A Feast for Dragons

given her as a wedding gift. “You should be
hunting with your brothers. Have you and Drogon been fighting again?” Her
dragons were growing wild of late. Rhaegal had snapped at Irri, and Viserion
had set Reznak’s
tokar
ablaze the last time the seneschal had
called.
I have left them too much to themselves, but where am I to find
the time for them?
    Viserion’s tail lashed sideways, thumping the trunk of the
tree so hard that a pear came tumbling down to land at Dany’s feet. His wings
unfolded, and he half flew, half hopped onto the parapet.
He grows
,
she thought as he launched himself into the sky.
They are all three
growing. Soon they will be large enough to bear my weight
. Then she
would fly as Aegon the Conqueror had flown, up and up, until Meereen was so
small that she could blot it out with her thumb.
    She watched Viserion climb in widening circles until he was
lost to sight beyond the muddy waters of the Skahazadhan. Only then did Dany go
back inside the pyramid, where Irri and Jhiqui were waiting to brush the
tangles from her hair and garb her as befit the Queen of Meereen, in a Ghiscari
tokar
.
    The garment was a clumsy thing, a long loose shapeless sheet
that had to be wound around her hips and under an arm and over a shoulder, its
dangling fringes carefully layered and displayed. Wound too loose, it was like
to fall off; wound too tight, it would tangle, trip, and bind. Even wound
properly, the
tokar
required its wearer to hold it in place
with the left hand. Walking in a
tokar
demanded small, mincing
steps and exquisite balance, lest one tread upon those heavy trailing fringes.
It was not a garment meant for any man who had to work. The
tokar
was a
master’s
garment, a sign of wealth and power.
    Dany had wanted to ban the
tokar
when she
took Meereen, but her advisors had convinced her otherwise. “The Mother of
Dragons must don the
tokar
or be forever hated,” warned the
Green Grace, Galazza Galare. “In the wools of Westeros or a gown of Myrish
lace, Your Radiance shall forever remain a stranger amongst us, a grotesque
outlander, a barbarian conqueror. Meereen’s queen must be a lady of Old Ghis.”
Brown Ben Plumm, the captain of the Second Sons, had put it more succinctly.
“Man wants to be the king o’ the rabbits, he best wear a pair o’ floppy ears.”
    The floppy ears she chose today were made of sheer white
linen, with a fringe of golden tassels. With Jhiqui’s help, she wound the
tokar
about herself correctly on her third attempt. Irri fetched her crown, wrought
in the shape of the three-headed dragon of her House. Its coils were gold, its
wings silver, its three heads ivory, onyx, and jade. Dany’s neck and shoulders
would be stiff and sore from the weight of it before the day was done.
A
crown should not sit easy on the head
. One of her royal forebears had
said that, once.
Some Aegon, but which one?
Five Aegons had
ruled the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. There would have been a sixth, but the
Usurper’s dogs had murdered her brother’s son when he was still a babe at the
breast.
If he had lived, I might have married him. Aegon would have been
closer to my age than Viserys
. Dany had only been conceived when Aegon
and his sister were murdered. Their father, her brother Rhaegar, perished even
earlier, slain by the Usurper on the Trident. Her brother Viserys had died
screaming in Vaes Dothrak with a crown of molten gold upon his head.
They
will kill me too if I allow it. The knives that slew my Stalwart Shield were
meant for me
.
    She had not forgotten the slave children the Great Masters
had nailed up along the road from Yunkai. They had numbered one hundred
sixty-three, a child every mile, nailed to mileposts with one arm outstretched
to point her way. After Meereen had fallen, Dany had nailed up a like number of
Great Masters. Swarms of flies had attended their slow dying, and the stench
had lingered long in the plaza. Yet some days she feared that she had not gone
far enough. These Meereenese were a sly and stubborn people who resisted her at
every turn. They had freed their slaves, yes … only to hire them back
as servants at wages so meagre that most could scarce afford to eat. Those too
old or young to be of use had been cast into the streets, along with the infirm
and the crippled. And still the Great Masters gathered atop their lofty
pyramids to complain of how the dragon queen had filled their noble city with
hordes of unwashed beggars, thieves, and whores.
    To rule