A Dance With Dragons

particular dragon has already evinced a fondness for roast pork. And roast dwarf is twice as tasty.”
    “It was just a wish,” said Penny wistfully. “We could sail away. There are ships again, now that the war is over.”
    Is it? Tyrion was inclined to doubt that. Parchments had been signed, but wars were not fought on parchments.
    “We could sail to Qarth,” Penny went on. “The streets are paved with jade there, my brother always said. The city walls are one of the wonders of the world. When we perform in Qarth, gold and silver will rain down on us, you’ll see.”
    “Some of those ships out on the bay are Qartheen,” Tyrion reminded her. “Lomas Longstrider saw the walls of Qarth. His books suffice for me. I have gone as far east as I intend to go.”
    Sweets dabbed at Yezzan’s fevered face with a damp cloth. “Yezzan must live. Or we all die with him. The pale mare does not carry off every rider. The master will recover.”
    That was a bald-faced lie. It would be a wonder if Yezzan lived another day. The lord of suet was already dying from whatever hideous disease he had brought back from Sothoryos, it seemed to Tyrion. This would just hasten his end. A mercy, really. But not the sort the dwarf craved for himself. “The healer said he needs fresh water. We will see to that.”
    “That is good of you.” Sweets sounded numb. It was more than just fear of having her throat cut; alone amongst Yezzan’s treasures, she actually seemed fond of their immense master.
    “Penny, come with me.” Tyrion opened the tent flap and ushered her out into the heat of a Meereenese morning. The air was muggy and oppressive, yet still a welcome relief from the miasma of sweat, shit, and sickness that filled the inside of Yezzan’s palatial pavilion.
    “Water will help the master,” Penny said. “That’s what the healer said, it must be so. Sweet fresh water.”
    “Sweet fresh water didn’t help Nurse.” Poor old Nurse. Yezzan’s soldiers had tossed him onto the corpse wagon last night at dusk, another victim of the pale mare. When men are dying every hour, no one looks too hard at one more dead man, especially one as well despised as Nurse. Yezzan’s other slaves had refused to go near the overseer once the cramps began, so it was left to Tyrion to keep him warm and bring him drinks. Watered wine and lemonsweet and some nice hot dogtail soup, with slivers of mushroom in the broth. Drink it down, Nursey, that shitwater squirting from your arse needs to be replaced. The last word Nurse ever said was, “No.” The last words he ever heard were, “A Lannister always pays his debts.”
    Tyrion had kept the truth of that from Penny, but she needed to understand how things stood with their master. “If Yezzan lives to see the sunrise, I’ll be stunned.”
    She clutched his arm. “What will happen to us?”
    “He has heirs. Nephews.” Four such had come with Yezzan from Yunkai to command his slave soldiers. One was dead, slain by Targaryen sellswords during a sortie. The other three would divide the yellow enormity’s slaves amongst them, like as not. Whether any of the nephews shared Yezzan’s fondness for cripples, freaks, and grotesques was far less certain. “One of them may inherit us. Or we could end up back on the auction block.”
    “No.” Her eyes got big. “Not that. Please.”
    “It is not a prospect I relish either.”
    A few yards away, six of Yezzan’s slave soldiers were squatting in the dust, throwing the bones and passing a wineskin from hand to hand. One was the serjeant called Scar, a black-tempered brute with a head as smooth as stone and the shoulders of an ox. Clever as an ox too, Tyrion recalled.
    He waddled toward them. “Scar,” he barked out, “the noble Yezzan has need of fresh, clean water. Take two men and bring back as many pails as you can carry. And be quick about it.”
    The soldiers broke off their game. Scar rose to his feet, brow beetling. “What did you say, dwarf? Who do you think you are?”
    “You know who I am. Yollo. One of our lord’s treasures. Now do as I told you.”
    The soldiers laughed. “Go on, Scar,” one mocked, “and be quick about it. Yezzan’s monkey gave you a command.”
    “You do not tell soldiers what to do,” Scar said. “Soldiers?” Tyrion affected puzzlement. “Slaves, is what I see. You wear a collar round your neck the same as me.”
    The savage backhand blow Scar dealt him knocked him to the ground and broke his lip.