A Dance With Dragons

smallclothes.”
    “He was bleeding from the bowels,” said Galazza Galare. “We cannot be certain,” said Ezzara, “but it may be that Meereen has more to fear than the spears of the Yunkai’i.”
    “We must pray,” said the Green Grace. “The gods sent this man to us. He comes as a harbinger. He comes as a sign.”
    “A sign of what?” asked Dany. “A sign of wroth and ruin.”
    She did not want to believe that. “He was one man. One sick man with an arrow in his leg. A horse brought him here, not a god.” A pale mare. Dany rose abruptly. “I thank you for your counsel and for all that you did for this poor man.”
    The Green Grace kissed Dany’s fingers before she took her leave. “We shall pray for Astapor.”
    And for me. Oh, pray for me, my lady. If Astapor had fallen, nothing remained to prevent Yunkai from turning north.
    She turned to Ser Barristan. “Send riders into the hills to find my bloodriders. Recall Brown Ben and the Second Sons as well.”
    “And the Stormcrows, Your Grace?”
    Daario. “Yes. Yes.” Just three nights ago she had dreamed of Daario lying dead beside the road, staring sightlessly into the sky as crows quarreled above his corpse. Other nights she tossed in her bed, imagining that he’d betrayed her, as he had once betrayed his fellow captains in the Stormcrows. He brought me their heads. What if he had taken his company back to Yunkai, to sell her for a pot of gold? He would not do that. Would he? “The Stormcrows too. Send riders after them at once.”
    The Second Sons were the first to return, eight days after the queen sent forth her summons. When Ser Barristan told her that her captain desired words with her, she thought for a moment that it was Daario, and her heart leapt. But the captain that he spoke of was Brown Ben Plumm.
    Brown Ben had a seamed and weathered face, skin the color of old teak, white hair, and wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Dany was so pleased to see his leathery brown face that she hugged him. His eyes crinkled in amusement. “I heard talk Your Grace was going to take a husband,” he said, “but no one told me it was me.” They laughed together as Reznak sputtered, but the laughter ceased when Brown Ben said, “We caught three Astapori. Your Worship had best hear what they say.”
    “Bring them.”
    Daenerys received them in the grandeur of her hall as tall candles burned amongst the marble pillars. When she saw that the Astapori were half-starved, she sent for food at once. These three were all that remained of a dozen who had set out together from the Red City: a bricklayer, a weaver, and a cobbler. “What befell the rest of your party?” the queen asked.
    “Slain,” said the cobbler. “Yunkai’s sellswords roam the hills north of Astapor, hunting down those who flee the flames.”
    “Has the city fallen, then? Its walls were thick.”
    “This is so,” said the bricklayer, a stoop-backed man with rheumy eyes, “but they were old and crumbling as well.”
    The weaver raised her head. “Every day we told each other that the dragon queen was coming back.” The woman had thin lips and dull dead eyes, set in a pinched and narrow face. “Cleon had sent for you, it was said, and you were coming.”
    He sent for me, thought Dany. That much is true, at least. “Outside our walls, the Yunkai’i devoured our crops and slaughtered our herds,” the cobbler went on. “Inside we starved. We ate cats and rats and leather. A horsehide was a feast. King Cutthroat and Queen Whore accused each other of feasting on the flesh of the slain. Men and women gathered in secret to draw lots and gorge upon the flesh of him who drew the black stone. The pyramid of Nakloz was despoiled and set aflame by those who claimed that Kraznys mo Nakloz was to blame for all our woes.”
    “Others blamed Daenerys,” said the weaver, “but more of us still loved you. ‘She is on her way,’ we said to one another. ‘She is coming at the head of a great host, with food for all.’ ”
    I can scarce feed my own folk. If I had marched to Astapor, I would have lost Meereen.
    The cobbler told them how the body of the Butcher King had been disinterred and clad in copper armor, after the Green Grace of Astapor had a vision that he would deliver them from the Yunkai’i. Armored and stinking, the corpse of Cleon the Great was strapped onto the back of a starving horse to lead the remnants of his new Unsullied on a sortie, but they rode right into the