A Dance with Dragons

to eat beside her.

As the western sky turned the color of a blood bruise, she heard the sound of approaching horses. Dany rose, wiped her hands on her ragged undertunic, and went to stand beside her dragon.

That was how Khal Jhaqo found her, when half a hundred mounted warriors emerged from the drifting smoke.

EPILOGUE

“I am no traitor,” the Knight of Griffin’s Roost declared. “I am King Tommen’s man, and yours.”

A steady drip-drip-drip punctuated his words, as snowmelt ran off his cloak to puddle on the floor. The snow had been falling on King’s Landing most of the night; outside the drifts were ankle deep. Ser Kevan Lannister pulled his cloak about himself more closely. “So you say, ser. Words are wind.”

“Then let me prove the truth of them with my sword.” The light of the torches made a fiery blaze of Ronnet Connington’s long red hair and beard. “Send me against my uncle, and I will bring you back his head, and the head of this false dragon too.”

Lannister spearmen in crimson cloaks and lion-crested halfhelms stood along the west wall of the throne room. Tyrell guards in green cloaks faced them from the opposite wall. The chill in the throne room was palpable. Though neither Queen Cersei nor Queen Margaery was amongst them, their presence could be felt poisoning the air, like ghosts at a feast.

Behind the table where the five members of the king’s small council were seated, the Iron Throne crouched like some great black beast, its barbs and claws and blades half-shrouded in shadow. Kevan Lannister could feel it at his back, an itch between the shoulder blades. It was easy to imagine old King Aerys perched up there, bleeding from some fresh cut, glowering down. But today the throne was empty. He had seen no reason for Tommen to join them. Kinder to let the boy remain with his mother. The Seven only knew how long mother and son might have together before Cersei’s trial… and possibly her execution.

Mace Tyrell was speaking. “We shall deal with your uncle and his feigned boy in due time.” The new King’s Hand was seated on an oaken throne carved in the shape of a hand, an absurd vanity his lordship had produced the day Ser Kevan agreed to grant him the office he coveted. “You will bide here until we are ready to march. Then you shall have the chance to prove your loyalty.”

Ser Kevan took no issue with that. “Escort Ser Ronnet back to his chambers,” he said. And see that he remains there went unspoken. However loud his protestations, the Knight of Griffin’s Roost remained suspect. Supposedly the sellswords who had landed in the south were being led by one of his own blood.

As the echoes of Connington’s footsteps faded away, Grand Maester Pycelle gave a ponderous shake of his head. “His uncle once stood just where the boy was standing now and told King Aerys how he would deliver him the head of Robert Baratheon.”

That is how it is when a man grows as old as Pycelle. Everything you see or hear reminds you of something you saw or heard when you were young. “How many men-at-arms accompanied Ser Ronnet to the city?” Ser Kevan asked.

“Twenty,” said Lord Randyll Tarly, “and most of them Gregor Clegane’s old lot. Your nephew Jaime gave them to Connington. To rid himself of them, I’d wager. They had not been in Maidenpool a day before one killed a man and another was accused of rape. I had to hang the one and geld the other. If it were up to me, I would send them all to the Night’s Watch, and Connington with them. The Wall is where such scum belong.”

“A dog takes after its master,” declared Mace Tyrell. “Black cloaks would suit them, I agree. I will not suffer such men in the city watch.” A hundred of his own Highgarden men had been added to the gold cloaks, yet plainly his lordship meant to resist any balancing infusion of westermen.

The more I give him, the more he wants. Kevan Lannister was beginning to understand why Cersei had grown so resentful of the Tyrells. But this was not the moment to provoke an open quarrel. Randyll Tarly and Mace Tyrell had both brought armies to King’s Landing, whilst the best part of the strength of House Lannister remained in the riverlands, fast melting away. “The Mountain’s men were always fighters,” he said in a conciliatory tone, “and we may have need of every sword against these sellswords. If this truly is the Golden Company, as Qyburn’s whisperers insist—”

“Call them what you will,” said Randyll Tarly. “They are still no more than adventurers.”

“Perhaps,” Ser Kevan said. “But the longer we ignore these adventurers, the stronger they grow. We have had a map prepared, a map of the incursions. Grand Maester?”

The map was beautiful, painted by a master’s hand on a sheet of the finest vellum, so large it covered the table. “Here.” Pycelle pointed with a spotted hand. Where the sleeve of his robe rode up, a flap of pale flesh could be seen dangling beneath his forearm. “Here and here. All along the coast, and on the islands. Tarth, the Stepstones, even Estermont. And now we have reports that Connington is moving on Storm’s End.”

“If it is Jon Connington,” said Randyll Tarly.

“Storm’s End.” Lord Mace Tyrell grunted the words. “He cannot take Storm’s End. Not if he were Aegon the Conqueror. And if he does, what of it? Stannis holds it now. Let the castle pass from one pretender to another, why should that trouble us? I shall recapture it after my daughter’s innocence is proved.”

How can you recapture it when you have never captured it to begin with? “I understand, my lord, but—”

Tyrell did not let him finish. “These charges against my daughter are filthy lies. I ask again, why must we play out this mummer’s farce? Have King Tommen declare my daughter innocent, ser, and put an end to the foolishness here and now.”

Do that, and the whispers will follow Margaery the rest of her life. “No man doubts your daughter’s innocence, my lord,” Ser Kevan lied, “but His High Holiness insists upon a trial.”

Lord Randyll snorted. “What have we become, when kings and high lords must dance to the twittering of sparrows?”

“We have foes on every hand, Lord Tarly,” Ser Kevan reminded him. “Stannis in the north, ironmen in the west, sellswords in the south. Defy the High Septon, and we will have blood running in the gutters of King’s Landing as well. If we are seen to be going against the gods, it will only drive the pious into the arms of one or the other of these would-be usurpers.”

Mace Tyrell remained unmoved. “Once Paxter Redwyne sweeps the ironmen from the seas, my sons will retake the Shields. The snows will do for Stannis, or Bolton will. As for Connington…”

“If it is him,” Lord Randyll said.

“… as for Connington,” Tyrell repeated, “what victories has he ever won that we should fear him? He could have ended Robert’s Rebellion at Stoney Sept. He failed. Just as the Golden Company has always failed. Some may rush to join them, aye. The realm is well rid of such fools.”

Ser Kevan wished that he could share his certainty. He had known Jon Connington, slightly—a proud youth, the most headstrong of the gaggle of young lordlings who had gathered around Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, competing for his royal favor. Arrogant, but able and energetic. That, and his skill at arms, was why Mad King Aerys had named him Hand. Old Lord Merryweather’s inaction had allowed the rebellion to take root and spread, and Aerys wanted someone young and vigorous to match Robert’s own youth and vigor. “Too soon,” Lord Tywin Lannister had declared when word of the king’s choice had reached Casterly Rock. “Connington is too young, too bold, too eager for glory.”

The Battle of the Bells had proved the truth of that. Ser Kevan had expected that afterward Aerys would have no choice but to summon Tywin once more… but the Mad King had turned to the Lords Chelsted and Rossart instead, and paid for it with life and crown. That was all so long ago, though. If this is indeed Jon Connington, he will be a different man. Older, harder, more seasoned… more dangerous. “Connington may have more than the Golden Company. It is said he has a Targaryen pretender.”

“A feigned boy is what he has,” said Randyll Tarly.

“That may be. Or not.” Kevan Lannister had been here, in this very hall when Tywin had laid the bodies of Prince Rhaegar’s children at the foot of the Iron Throne, wrapped up in crimson cloaks. The girl had been