Part 3 (1/2)

”My face is yours. Do what you will.”

”What I will you will not, it seems. So be it. Talk with me instead. Could this truly be Prince Aegon?”

”Gregor Clegane ripped Aegon out of Elia's arms and smashed his head against a wall,” Ser Daemon said. ”If Lord Connington's prince has a crushed skull, I will believe that Aegon Targaryen has returned from the grave. Elsewise, no. This is some feigned boy, no more. A sellsword's ploy to win support.”

My father fears the same. ”If not, though... if this truly is Jon Connington, if the boy is Rhaegar's son... ”

”Are you hoping that he is, or that he's not?”

”I... it would give great joy to my father if Elia's son were still alive. He loved his sister well.”

”It was you I asked about, not your father.”

So it was. ”I was seven when Elia died. They say I held her daughter Rhaenys once, when I was too young to remember. Aegon will be a stranger to me, whether true or false.” The princess paused. ”We looked for Rhaegar's sister, not his son.” Her father had confided in Ser Daemon when he chose him as his daughter's s.h.i.+eld; with him at least she could speak freely. ”I would sooner it were Quentyn who'd returned.”

”Or so you say,” said Daemon Sand. ”Good night, princess.” He bowed to her, and left her standing there.

What did he mean by that? Arianne watched him walk away. What sort of sister would I be, if I did not want my brother back? It was true, she had resented Quentyn for all those years that she had thought their father meant to name him as his heir in place of her, but that had turned out to be just a misunderstanding. She was the heir to Dorne, she had her father's word on that. Quentyn would have his dragon queen, Daenerys.

In Sunspear hung a portrait of the Princess Daenerys who had come to Dorne to marry one of Arianne's forebears. In her younger days Arianne had spent hours gazing at it, back when she was just a pudgy flat-chested girl on the cusp of maidenhood who prayed every night for the G.o.ds to make her pretty. A hundred years ago, Daenerys Targaryen came to Dorne to make a peace. Now another comes to make a war, and my brother will be her king and consort. King Quentyn. Why did that sound so silly?

Almost as silly as Quentyn riding on a dragon. Her brother was an earnest boy, well-behaved and dutiful, but dull. And plain, so plain. The G.o.ds had given Arianne the beauty she had prayed for, but Quentyn must have prayed for something else. His head was overlarge and sort of square, his hair the color of dried mud. His shoulders slumped as well, and he was too thick about the middle. He looks too much like Father.

”I love my brother,” said Arianne, though only the moon could hear her. Though if truth be told, she scarcely knew him. Quentyn had been fostered by Lord Anders of House Yronwood, the Bloodroyal, the son of Lord Ormond Yronwood and grandson of Lord Edgar. In his youth her uncle Oberyn had fought a duel with Edgar, had given him a wound that mortified and killed him. Afterward men called him 'the Red Viper,' and spoke of poison on his blade. The Yronwoods were an ancient house, proud and powerful. Before the coming of the Rhoynar they had been kings over half of Dorne, with domains that dwarfed those of House Martell. Blood feud and rebellion would surely have followed Lord Edgar's death, had not her father acted at once. The Red Viper went to Oldtown, thence across to the narrow sea to Lys, though none dared call it exile. And in due time, Quentyn was given to Lord Anders to foster as a sign of trust. That helped to heal the breach between Sunspear and the Yronwoods, but it had opened new ones between Quentyn and the Sand Snakes... and Arianne had always been closer to her cousins than to her distant brother.

”We are still the same blood, though,” she whispered. ”Of course I want my brother home. I do.” The wind off the sea was raising goosep.r.i.c.kles all up and down her arms. Arianne pulled her cloak about herself, and went off to seek her bed.

Their s.h.i.+p was called the Peregrine. They sailed upon the morning tide. The G.o.ds were good to them, the sea calm. Even with good winds, the crossing took a day and a night. Jayne Ladybright grew greensick and spent most of the voyage spewing, which Elia Sand seemed to find hilarious. ”Someone needs to spank that child,” Joss Hood was heard to say... but Elia was amongst those who heard him say it.

”We are on a s.h.i.+p, and without horses,” Joss replied.

