The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (67 page)

“The Sword of the Morning!” said Dany, delighted. “Viserys used
to talk about his wondrous white blade. He said Ser Arthur was the
only knight in the realm who was our brother’s peer.”

Whitebeard bowed his head. “It is not my place to question the
words of Prince Viserys.”

“King,” Dany corrected. “He was a king, though he never reigned.
Viserys, the Third of His Name. But what do you mean?” His answer
had not been the one she’d expected. “Ser Jorah named Rhaegar the
last dragon once. He had to have been a peerless warrior to be called
that, surely?”

“Your Grace,” said Whitebeard, “the Prince of Dragonstone was a
most puissant warrior, but...”

“Go on,” she urged. “You may speak freely to me.”

“As you command.” The old man leaned upon his hardwood staff,
his brow furrowed. “A warrior without peer...those are fine words,
Your Grace, but words win no battles.”

“Swords win battles,” Ser Jorah said bluntly. “And Prince Rhaegar
knew how to use one.”

“He did, ser. But...I have seen a hundred tournaments and more
wars than I would wish, and however strong or fast or skilled a knight
may be, there are others who can match him. A man will win one
tourney, and fall quickly in the next. A slick spot in the grass may
mean defeat, or what you ate for supper the night before. A change in
the wind may bring the gift of victory.” He glanced at Ser Jorah. “Or
a lady’s favor knotted round an arm.”

Mormont’s face darkened. “Be careful what you say, old man.”

Arstan had seen Ser Jorah fight at Lannisport, Dany knew, in
the tourney Mormont had won with a lady’s favor knotted round
his arm. He had won the lady too; Lynesse of House Hightower, his
second wife, highborn and beautiful...but she had ruined him, and
abandoned him, and the memory of her was bitter to him now. “Be
gentle, my knight.” She put a hand on Jorah’s arm. “Arstan had no
wish to give offense, I’m certain.”

“As you say,
Khaleesi
.” Ser Jorah’s voice was grudging.

Dany turned back to the squire. “I know little of Rhaegar. Only
the tales Viserys told, and he was a little boy when our brother died.
What was he truly like?”

The old man considered a moment. “Able. That above all.
Determined, deliberate, dutiful, single-minded. There is a tale told of
him...but doubtless Ser Jorah knows it as well.”

“I would hear it from you.”

“As you wish,” said Whitebeard. “As a young boy, the Prince of
Dragonstone was bookish to a fault. He was reading so early that
men said Queen Rhaella must have swallowed some books and a
candle whilst he was in her womb. Rhaegar took no interest in the
play of other children. The maesters were awed by his wits, but his
father’s knights would jest sourly that Baelor the Blessed had been
born again. Until one day Prince Rhaegar found something in his
scrolls that changed him. No one knows what it might have been,
only that the boy suddenly appeared early one morning in the yard
as the knights were donning their steel. He walked up to Ser Willem
Darry, the master-at-arms, and said, ‘I will require sword and armor.
It seems I must be a warrior.’”

“And he was!” said Dany, delighted.

“He was indeed.” Whitebeard bowed. “My pardons, Your Grace.
We speak of warriors, and I see that Strong Belwas has arisen. I must
attend him.”

Dany glanced aft. The eunuch was climbing through the hold
amidships, nimble as a monkey for all his size. Belwas was squat but
broad, a good fifteen stone of fat and muscle, his great brown gut
crisscrossed by faded white scars. He wore baggy pants, a yellow silk
belly-band, and an absurdly tiny leather vest dotted with iron studs.
“Strong Belwas is hungry!” he roared at everyone and no one in
particular. “Strong Belwas will eat now!” Turning, he spied Arstan
on the forecastle. “Whitebeard!” he shouted. “You will bring food for
Strong Belwas!”

“You may go,” Dany told the squire. He bowed again, and moved
off to tend the needs of the man he served.

Ser Jorah watched with a frown on his blunt honest face. Mormont
was big and burly, strong of jaw and thick of shoulder. Not a handsome
man by any means, but as true a friend as Dany had ever known. “You
would be wise to take that old man’s words well salted,” he told her
when Whitebeard was out of earshot.

“A queen must listen to all,” she reminded him. “The highborn
and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One
voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be
found.” She had read that in a book.

“Hear my voice then, Your Grace,” the exile said. “This Arstan
Whitebeard is playing you false. He is too old to be a squire, and too
well-spoken to be serving that oaf of a eunuch.”

That does seem queer,
Dany had to admit. Strong Belwas was an
ex-slave, bred and trained in the fighting pits of Meereen. Magister
Illyrio had sent him to guard her, or so Belwas claimed, and it was
true that she needed guarding. She had death behind her, and death
ahead. The Usurper on his Iron Throne had offered land and lordship
to any man who killed her. One attempt had been made already, with
a cup of poisoned wine. The closer she came to Westeros, the more
likely another attack became. Back in Qarth, the warlock Pyat Pree
had sent a Sorrowful Man after her to avenge the Undying she’d
burned in their House of Dust. Warlocks never forgot a wrong, it was
said, and the Sorrowful Men never failed to kill. Most of the Dothraki
would be against her as well. Khal Drogo’s
kos
led
khalasars
of their
own now, and none of them would hesitate to attack her own little
band on sight, to slay and slave her people and drag Dany herself
back to Vaes Dothrak to take her proper place among the withered
crones of the
dosh khaleen
. She hoped that Xaro Xhoan Daxos was
not an enemy, but the Qartheen merchant had coveted her dragons.
And there was Quaithe of the Shadow, that strange woman in red
lacquer mask with all her cryptic counsel. Was she an enemy too, or
only a dangerous friend? Dany could not say.

