A Game of Thrones Chapter Twenty-three

DaenerysThe Dothraki sea, Ser Jorah Mormont state as he reined to a halt beside her on the eliminate of the ridge. beneath them, the plain stretched out immense and empty, a vast flat expanse that reached to the distant visible horizon and beyond. It was a sea, Dany thought. Past here, there were no hills, no mountains, no trees nor cities nor roads, only the endless grasses, the t exclusively blades ripple the likes of waves when the winds blew. Its so green, she give tongue to.Here and now, Ser Jorah agreed. You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There be a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses and grasses like rainbows. Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there atomic number 18 oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horse jeopardize with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all whatever other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass depart lot the entire world, and then all life will end.That thought gave Dany the shivers. I dont sine qua non to talk somewhat that now, she said. Its so beautiful here, I dont want to think around everything dying.As you will, Khaleesi, Ser Jorah said respectfully.She heard the extend of voices and turned to look behind her. She and Mormont had outdistanced the rest of their party, and now the others were climbing the ridge below them. Her handmaid Irri and the untried archers of her khas were fluid as centaurs, except Viserys still struggled with the short stirrups and the flat saddle. Her brother was miserable out here. He ought never have decrease. Magister Illyrio had urged him to wait in Pentos, had offered him the hospitality of his manse, but Viserys would have no(prenominal) of it. H e would deterrent with Drogo until the debt had been paid, until he had the crown he had been promised. And if he tries to cheat me, he will learn to his sorrow what it intend to wake the potassium bitartrate, Viserys had vowed, laying a hand on his borrowed sword. Illyrio had blinked at that and wished him good fortune.Dany realized that she did non want to listen to any of her brothers complaints right now. The day was also perfect. The sky was a deep blue, and high supra them a hunting hawk circled. The grass sea swayed and sighed with each breath of wind, the air was warm on her hardihood, and Dany felt at peace. She would non allow Viserys spoil it.Wait here, Dany told Ser Jorah. Tell them all to stay. Tell them I command it.The kwickedness smiled. Ser Jorah was not a handsome man. He had a neck and shoulders like a bull, and coarse sour hair c everywhereed his arms and chest so thicksetly that there was n oneness left for his head. Yet his smiles gave Dany comfort. Y ou are learning to talk like a queen, Daenerys. zero(prenominal) a queen, said Dany. A khaleesi. She wheeled her horse about and galloped down the ridge alone.The descent was steep and rocky, but Dany rode fearlessly, and the joy and the danger of it were a song in her heart. All her life Viserys had told her she was a princess, but not until she rode her silvery had Daenerys Targaryen ever felt like one.At first it had not surveil easy. The khalasar had broken camp the daybreak after her wedding, moving east toward Vaes Dothrak, and by the third day Dany thought she was going to die. Saddle sores oert on her bottom, hideous and bloody. Her thighs were chafed raw, her hands blistered from the reins, the muscles of her legs and back so wracked with pain that she could scarcely sit. By the succession dusk fell, her handmaids would need to help her down from her mount.Even the nights brought no relief. Khal Drogo ignored her when they rode, even as he had ignored her during their wedding, and spent his evenings drinking with his warriors and bloodriders, racing his prize horses, watching women dance and men die. Dany had no train in these parts of his life. She was left to sup alone, or with Ser Jorah and her brother, and afterward to cry herself to sleep. Yet every night, some time originally the dawn, Drogo would come to her inhabit and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion. He perpetually in like mannerk her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful that way her lord husband could not see the disunite that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain. When he was done, he would close his eyeball and begin to stertor balmyly and Dany would lie beside him, her body bruised and sore, hurting also much for sleep.Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not lodge a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night . . .Yet when she slept that night, she dreamt the calculus dream again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragon. Its scales were black as night, wet and slick with blood. Her blood, Dany sensed. Its look were pools of molten magma, and when it unresolveded its mouth, the flame came roaring out in a hot jet. She could hear it telling to her, She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her sort sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce.And the next day, conflictingly, she did not seem to hurt quite so much. It was as if the gods had heard her and rentn pity. Even her handmaids noticed the change. Khaleesi, Jhiqui said, what is wrong? Are you sick?I was, she answered, standing over the dragons eggs that Illyrio had given her when she wed. She touched one, t he largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shelf. Black-and-scarlet, she thought, like the dragon in my dream. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers . . . or was she still dreaming? She pulled her hand back nervously.From that hour onward, each day was easier than the one before it. Her legs grew stronger her blisters burst and her hands grew callused her soft thighs toughened, supple as leather.The khal had commanded the handmaid Irri to get word Dany to ride in the Dothraki fashion, but it was the filly who was her real teacher. The horse seemed to know her moods, as if they share a single mind. With every passing day, Dany felt surer in her seat. The Dothraki were a hard and unsentimental pile, and it was not their custom to name their animals, so Dany thought of her only as the silver. She had never loved anything so much.As the riding became less an ordeal, Dany began to notice the beauties of the land slightly her. She rode at the head of the kh alasar with Drogo and his bloodriders, so she came to each province fresh and unspoiled. Behind them the great horde might tear the earth and muddy the rivers and send up clouds of choking dust, but the fields ahead of them were always green and verdant.They crossed the rolling hills of Norvos, past terraced farms and atomic villages where the townsfolk watched anxiously from atop white stucco walls. They forded three wide placid rivers and a ordinal that was swift and narrow and treacherous, camped beside a high blue waterfall, skirted the tumbled ruins of a vast dead urban center where ghosts were said to moan among blackened marble columns. They raced down Valyrian roads a thousand years old and sequential as a Dothraki arrow. For half a woolgather, they rode through the Forest of Qohor, where the leaves made a golden cover high above them, and the trunks of the trees were as wide as city gates. There were great elk in that wood, and spotted tigers, and lemurs with silver fur and huge purple eyeball, but all fled before the betterment of the khalasar and Dany got no glimpse of them.By then her agony was a fading memory. She still ached after a long days riding, yet somehow the pain had a sweetness to it now, and each morning she came willingly to her saddle, gauge to know what wonders waited for her in the lands ahead. She began to ascend fun even in her nights, and if she still cried out when Drogo took her, it was not always in pain.At the bottom of the ridge, the grasses rose around her, tall and supple. Dany slowed to a trot and rode out onto the plain, losing herself in the green, blessedly alone. In the khalasar she was never alone. Khal Drogo came to her only after the sun went down, but her handmaids fed her and bathed her and slept by the admittance of her tent, Drogos bloodriders and the men of her khas were never far, and her brother was an unwelcome shadow, day and night. Dany could hear him on the top of the ridge, his voice scre am with anger as he shouted at Ser Jorah. She rode on, submerging herself deeper in the Dothraki sea.The green swallowed her up. The air was robust with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Danys sweat and the oil in her hair. Dothraki smells. They seemed to belong here. Dany breathed it all in, laughing. She had a choppy urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil. Swinging down from her saddle, she let the silver graze piece of music she pulled off her high boots.Viserys came upon her as sudden as a summer storm, his horse rearing beneath him as he reined up too hard. You dare he screamed at her. You give commands to me? To me? He vaulted off the horse, stumbling as he landed. His face was ruby as he struggled back to his feet. He grabbed her, shook her. build you forgotten who you are? meet at you. Look at youDany did not need to look. She was barefoot, with oiled hair, wearing Dothraki riding leathers and a multicolor vest given her as a bride gift. She looked as though she belonged here. Viserys was soiled and stained in city silks and ringmail.He was still screaming. You do not command the dragon. Do you chthonianstand? I am the skipper of the Seven Kingdoms, I will not hear orders from some horselords slut, do you hear me? His hand went under her vest, his fingers jab painfully into her breast. Do you hear me?Dany shoved him away, hard.Viserys stared at her, his lilac eyes incredulous. She had never defied him. Never fought back. force twisted his features. He would hurt her now, and badly, she knew that.Crack.The whip made a sound like thunder. The coil took Viserys around the throat and yanked him backward. He went sprawling in the grass, stunned and choking. The Dothraki riders hooted at him as he struggled to free himself. The one with the whip, young Jhogo, rasped a question. Dany did not understand his words, but by then Irri was there, and Ser Jorah, and the rest of her khas. Jhogo asks if you would have him dead, Khaleesi, Irri said.No, Dany replied. No.Jhogo understood that. genius of the others barked out a comment, and the Dothraki laughed. Irri told her, Quaro thinks you should take an ear to teach him respect.Her brother was on his knees, his fingers digging under the leather coils, crying incoherently, struggling for breath. The whip was tight around his windpipe.Tell them I do not wish him harmed, Dany said.Irri repeated her words in Dothraki. Jhogo gave a pull on the whip, yanking Viserys around like a puppet on a string. He went sprawling again, freed from the leather embrace, a thin business enterprise of blood under his chin where the whip had cut deep.I warned him what would happen, my lady, Ser Jorah Mormont said. I told him to stay on the ridge, as you commanded.I know you did, Dany replied, watching Viserys. He lay on the ground, sucking in air noisily, red-faced and sobbing. He was a pitiful thing. He had always been a pitiful thing. Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been.Take his horse, Dany commanded Ser Jorah. Viserys gaped at her. He could not believe what he was hearing nor could Dany quite believe what she was saying. Yet the words came. Let my brother go behind us back to the khalasar. Among the Dothraki, the man who does not ride was no man at all, the utmost of the low, without honor or pride. Let everyone see him as he is.No Viserys screamed. He turned to Ser Jorah, plead in the Common Tongue with words the horsemen would not understand. Hit her, Mormont. Hurt her. Your king commands it. Kill these Dothraki dogs and teach her.The exile knight looked from Dany to her brother she barefoot, with dirt between her toes and oil in her hair, he with his silks and steel. Dany could see the close on his face. He shall walk, Khaleesi, he said. He took her brothers horse in hand while Dany remounted her silver.Viserys gaped at him, and sit down down in the dirt. He kept his silence, but he would not move, and his eyes were full of acerbate as they rode away. Soon he was lost in the tall grass. When they could not see him anymore, Dany grew afraid. Will he find his way back? she asked Ser Jorah as they rode.Even a man as blind as your brother should be able to follow our trail, he replied.He is proud. He may be too shamed to come back. Jorah laughed. Where else should he go? If he cannot find the khalasar, the khalasar will most surely find him. It is hard to drown in the Dothraki sea, child.Dany saw the truth of that. The khalasar was like a city on the march, but it did not march blindly. Always scouts ranged far ahead of the main column, alert for any sign of pole or prey or enemies, while outriders guarded their flanks. They missed nothing, not here, in this land, the place where they had come from. These plains were a part of them . . . and of her, now.I hit him, she said, wonder in her voice. Now that it was over, it seemed like some strange dream that she had dreamed. Ser Jorah, do you think . . . hell be so angry when he gets back . . . She shivered. I woke the dragon, didnt I?Ser Jorah snorted. Can you wake the dead, misfire? Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and he died on the Trident. Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake.His blunt words startled her. It seemed as though all the things she had always believed were suddenly called into question. You . . . you swore him your sword . . . That I did, girl, Ser Jorah said. And if your brother is the shadow of a snake, what does that make his servants? His voice was bitter.He is still the true king. He is . . . Jorah pulled up his horse and looked at her. Truth now. Would you want to see Viserys sit a throne?Dany thought about that. He would not be a very good king, would he?There have been worse . . . but not many. The knight gave his heels to his mount and started off again.Dany rode close beside him. Still, she said, the comm on passel are wait for him. Magister Illyrio says they are sewing dragon banners and praying for Viserys to return from across the narrow sea to free them.The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends, Ser Jorah told her. It is no matter to them if the high lords play their high of thrones, so long as they are left in peace. He gave a shrug. They never are.Dany rode along quietly for a time, working his words like a puzzle box. It went against everything that Viserys had ever told her to think that the people could care so little whether a true king or a usurper reigned over them. Yet the more she thought on Jorahs words, the more they rang of truth.What do you pray for, Ser Jorah? she asked him.Home, he said. His voice was thick with longing.I pray for home too, she told him, believing it.Ser Jorah laughed. Look around you then, Khaleesi.But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was Kings landing place and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Con queror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her minds eye they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her minds eye, all the doors were red.My brother will never take back the Seven Kingdoms, Dany said. She had known that for a long time, she realized. She had known it all her life. Only she had never let herself say the words, even in a whisper, but now she said them for Jorah Mormont and all the world to hear.Ser Jorah gave her a measuring look. You think not.He could not lead an army even if my lord husband gave him one, Dany said. He has no coin and the only knight who follows him reviles him as less than a snake. The Dothraki make mock of his weakness. He will never take us home.Wise child. The knight smiled.I am no child, she told him fiercely. Her heels press into the sides of her mount, rousing the silver to a gallop. Faster and faster she raced, leaving Jorah and Irri and the others far behind, the warm wind in her hair and th e setting sun red on her face. By the time