A Dance with Dragons

“He will not escape.” Selmy did not fear Khrazz, much less Steelskin. They were only pit fighters. Hizdahr’s fearsome collection of former fighting slaves made indifferent guards at best. Speed and strength and ferocity they had, and some skill at arms as well, but blood games were poor training for protecting kings. In the pits their foes were announced with horns and drums, and after the battle was done and won the victors could have their wounds bound up and quaff some milk of the poppy for the pain, knowing that the threat was past and they were free to drink and feast and whore until the next fight. But the battle was never truly done for a knight of the Kingsguard. Threats came from everywhere and nowhere, at any time of day or night. No trumpets announced the foe: vassals, servants, friends, brothers, sons, even wives, any of them might have knives concealed beneath their cloaks and murder hidden in their hearts. For every hour of fighting, a Kingsguard knight spent ten thousand hours watching, waiting, standing silent in the shadows. King Hizdahr’s pit fighters were already growing bored and restive with their new duties, and bored men were lax, slow to react.

“I shall deal with Khrazz,” said Ser Barristan. “Just make certain I do not need to deal with any Brazen Beasts as well.”

“Have no fear. We will have Marghaz in chains before he can make mischief. I told you, the Brazen Beasts are mine.”

“You say you have men amongst the Yunkishmen?”

“Sneaks and spies. Reznak has more.”

Reznak cannot be trusted. He smells too sweet and feels too foul. “Someone needs to free our hostages. Unless we get our people back, the Yunkai’i will use them against us.”

Skahaz snorted through the noseholes of his mask. “Easy to speak of rescue. Harder to do. Let the slavers threaten.”

“And if they do more than threaten?”

“Would you miss them so much, old man? A eunuch, a savage, and a sellsword?”

Hero, Jhogo, and Daario. “Jhogo is the queen’s bloodrider, blood of her blood. They came out of the Red Waste together. Hero is Grey Worm’s second-in-command. And Daario…” She loves Daario. He had seen it in her eyes when she looked at him, heard it in her voice when she spoke of him. “… Daario is vain and rash, but he is dear to Her Grace. He must be rescued, before his Stormcrows decide to take matters into their own hands. It can be done. I once brought the queen’s father safely out of Duskendale, where he was being held captive by a rebel lord, but…”

“… you could never hope to pass unnoticed amongst the Yunkai’i. Every man of them knows your face by now.”

I could hide my face, like you, thought Selmy, but he knew the Shavepate was right. Duskendale had been a lifetime ago. He was too old for such heroics. “Then we must needs find some other way. Some other rescuer. Someone known to the Yunkishmen, whose presence in their camp might go unnoticed…”

“Daario calls you Ser Grandfather,” Skahaz reminded him. “I will not say what he calls me. If you and I were the hostages, would he risk his skin for us?”

Not likely, he thought, but he said, “He might.”

“Daario might piss on us if we were burning. Elsewise do not look to him for help. Let the Stormcrows choose another captain, one who knows his place. If the queen does not return, the world will be one sellsword short. Who will grieve?”

“And when she does return?”

“She will weep and tear her hair and curse the Yunkai’i. Not us. No blood on our hands. You can comfort her. Tell her some tale of the old days, she likes those. Poor Daario, her brave captain… she will never forget him, no… but better for all of us if he is dead, yes? Better for Daenerys too.”

Better for Daenerys, and for Westeros. Daenerys Targaryen loved her captain, but that was the girl in her, not the queen. Prince Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna, and thousands died for it. Daemon Blackfyre loved the first Daenerys, and rose in rebellion when denied her. Bittersteel and Bloodraven both loved Shiera Seastar, and the Seven Kingdoms bled. The Prince of Dragonflies loved Jenny of Oldstones so much he cast aside a crown, and Westeros paid the bride price in corpses. All three of the sons of the fifth Aegon had wed for love, in defiance of their father’s wishes. And because that unlikely monarch had himself followed his heart when he chose his queen, he allowed his sons to have their way, making bitter enemies where he might have had fast friends. Treason and turmoil followed, as night follows day, ending at Summerhall in sorcery, fire, and grief.

Her love for Daario is poison. A slower poison than the locusts, but in the end as deadly. “There is still Jhogo,” Ser Barristan said. “Him, and Hero. Both precious to Her Grace.”

“We have hostages as well,” Skahaz Shavepate reminded him. “If the slavers kill one of ours, we kill one of theirs.”

For a moment Ser Barristan did not know whom he meant. Then it came to him. “The queen’s cupbearers?”

“Hostages,” insisted Skahaz mo Kandaq. “Grazdar and Qezza are the blood of the Green Grace. Mezzara is of Merreq, Kezmya is Pahl, Azzak Ghazeen. Bhakaz is Loraq, Hizdahr’s own kin. All are sons and daughters of the pyramids. Zhak, Quazzar, Uhlez, Hazkar, Dhazak, Yherizan, all children of Great Masters.”

“Innocent girls and sweet-faced boys.” Ser Barristan had come to know them all during the time they served the queen, Grazhar with his dreams of glory, shy Mezzara, lazy Miklaz, vain, pretty Kezmya, Qezza with her big soft eyes and angel’s voice, Dhazzar the dancer, and the rest. “Children.”

“Children of the Harpy. Only blood can pay for blood.”

“So said the Yunkishman who brought us Groleo’s head.”

“He was not wrong.”

“I will not permit it.”

“What use are hostages if they may not be touched?”

“Mayhaps we might offer three of the children for Daario, Hero, and Jhogo,” Ser Barristan allowed. “Her Grace—”

“—is not here. It is for you and me to do what must be done. You know that I am right.”

“Prince Rhaegar had two children,” Ser Barristan told him. “Rhaenys was a little girl, Aegon a babe in arms. When Tywin Lannister took King’s Landing, his men killed both of them. He served the bloody bodies up in crimson cloaks, a gift for the new king.” And what did Robert say when he saw them? Did he smile? Barristan Selmy had been badly wounded on the Trident, so he had been spared the sight of Lord Tywin’s gift, but oft he wondered. If I had seen him smile over the red ruins of Rhaegar’s children, no army on this earth could have stopped me from killing him. “I will not suffer the murder of children. Accept that, or I’ll have no part of this.”

Skahaz chuckled. “You are a stubborn old man. Your sweet-faced boys will only grow up to be Sons of the Harpy. Kill them now or kill them then.”

“You kill men for the wrongs they have done, not the wrongs that they may do someday.”

The Shavepate took an axe down off the wall, inspected it, and grunted. “So be it. No harm to Hizdahr or our hostages. Will that content you, Ser Grandfather?”

Nothing about this will content me. “It will serve. The hour of the wolf. Remember.”

“I am not like to forget, ser.” Though the bat’s brass mouth did not move, Ser Barristan could sense the grin beneath the mask. “Long has Kandaq waited for this night.”

That is what I fear. If King Hizdahr was innocent, what they did this day would be treason. But how could he be innocent? Selmy had heard him urging Daenerys to taste the poisoned locusts, shouting at his men to slay the dragon. If we do not act, Hizdahr will kill the dragons and open the gates to the queen’s enemies. We have no choice in this. Yet no matter how he turned and twisted this, the old knight could find no honor in it.

The rest of that long day raced past as swiftly as a snail.

Elsewhere, he knew, King Hizdahr was consulting with Reznak mo Reznak, Marghaz zo Loraq, Galazza Galare, and his other Meereenese advisors, deciding how best to respond to Yunkai’s demands… but Barristan