A Dance With Dragons

chests and staring wide-eyed at the corpse of Khrazz. Qezza was still crying, but Jezhene had appeared to comfort her. She hugged the younger girl, stroking her hair. Some of the other cupbearers stood behind them, watching. “Your Worship,” Miklaz said, “the noble Reznak mo Reznak says to t-tell you, come at once.”
    The boy addressed the king as if Ser Barristan were not there, as if there were no dead man sprawled upon the carpet, his life’s blood slowly staining the silk red. Skahaz was supposed to take Reznak into custody until we could be certain of his loyalty. Had something gone awry? “Come where?” Ser Barristan asked the boy. “Where does the seneschal want His Grace to go?”
    “Outside.” Miklaz seemed to see him for the first time. “Outside, ser. To the t-terrace. To see.”
    “To see what?”
    “D-d-dragons. The dragons have been loosed, ser.” Seven save us all, the old knight thought.

THE DRAGONTAMER
     
     
    T he night crept past on slow black feet. The hour of the bat gave way to the hour of the eel, the hour of the eel to the hour of ghosts. The prince lay abed, staring at his ceiling, dreaming without sleeping, remembering, imagining, twisting beneath his linen coverlet, his mind feverish with thoughts of fire and blood.
    Finally, despairing of rest, Quentyn Martell made his way to his solar, where he poured himself a cup of wine and drank it in the dark. The taste was sweet solace on his tongue, so he lit a candle and poured himself another. Wine will help me sleep, he told himself, but he knew that was a lie.
    He stared at the candle for a long time, then put down his cup and held his palm above the flame. It took every bit of will he had to lower it until the fire touched his flesh, and when it did he snatched his hand back with a cry of pain.
    “Quentyn, are you mad?”
    No, just scared. I do not want to burn. “Gerris?”
    “I heard you moving about.”
    “I could not sleep.”
    “Are burns a cure for that? Some warm milk and a lullaby might serve you well. Or better still, I could take you to the Temple of the Graces and find a girl for you.”
    “A whore, you mean.”
    “They call them Graces. They come in different colors. The red ones are the only ones who fuck.” Gerris seated himself across the table. “The septas back home should take up the custom, if you ask me. Have you noticed that old septas always look like prunes? That’s what a life of chastity will do to you.”
    Quentyn glanced out at the terrace, where night’s shadows lay thick amongst the trees. He could hear the soft sound of falling water. “Is that rain? Your whores will be gone.”
    “Not all of them. There are little snuggeries in the pleasure gardens, and they wait there every night until a man chooses them. Those who are not chosen must remain until the sun comes up, feeling lonely and neglected. We could console them.”
    “They could console me, is what you mean.”
    “That too.”
    “That is not the sort of consolation I require.”
    “I disagree. Daenerys Targaryen is not the only woman in the world. Do you want to die a man-maid?”
    Quentyn did not want to die at all. I want to go back to Yronwood and kiss both of your sisters, marry Gwyneth Yronwood, watch her flower into beauty, have a child by her. I want to ride in tourneys, hawk and hunt, visit with my mother in Norvos, read some of those books my father sends me. I want Cletus and Will and Maester Kedry to be alive again. “Do you think Daenerys would be pleased to hear that I had bedded some whore?”
    “She might be. Men may be fond of maidens, but women like a man who knows what he’s about in the bedchamber. It’s another sort of sword-play. Takes training to be good at it.”
    The gibe stung. Quentyn had never felt so much a boy as when he’d stood before Daenerys Targaryen, pleading for her hand. The thought of bedding her terrified him almost as much as her dragons had. What if he could not please her? “Daenerys has a paramour,” he said defensively. “My father did not send me here to amuse the queen in the bedchamber. You know why we have come.”
    “You cannot marry her. She has a husband.”
    “She does not love Hizdahr zo Loraq.”
    “What has love to do with marriage? A prince should know better. Your father married for love, it’s said. How much joy has he had of that?”
    Little and less. Doran Martell and his Norvoshi wife had spent half their marriage apart and the other half arguing. It