she reached the khalasar, it was dusk.The slaves had erected her tent by the down of a spring-fed pool. She could hear rough voices from the woven grass palace on the hill. Soon there would be laughter, when the men of her khas told the story of what had happened in the grasses today. By the time Viserys came limping back among them, every man, woman, and child in the camp would know him for a walker. There were no secrets in the khalasar.Dany gave the silver over to the slaves for grooming and entered her tent. It was placid and dim beneath the silk. As she let the door flap close behind her, Dany saw a finger of dusty red light reach out to touch her dragons eggs across the tent. For an inst a thousand droplets of scarlet flame swam before her eyes. She blinked, and they were gone.Stone, she told herself. They are only stone, even Illyrio said so, the dragons are all dead. She put her palm against the black egg, fingers spread gently a cross the curve of the shell. The stone was warm. just about hot. The sun, Dany whispered. The sun warm them as they rode.She commanded her handmaids to prepare her a bath. Doreah built a fire outside the tent, while Irri and Jhiqui fetched the big copper tubanother bride giftfrom the packhorses and carried water from the pool. When the bath was steaming, Irri helped her into it and climbed in after her.Have you ever seen a dragon? she asked as Irri scrubbed her back and Jhiqui sluiced sand from her hair. She had heard that the first dragons had come from the east, from the ShadowLands beyond Asshai and the islands of the JadeSea. Perhaps some were still living there, in realms strange and wild.Dragons are gone, Khaleesi, Irri said.Dead, agreed Jhiqui. farsighted and long ago.Viserys had told her that the last Targaryen dragons had died no more than a century and a half ago, during the reign of Aegon III, who was called the Dragonbane. That did not seem so long ago to Dany. Everyw here? she said, disappointed. Even in the east? Magic had died in the west when the Doom fell on Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, and neither spell-forged steel nor stormsingers nor dragons could hold it back, but Dany had always heard that the east was different. It was said that manticores prowled the islands of the JadeSea, that basilisks infested the jungles of Yi Ti, that spellsingers, warlocks, and aeromancers practiced their arts openly in Asshai, while shadowbinders and bloodmages worked terrible sorceries in the black of night. Why shouldnt there be dragons too?No dragon, Irri said. Brave men kill them, for dragon terrible evil beasts. It is known.It is known, agreed Jhiqui.A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon, blond Doreah said as she warmed a towel over the fire. Jhiqui and Irri were of an age with Dany, Dothraki girls taken as slaves when Drogo destroyed their fathers khalasar. Doreah was older, almost twenty. Magister Illyrio had fou nd her in a pleasure house in Lys.Silvery-wet hair tumbled across her eyes as Dany turned her head, curious. The moon?He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi, the Lysene girl said. Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return.The two Dothraki girls giggled and laughed. You are foolish strawhead slave, Irri said. Moon is no egg. Moon is god, woman wife of sun. It is known.It is known, Jhiqui agreed.Danys skin was flushed and pink when she climbed from the tub. Jhiqui laid her down to oil her body and scrape the dirt from her pores. Afterward Irri sprinkled her with spiceflower and cinnamon. While Doreah napped her hair until it shone like spun silver, she thought about the moon, and eggs, and dragons.Her supper was a simple meal of fruit and cheese and shaver bread, with a jug of honeyed wine to wash it down. Doreah, stay and eat with me, Dany commanded when she sent her other handmaids away. The Lysene girl had hair the color of honey, and eyes like the summer sky.She lowered those eyes when they were alone. You honor me, Khaleesi, she said, but it was no honor, only service. Long after the moon had risen, they sat together, talking.That night, when Khal Drogo came, Dany was waiting for him. He stood in the door of her tent and looked at her with surprise. She rose slowly and opened her sleeping silks and let them fall to the ground. This night we must go outside, my lord, she told him, for the Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a mans life must be done beneath the open sky.Khal Drogo followed her out into the moonlight, the bells in his hair tinkling softly. A few yards from her tent was a bed of soft grass, and it was there that Dany drew him down. When he tried to turn her over, sh e put a hand on his chest. No, she said. This night I would look on your face.There is no privacy in the heart of the khalasar. Dany felt the eyes on her as she undressed him, heard the soft voices as she did the things that Doreah had told her to do. It was nothing to her. Was she not khaleesi? His were the only eyes that mattered, and when she mounted him she saw something there that she had never seen before. She rode him as fiercely as ever she had ridden her silver, and when the moment of his pleasure came, Khal Drogo called out her name.They were on the far side of the Dothraki sea when Jhiqui brushed the soft swell of Danys stomach with her fingers and said, Khaleesi, you are with child.I know, Dany told her.It was her fourteenth name day.