hilt.
Dany felt as if he had slapped her face instead. “If you fear what may follow when I leave, come with me to Westeros.”
“Wherever the Mother of Dragons goes, the Mother’s Men will go as well,” announced Marselen, Missandei’s remaining brother.
“How?” asked Symon Stripeback, named for the tangle of scars that ridged his back and shoulders, a reminder of the whippings he had suffered as a slave in Astapor. “Thirteen ships … that’s not enough. A hundred ships might not be enough.”
“Wooden horses are no good,” objected Rommo, the old jaqqa rhan. “Dothraki will ride.”
“These ones could march overland along the shore,” suggested Grey Worm. “The ships could keep pace and resupply the column.”
“That might serve until you reached the ruins of Bhorash,” said the Shavepate. “Beyond that, your ships would need to turn south past Tolos and the Isle of Cedars and sail around Valyria, whilst the foot continued on to Mantarys by the old dragon road.”
“The demon road, they call it now,” said Mollono Yos Dob. The plump commander of the Stalwart Shields looked more like a scribe than a soldier, with his inky hands and heavy paunch, but he was as clever as they came. “Many and more of us would die.”
“Those left behind in Meereen would envy them their easy deaths,” moaned Reznak. “They will make slaves of us, or throw us in the pits. All will be as it was, or worse.”
“Where is your courage?” Ser Barristan lashed out. “Her Grace freed you from your chains. It is for you to sharpen your swords and defend your own freedom when she leaves.”
“Brave words, from one who means to sail into the sunset,” Symon Stripeback snarled back. “Will you look back at our dying?”
“Your Grace—”
“Magnificence—”
“Your Worship—”
“Enough.” Dany slapped the table. “No one will be left to die. You are all my people.” Her dreams of home and love had blinded her. “I will not abandon Meereen to the fate of Astapor. It grieves me to say so, but Westeros must wait.”
Groleo was aghast. “We must accept these ships. If we refuse this gift …”
Ser Barristan went to one knee before her. “My queen, your realm has need of you. You are not wanted here, but in Westeros men will flock to your banners by the thousands, great lords and noble knights. ‘She is come,’ they will shout to one another, in glad voices. ‘Prince Rhaegar’s sister has come home at last.’ ”
“If they love me so much, they will wait for me.” Dany stood. “Reznak, summon Xaro Xhoan Daxos.”
She received the merchant prince alone, seated on her bench of polished ebony, on the cushions Ser Barristan had brought her. Four Qartheen sailors accompanied him, bearing a rolled tapestry upon their shoulders. “I have brought another gift for the queen of my heart,” Xaro announced. “It has been in my family vaults since before the Doom that took Valyria.”
The sailors unrolled the tapestry across the floor. It was old, dusty, faded … and huge. Dany had to move to Xaro’s side before the patterns became plain. “A map? It is beautiful.” It covered half the floor. The seas were blue, the lands were green, the mountains black and brown. Cities were shown as stars in gold or silver thread. There is no Smoking Sea, she realized. Valyria is not yet an island.
“There you see Astapor, and Yunkai, and Meereen.” Xaro pointed at three silver stars beside the blue of Slaver’s Bay. “Westeros is … somewhere down there.” His hand waved vaguely toward the far end of the hall. “You turned north when you should have continued south and west, across the Summer Sea, but with my gift you shall soon be back where you belong. Accept my galleys with a joyful heart, and bend your oars westward.”
Would that I could. “My lord, I will gladly have those ships, but I cannot give you the promise that you ask.” She took his hand. “Give me the galleys, and I swear that Qarth will have the friendship of Meereen until the stars go out. Let me trade with them, and you will have a good part of the profits.”
Xaro’s glad smile died upon his lips. “What are you saying? Are you telling me you will not go?”
“I cannot go.”
Tears welled from his eyes, creeping down his nose, past emeralds, amethysts, and black diamonds. “I told the Thirteen that you would heed my wisdom. It grieves me to learn that I was wrong. Take these ships and sail away, or you will surely die screaming. You cannot know how many enemies you have made.”
