A Feast for Dragons

all true,” said the prince, with a wince of pain.
Is
it his gout that hurts him, or the lie?
“And now Ser Gerold has fled
back to High Hermitage, beyond our reach.”
    “Darkstar,” Tyene murmured, with a giggle. “Why not? It is
all his doing. But will Ser Balon believe it?”
    “He will if he hears it from Myrcella,” Arianne insisted.
    Obara snorted in disbelief. “She may lie today and lie
tomorrow, but soon or late she’ll tell the truth. If Ser Balon is allowed to
carry tales back to King’s Landing, drums will sound and blood will flow. He
should not be allowed to leave.”
    “We could kill him, to be sure,” said Tyene, “but then we
would need to kill the rest of his party too, even those sweet young squires.
That would be … oh, so
messy
.”
    Prince Doran shut his eyes and opened them again. Hotah
could see his leg trembling underneath the blanket. “If you were not my
brother’s daughters, I would send the three of you back to your cells and keep
you there until your bones were grey. Instead I mean to take you with us to the
Water Gardens. There are lessons there if you have the wit to see them.”
    “Lessons?” said Obara. “All I’ve seen are naked children.”
    “Aye,” the prince said. “I told the story to Ser Balon, but
not all of it. As the children splashed in the pools, Daenerys watched from
amongst the orange trees, and a realization came to her. She could not tell the
highborn from the low. Naked, they were only children. All innocent, all
vulnerable, all deserving of long life, love, protection.
‘There is your
realm,’
she told her son and heir,
‘remember them, in
everything you do.’
My own mother said those same words to me when I
was old enough to leave the pools. It is an easy thing for a prince to call the
spears, but in the end the children pay the price. For their sake, the wise
prince will wage no war without good cause, nor any war he cannot hope to win.
    “I am not blind, nor deaf. I know that you all believe me
weak, frightened, feeble. Your father knew me better. Oberyn was ever the viper.
Deadly, dangerous, unpredictable. No man dared tread on him. I was the grass.
Pleasant, complaisant, sweet-smelling, swaying with every breeze. Who fears to
walk upon the grass? But it is the grass that hides the viper from his enemies
and shelters him until he strikes. Your father and I worked more closely than
you know … but now he is gone. The question is, can I trust his
daughters to serve me in his place?”
    Hotah studied each of them in turn. Obara, rusted nails and
boiled leather, with her angry, close-set eyes and rat-brown hair. Nymeria,
languid, elegant, olive-skinned, her long black braid bound up in red-gold
wire. Tyene, blue-eyed and blond, a child-woman with her soft hands and little
giggles.
    Tyene answered for the three of them. “It is doing nothing
that is hard, Uncle. Set a task for us, any task, and you shall find us as leal
and obedient as any prince could hope for.”
    “That is good to hear,” the prince said, “but words are
wind. You are my brother’s daughters and I love you, but I have learned I
cannot trust you. I want your oath. Will you swear to serve me, to do as I
command?”
    “If we must,” said Lady Nym.
    “Then swear it now, upon your father’s grave.”
    Obara’s face darkened. “If you were not my uncle—”
    “I
am
your uncle. And your prince. Swear, or
go.”
    “I swear,” said Tyene. “On my father’s grave.”
    “I swear,” said Lady Nym. “By Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper
of Dorne, and a better man than you.”
    “Aye,” said Obara. “Me as well. By Father. I swear.”
    Some of the tension went out of the prince. Hotah saw him
sag back into his chair. He held out his hand, and Princess Arianne moved to
his side to hold it. “Tell them, Father.”
    Prince Doran took a jagged breath. “Dorne still has friends
at court. Friends who tell us things we were not meant to know. This invitation
Cersei sent us is a ruse. Trystane is never meant to reach King’s Landing. On
the road back, somewhere in the kingswood, Ser Balon’s party will be attacked
by outlaws, and my son will die. I am asked to court only so that I may witness
this attack with my own eyes and thereby absolve the queen of any blame. Oh,
and these outlaws? They will be shouting, ‘Halfman, Halfman,’ as they attack.
Ser Balon may even catch a quick glimpse of the Imp, though no one else will.”
    Areo Hotah would not have believed