”And ladies do not joust,” insisted Ser Garibald Sh.e.l.ls, a far more serious and proper young man than his companion.

”I do. I'm Lady Lance.”

Arianne had heard enough. ”You may be a lance, but you are no lady. Go below and stay there till we reach land.”

Elsewise the crossing was uneventful. At dusk they spied a galley in the distance, her oars rising and falling against the evening stars, but she was moving away from them, and soon dwindled and was gone. Arianne played a game of cyva.s.se with Ser Daemon, and another one with Garibald Sh.e.l.ls, and somehow managed to lose both. Ser Garibald was kind enough to say that she played a gallant game, but Daemon mocked her. ”You have other pieces beside the dragon, princess. Try moving them sometime.”

”I like the dragon.” She wanted to slap the smile off his face. Or kiss it off, perhaps. The man was as smug as he was comely. Of all the knights in Dorne, why did my father chose this one to be my s.h.i.+eld? He knows our history. ”It is just a game. Tell me of Prince Viserys.”

”The Beggar King?” Ser Daemon seemed surprised.

”Everyone says that Prince Rhaegar was beautiful. Was Viserys beautiful as well?”

”I suppose. He was Targaryen. I never saw the man.”

The secret pact that Prince Doran had made all those years called for Arianne to be wed to Prince Viserys, not Quentyn to Daenerys. It had all come undone on the Dothraki sea, when he was murdered. Crowned with a pot of molten gold. ”He was killed by a Dothraki khal,” said Arianne. ”The dragon queen's own husband.”

”So I've heard. What of it?”

”Just... why did Daenerys let it happen? Viserys was her brother. All that remained of her own blood.”

”The Dothraki are a savage folk. Who can know why they kill? Perhaps Viserys wiped his a.r.s.e with the wrong hand.”

Perhaps, thought Arianne, or perhaps Daenerys realized that once her brother was crowned and wed to me, she would be doomed to spend the rest of her life sleeping in a tent and smelling like a horse. ”She is the Mad King's daughter,” the princess said. ”How do we do know -- ”

”We cannot know,” Ser Daemon said. ”We can only hope.”

BARRISTAN.

Through the gloom of night the dead men flew, raining down upon the city streets. The riper corpses would fall to pieces in the air, and burst when they came smas.h.i.+ng down onto the bricks, scattering worms and maggots and worse things. Others would bounce against the sides of pyramids and towers, leaving smears of blood and gore to mark the places where theyad struck.

Huge as they were, the Yunkish trebuchets did not have the range to throw their grisly burdens deep into the city. Most of the dead were landing just inside the walls, or slamming off barbicans, parapets, and defensive towers. With the six sisters arrayed in a rough crescent around Meereen, every part of the city was being struck, save only the river districts to the north. No trebuchet could throw across the width of the Skahazadhan. A small mercy, that, thought Barristan Selmy, as he rode into the market square inside Meereenas great western gate.

When Daenerys had taken the city, they had broken through that same gate with the huge battering ram called Josoas c.o.c.k, made from the mast of a s.h.i.+p. The Great Masters and their slave soldiers had met the attackers here, and the fighting had raged through the surrounding streets for hours. By the time the city finally fell, hundreds of dead and dying had littered the square. Now once again the market was a scene of carnage, though these dead came riding the pale mare.

By day Meereenas brick streets showed half a hundred hues, but night turned them into patchworks of black and white and grey. Torchlight s.h.i.+mmered in the puddles left by the recent rains, and painted lines of fire on the helms and greaves and breastplates of the men. Ser Barristan Selmy rode past them slowly. The old knight wore the armor his queen had given hima”a suit of white enameled steel, inlaid and chased with gold. The cloak that that streamed from his shoulders was as white as winter snow, as was the s.h.i.+eld slung from his saddle.

Beneath him was the queenas own mount, the silver mare Khal Drogo had given her upon their wedding day. That was presumptous, he knew, but if Daenerys herself could not be with them in their hour of peril, Ser Barristan hoped the sight of her silver in the fray might give heart to her warriors, reminding them of who and what they fought for. Besides, the silver had been years in the company of the queenas dragons, and had grown accustomed to the sight and scent of them. That was not something that could be said for the horses of their foes.

