A Dance With Dragons

only using us to get to them. You never know with Tatters. Any way you hack it off, it weren’t clever. The quarrel just made the dragons angry, and they hadn’t been in such a good mood to start with. Then … then things got bad.”
    “And the Windblown blew away,” said Ser Gerris. “Quent was screaming, covered in flames, and they were gone. Caggo, Pretty Meris, all but the dead one.”
    “Ah, what did you expect, Drink? A cat will kill a mouse, a pig will wallow in shit, and a sellsword will run off when he’s needed most. Can’t be blamed. Just the nature of the beast.”
    “He’s not wrong,” Ser Barristan said. “What did Prince Quentyn promise the Tattered Prince in return for all this help?”
    He got no answer. Ser Gerris looked at Ser Archibald. Ser Archibald looked at his hands, the floor, the door.
    “Pentos,” said Ser Barristan. “He promised him Pentos. Say it. No words of yours can help or harm Prince Quentyn now.”
    “Aye,” said Ser Archibald unhappily. “It was Pentos. They made marks on a paper, the two of them.”
    There is a chance here. “We still have Windblown in the dungeons. Those feigned deserters.”
    “I remember,” said Yronwood. “Hungerford, Straw, that lot. Some of them weren’t so bad for sellswords. Others, well, might be they could stand a bit of dying. What of them?”
    “I mean to send them back to the Tattered Prince. And you with them. You will be two amongst thousands. Your presence in the Yunkish camps should pass unnoticed. I want you to deliver a message to the Tattered Prince. Tell him that I sent you, that I speak with the queen’s voice. Tell him that we’ll pay his price if he delivers us our hostages, unharmed and whole.”
    Ser Archibald grimaced. “Rags and Tatters is more like to give the two of us to Pretty Meris. He won’t do it.”
    “Why not? The task is simple enough.” Compared to stealing dragons. “I once brought the queen’s father out of Duskendale.”
    “That was Westeros,” said Gerris Drinkwater. “This is Meereen.”
    “Arch cannot even hold a sword with those hands.”
    “He ought not need to. You will have the sellswords with you, unless I mistake my man.”
    Gerris Drinkwater pushed back his mop of sun-streaked hair. “Might we have some time to discuss this amongst ourselves?”
    “No,” said Selmy. “I’ll do it,” offered Ser Archibald, “just so long as there’s no bloody boats involved. Drink will do it too.” He grinned. “He don’t know it yet, but he will.”
    And that was done.
    The simple part, at least, thought Barristan Selmy, as he made the long climb back to the summit of the pyramid. The hard part he’d left in Dornish hands. His grandfather would have been aghast. The Dornishmen were knights, at least in name, though only Yronwood impressed him as having the true steel. Drinkwater had a pretty face, a glib tongue, and a fine head of hair.
    By the time the old knight returned to the queen’s rooms atop the pyramid, Prince Quentyn’s corpse had been removed. Six of the young cup-bearers were playing some child’s game as he entered, sitting in a circle on the floor as they took turns spinning a dagger. When it wobbled to a stop they cut a lock of hair off whichever of them the blade was pointing at. Ser Barristan had played a similar game with his cousins when he was just a boy at Harvest Hall … though in Westeros, as he recalled, kissing had been involved as well. “Bhakaz,” he called. “A cup of wine, if you would be so good. Grazhar, Azzak, the door is yours. I am expecting the Green Grace. Show her in at once when she arrives. Elsewise, I do not wish to be disturbed.”
    Azzak scrambled to his feet. “As you command, Lord Hand.”
    Ser Barristan went out onto the terrace. The rain had stopped, though a wall of slate-grey clouds hid the setting sun as it made its descent into Slaver’s Bay. A few wisps of smoke still rose from the blackened stones of Hazdar, twisted like ribbons by the wind. Far off to the east, beyond the city walls, he saw pale wings moving above a distant line of hills. Viserion. Hunting, mayhaps, or flying just to fly. He wondered where Rhaegal was. Thus far the green dragon had shown himself to be more dangerous than the white.
    When Bhakaz brought his wine, the old knight took one long swallow and sent the boy for water. A few cups of wine might be just the thing to help him sleep, but he would need his wits about him when Galazza Galare returned