I know one stands before me now, weeping mummer’s tears. The realization made her sad.
“When I went to the Hall of a Thousand Thrones to beg the Pureborn for your life, I said that you were no more than a child,” Xaro went on, “but Egon Emeros the Exquisite rose and said, ‘She is a foolish child, mad and heedless and too dangerous to live.’ When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world.” He wiped away the tears. “I should have slain you in Qarth.”
“I was a guest beneath your roof and ate of your meat and mead,” she said. “In memory of all you did for me, I will forgive those words … once … but never presume to threaten me again.”
“Xaro Xhoan Daxos does not threaten. He promises.”
Her sadness turned to fury. “And I promise you that if you are not gone before the sun comes up, we will learn how well a liar’s tears can quench dragonfire. Leave me, Xaro. Quickly.”
He went but left his world behind. Dany seated herself upon her bench again to gaze across the blue silk sea, toward distant Westeros. One day, she promised herself.
The next morning Xaro’s galleas was gone, but the “gift” that he had brought her remained behind in Slaver’s Bay. Long red streamers flew from the masts of the thirteen Qartheen ga
lleys, writhing in the wind. And when Daenerys descended to hold court, a messenger from the ships awaited her. He spoke no word but laid at her feet a black satin pillow, upon which rested a single bloodstained glove.
“What is this?” Skahaz demanded. “A bloody glove …”
“… means war,” said the queen.
JON
Careful of the rats, my lord.” Dolorous Edd led Jon down the steps, a lantern in one hand. “They make an awful squeal if you step on them. My mother used to make a similar sound when I was a boy. She must have had some rat in her, now that I think of it. Brown hair, beady little eyes, liked cheese. Might be she had a tail too, I never looked to see.”
All of Castle Black was connected underground by a maze of tunnels that the brothers called the wormways. It was dark and gloomy underneath the earth, so the wormways were little used in summer, but when the winter winds began to blow and the snows began to fall, the tunnels became the quickest way to move about the castle. The stewards were making use of them already. Jon saw candles burning in several wall niches as they made their way along the tunnel, their footsteps echoing ahead of them.
Bowen Marsh was waiting at a junction where four wormways met. With him he had Wick Whittlestick, tall and skinny as a spear. “These are the counts from three turns ago,” Marsh told Jon, offering him a thick sheaf of papers, “for comparison with our present stores. Shall we start with the granaries?”
They moved through the grey gloom beneath the earth. Each storeroom had a solid oaken door closed with an iron padlock as big as a supper plate. “Is pilferage a problem?” Jon asked.
“Not as yet,” said Bowen Marsh. “Once winter comes, though, your lordship might be wise to post guards down here.”
Wick Whittlestick wore the keys on a ring about his neck. They all looked alike to Jon, yet somehow Wick found the right one for every door. Once inside, he would take a fist-sized chunk of chalk from his pouch and mark each cask and sack and barrel as he counted them while Marsh compared the new count to the old.
In the granaries were oats and wheat and barley, and barrels of coarse ground flour. In the root cellars strings of onions and garlic dangled from the rafters, and bags of carrots, parsnips, radishes, and white and yellow turnips filled the shelves. One storeroom held wheels of cheese so large it took two men to move them. In the next, casks of salt beef, salt pork, salt mutton, and salt cod were stacked ten feet high. Three hundred hams and three thousand long black sausages hung from ceiling beams below the smokehouse. In the spice locker they found peppercorns, cloves, and cinnamon, mustard seeds, coriander, sage and clary sage and parsley, blocks of salt. Elsewhere were casks of apples and pears, dried peas, dried figs, bags of walnuts, bags of chestnuts, bags of almonds, planks of dry smoked salmon, clay jars packed with olives in oil and sealed with wax. One storeroom offered potted hare, haunch of deer in honey, pickled cabbage, pickled beets, pickled onions, pickled eggs, and pickled herring.
A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five Page 28