With him rode three of his lads. Tumco Lho carried the three-headed dragon banner of House Targaryen, red on black. Larraq the Lash bore the white forked standard of the Kingsguard: seven silver swords encircling a golden crown. To the Red Lamb Selmy had given a great silver-banded warhorn, to sound commands across the battlefield. His other boys remained at the Great Pyramid. They would fight another day, or not at all. Not every squire was meant to be a knight.

It was the hour of the wolf. The longest, darkest hour of the night. For many of the men who had a.s.sembled in the market square, it would be the last night of their lives.

Beneath the towering brick facade of Meereenas ancient Slave Exchange, five thousand Unsullied were drawn up in ten long lines. They stood as still as if they had been carved of stone, each with his three spears, short sword, and s.h.i.+eld. Torchlight winked off the spikes of their bronze helmets, and bathed the smooth-cheeked faces beneath. When a body came spinning down amongst them, the eunuchs simply stepped aside, taking just as many steps as were required, then closing ranks again. They were all afoot, even their officers: Grey Worm first and foremost, marked by the three spikes on his helm.

The Stormcrows had a.s.sembled beneath the merchantas arcade fronting on the southern side of the square, where the arches gave them some protection from the dead men. Jokinas archers were fitting strings to their bows as Ser Barristan rode by. The Widower sat grim-faced astride a gaunt grey horse, with his s.h.i.+eld upon his arm and his spiked battle-axe in hand. A fan of black feathers sprouted from one temple of his iron halfhelm. The boy beside him was clutching the companyas banner: a dozen ragged black streamers on a tall staff, topped by a carved wooden crow.

The horselords had come as well. Aggo and Rakharo had taken most of the queenas small khalasar across the Skahazadhan, but the old half-crippled jaqqa rhan Rommo had sc.r.a.ped together twenty riders from those left behind. Some were as old as he was, many marked by some old wound or deformity. The rest were beardless boys, striplings seeking their first bell and the right to braid their hair. They milled about near the weathered bronze statue of the Chainmaker, anxious to be off, dancing their horses aside whenever a corpse came spinning down from above.

Not far from them, about the ghastly monument the Great Masters called the Spire of Skulls, several hundred pit fighters had gathered. Selmy saw the Spotted Cat amongst them. Beside him stood Fearless Ithoke, and elsewhere Senerra She-Snake, Camarron of the Count, the Brindled Butcher, Togosh, Marrigo, Orlos the Catamite. Even Goghor the Giant was there, towering above the others like a man amongst boys. Freedom means something to them after all, it would seem. The pit fighters had more love for Hizdahr than they had ever shown Daenerys, but Selmy was glad to have them all the same. Some are even wearing armor, he observed. Perhaps his defeat of Khrazz had taught them something.

Above, the gatehouse battlements were crowded with men in patchwork cloaks and brazen masks: the Shavepate had sent his Brazen Beasts onto the city walls, to free up the Unsullied to take the field. Should the battle be lost, it would be up to Skahaz and his men to hold Meereen against the Yunkaiai a until such time as Queen Daenerys could return. If indeed she ever does.

Across the city at other gates others forces had a.s.sembled. Tal Toraq and his Stalwart s.h.i.+elds had gathered by the eastern gate, sometimes called the hill gate or the Khyzai gate, since travelers bound for Lhazar via the Khyzai Pa.s.s always left that way. Ma.r.s.elen and the Motheras Men had ma.s.sed beside the south gate, the Yellow Gate. The Free Brothers and Symon Stripeback had drawn the north gate, fronting on the river. They would have the easiest egress, with no foe before them but a few s.h.i.+ps.

The Yunkishmen had placed two Ghiscari legions to the north, but they were camped across the Skahazadhan, with the whole width of the river between them and the walls of Meereen. The main Yunkish camp lay to the west, between the walls of Meereen and the warm green waters of Slaveras Bay. Two of the trebuchets had risen there, one beside the river, the second opposite Meereenas main gates, defended by two dozen of Yunkaias Wise Masters, each with his own slave soldiers. Between the great siege engines were the fortified encampments of two Ghiscari legions. The Company of the Cat had its camp between the city and the sea. The foe had Tolosi slingers too, and somewhere out in the night were three hundred Elyrian crossbowmen.