Ser Jorah saved me from the poisoner, and Arstan Whitebeard from
the manticore. Perhaps Strong Belwas will save me from the next.
He was
huge enough, with arms like small trees and a great curved
arakh
so sharp he might have shaved with it, in the unlikely event of hair
sprouting on those smooth brown cheeks. Yet he was childlike as well.
As a protector, he leaves much to be desired. Thankfully, I have Ser Jorah
and my bloodriders. And my dragons, never forget.
In time, the dragons
would be her most formidable guardians, just as they had been for
Aegon and his sisters three hundred years ago. Just now, though, they
brought her more danger than protection. In all the world there were
but three living dragons, and those were hers; they were a wonder,
and a terror, and beyond price.

She was pondering her next words when she felt a cool breath
on the back of her neck, and a loose strand of her silver-gold hair
stirred against her brow. Above, the canvas creaked and moved, and
suddenly a great cry went up from all over
Balerion
. “Wind!” the
sailors shouted. “The wind returns, the
wind!”

Dany looked up to where the great cog’s sails rippled and belled,
as the lines thrummed and tightened and sang the sweet song they
had missed so for six long days. Captain Groleo rushed aft, shouting
commands. The Pentoshi were scrambling up the masts, those that
were not cheering. Even Strong Belwas let out a great bellow and did
a little dance. “The gods are good!” Dany said. “You see, Jorah? We
are on our way once more.”

“Yes,” he said, “but to what, my queen?”

All day the wind blew, steady from the east at first, and then in
wild gusts. The sun set in a blaze of red.
I am still half a world from
Westeros,
Dany told herself as she charred meat for her dragons that
evening,
but every hour brings me closer.
She tried to imagine what it
would feel like, when she first caught sight of the land she was born
to rule.
It will be as fair a shore as I have ever seen, I know it. How could
it be otherwise?

But later that night, as
Balerion
plunged onward through the dark
and Dany sat crosslegged on her bunk in the captain’s cabin, feeding
her dragons—“Even upon the sea,” Groleo had said, so graciously,
“queens take precedence over captains”—a sharp knock came upon
the door.

Irri had been sleeping at the foot of her bunk (it was too narrow
for three, and tonight was Jhiqui’s turn to share the soft featherbed
with her
khaleesi
), but she roused at the knock and went to the door.
Dany pulled up a coverlet and tucked it in under her arms. She slept
naked, and had not expected a caller at this hour. “Come,” she said
when she saw Ser Jorah standing without, beneath a swaying lantern.

The exile knight ducked his head as he entered. “Your Grace. I am
sorry to disturb your sleep.”

“I was not sleeping, ser. Come and watch.” She took a chunk of salt
pork out of the bowl in her lap and held it up for her dragons to see.
All three of them eyed it hungrily. Rhaegal spread green wings and
stirred the air, and Viserion’s neck swayed back and forth like a long
pale snake’s as he followed the movement of her hand. “Drogon,”
Dany said softly,
“dracarys.”
And she tossed the pork in the air.

Drogon moved quicker than a striking cobra. Flame roared from his
mouth, orange and scarlet and black, searing the meat before it began
to fall. As his sharp black teeth snapped shut around it, Rhaegal’s
head darted close, as if to steal the prize from his brother’s jaws, but
Drogon swallowed and screamed, and the smaller green dragon could
only
hiss
in frustration.

“Stop that, Rhaegal,” Dany said in annoyance, giving his head a
swat. “You had the last one. I’ll have no greedy dragons.” She smiled at
Ser Jorah. “I don’t need to char their meat over a brazier any longer.”

“So I see.
Dracarys?”

All three dragons turned their heads at the sound of that word,
and Viserion let loose with a blast of pale gold flame that made Ser
Jorah take a hasty step backward. Dany giggled. “Be careful with that
word, ser, or they’re like to singe your beard off. It means
dragonfire
in
High Valyrian. I wanted to choose a command that no one was like
to utter by chance.”

Mormont nodded. “Your Grace,” he said, “I wonder if I might have
a few private words?”

“Of course. Irri, leave us for a bit.” She put a hand on Jhiqui’s
bare shoulder and shook the other handmaid awake. “You as well,
sweetling. Ser Jorah needs to talk to me.”

“Yes,
Khaleesi
.” Jhiqui tumbled from the bunk, naked and yawning,
her thick black hair tumbled about her head. She dressed quickly and
left with Irri, closing the door behind them.

Dany gave the dragons the rest of the salt pork to squabble over,
and patted the bed beside her. “Sit, good ser, and tell me what is
troubling you.”

“Three things.” Ser Jorah sat. “Strong Belwas. This Arstan White
beard. And Illyrio Mopatis, who sent them.”

Again?
Dany pulled the coverlet higher and tugged one end over
her shoulder. “And why is that?”

“The warlocks in Qarth told you that you would be betrayed three
times,” the exile knight reminded her, as Viserion and Rhaegal began
to snap and claw at each other for the last chunk of seared salt pork.