A Feast for Dragons

windows.
Her freedmen stood well apart from their former masters.
Until they
stand together, Meereen will know no peace
. “Arise.” Dany settled onto
her bench. The hall rose.
That at least they do as one
.
    Reznak mo Reznak had a list. Custom demanded that the queen
begin with the Astapori envoy, a former slave who called himself Lord Ghael,
though no one seemed to know what he was lord of.
    Lord Ghael had a mouth of brown and rotten teeth and the
pointed yellow face of a weasel. He also had a gift. “Cleon the Great sends
these slippers as a token of his love for Daenerys Stormborn, the Mother of
Dragons.”
    Irri slid the slippers onto Dany’s feet. They were gilded
leather, decorated with green freshwater pearls.
Does the butcher king
believe a pair of
pretty slippers will win my hand?
“King Cleon is most generous. You may thank him for his lovely gift.”
Lovely,
but made for a child
. Dany had small feet, yet the pointed slippers
mashed her toes together.
    “Great Cleon will be pleased to know they pleased you,” said
Lord Ghael. “His Magnificence bids me say that he stands ready to defend the
Mother of Dragons from all her foes.”
    If he proposes again that I wed King Cleon, I’ll
throw a slipper at his head
, Dany thought, but for once the Astapori
envoy made no mention of a royal marriage. Instead he said, “The time has come
for Astapor and Meereen to end the savage reign of the Wise Masters of Yunkai,
who are sworn foes to all those who live in freedom. Great Cleon bids me tell
you that he and his new Unsullied will soon march.”
    His new Unsullied are an obscene jape
. “King
Cleon would be wise to tend his own gardens and let the Yunkai’i tend theirs.”
It was not that Dany harbored any love for Yunkai. She was coming to regret
leaving the Yellow City untaken after defeating its army in the field. The Wise
Masters had returned to slaving as soon as she moved on, and were busy raising
levies, hiring sellswords, and making alliances against her.
    Cleon the self-styled Great was no better, however. The
Butcher King had restored slavery to Astapor, the only change being that the
former slaves were now the masters and the former masters were now the slaves.
    “I am only a young girl and know little of the ways of war,”
she told Lord Ghael, “but we have heard that Astapor is starving. Let King
Cleon feed his people before he leads them out to battle.” She made a gesture
of dismissal. Ghael withdrew.
    “Magnificence,” prompted Reznak mo Reznak, “will you hear
the noble Hizdahr zo Loraq?”
    Again?
Dany nodded, and Hizdahr strode
forth; a tall man, very slender, with flawless amber skin. He bowed on the same
spot where Stalwart Shield had lain in death not long before.
I need
this man
, Dany reminded herself. Hizdahr was a wealthy merchant with
many friends in Meereen, and more across the seas. He had visited Volantis,
Lys, and Qarth, had kin in Tolos and Elyria, and was even said to wield some
influence in New Ghis, where the Yunkai’i were trying to stir up enmity against
Dany and her rule.
    And he was rich. Famously and fabulously rich …
    And like to grow richer, if I grant his petition
.
When Dany had closed the city’s fighting pits, the value of pit shares had
plummeted. Hizdahr zo Loraq had grabbed them up with both hands, and now owned
most of the fighting pits in Meereen.
    The nobleman had wings of wiry red-black hair sprouting from
his temples. They made him look as if his head were about to take flight. His
long face was made even longer by a beard bound with rings of gold. His purple
tokar
was fringed with amethysts and pearls. “Your Radiance will know the reason I am
here.”
    “Why, it must be because you have no other purpose but to
plague me. How many times have I refused you?”
    “Five times, Your Magnificence.”
    “Six now. I will not have the fighting pits reopened.”
    “If Your Majesty will hear my arguments …”
    “I have. Five times. Have you brought new arguments?”
    “Old arguments,” Hizdahr admitted, “new words. Lovely words,
and courteous, more apt to move a queen.”
    “It is your cause I find wanting, not your courtesies. I
have heard your arguments so often I could plead your case myself. Shall I?”
Dany leaned forward. “The fighting pits have been a part of Meereen since the
city was founded. The combats are profoundly religious in nature, a blood
sacrifice to the gods of Ghis. The
mortal art
of Ghis is not
mere butchery but