Too many foes, Ser Barristan brooded. Their numbers must surely tell against us. This attack went against all of the old knightas instincts. Meereenas walls were thick and strong. Inside those walls, the defenders enjoyed every advantage. Yet he had no choice but to lead his men into the teeth of the Yunkish siege lines, against foes of vastly greater strength. The White Bull would have called it folly.

He would have warned Barristan against trusting sellswords too. This is what it has come to, my queen, Ser Barristan thought. Our fates hinge upon a sellswordas greed. Your city, your people, our lives a the Tattered Prince holds us all in his bloodstained hands. Even if their best hope proved to be forlorn hope, Selmy knew that he had no other choice. He might have held Meereen for years against the Yunkaiai, but he could not hold it for even a moonas turn with the pale mare galloping through its streets.

A hush fell across the market square as the old knight and his banner bearers rode toward the gatehouse. Selmy could hear the murmur of countless voices, the sound of horses blowing, whickering, and sc.r.a.ping iron-shod hooves over crumbling brick, the faint clatter of sword and s.h.i.+eld. All of it seemed m.u.f.fled and far away. It was not a silence, just a quiet, the indrawn breath that comes before the shout. Torches smoked and crackled, filling the darkness with s.h.i.+fting orange light. Thousands turned as one to watch as the old knight wheeled his horse around in the shadow of the great iron-banded gates. Barristan Selmy could feel their eyes upon him. The captains and commanders advanced to meet him. Jokin and the Widower for the Stormcrows, ringmail clinking under faded cloaks; Grey Worm, Sure Spear, and Dogkiller for the Unsullied, in spiked bronze caps and quilted armor; Rommo for the Dothraki; Camarron, Goghor, and the Spotted Cat for the pit fighters.

aYou know our plan of attack,a the white knight said, when the captains were gathered around him. aWe will hit them first with our horse, as soon as the gate is opened. Ride hard and fast, straight at the slave soldiers. When the legions form up, sweep around them. Take them from behind or from the flank, but do not try their spears. Remember your objectives.a aThe trebuchet,a said the Widower. aThe one the Yunkaiai call Harridan. Take it, topple it, or burn it.a Jokin nodded. aFeather as many of their n.o.bles as we can. And burn their tents, the big ones, the pavilions.a aKill many man,a said Rommo. aTake no slaves.a Ser Barristan turned in the saddle. aCat, Goghor, Camarron, your men will follow afoot. You are known as fearsome fighters. Frighten them. Scream and shout. By the time you reach the Yunkish lines, our hors.e.m.e.n should have broken through. Follow them into the breach, and do as much slaughter as you can. Where you can, spare the slaves and cut down their masters, the n.o.blemen and officers. Fall back before you are surrounded.a Goghor smashed a fist against his chest. aGoghor not fall back. Never.a Then Goghor die, the old knight thought, soon. But this was not the time nor place for that argument. He let it pa.s.s, and said, aThese attacks should distract the Yunkaiai long enough for Grey Worm to march the Unsullied out the gate and form up.a That was where his plan would rise or fall, he knew. If the Yunkish commanders had any sense, they would send their horse thundering down on the eunuchs before they could form ranks, when they were most vulnerable. His own cavalry would have to prevent that long enough for the Unsullied to lock s.h.i.+elds and raise their wall of spears.

aAt the sound of my horn, Grey Worm will advance in line and roll up the slavers and their soldiers. It may be that one or more Ghiscari legions will march out to meet them, s.h.i.+eld to s.h.i.+eld and spear to spear.”

The Widoweras horse sidled to his left. aAnd if your horn falls silent, ser knight? If you and these green boys of yours are cut down?a It was a fair question. Ser Barristan meant to be the first through the Yunkish lines. He might well be the first to die. It often worked that way. aIf I fall, command is yours. After you, Jokin. Then Grey Worm.a Should all of us be killed, the day is lost, he might have added, but they all knew that, surely, and none of them would want to hear it said aloud. Never speak of defeat before a battle, Lord Commander Hightower had told him once, when the world was young, for the G.o.ds may be listening.