A Feast for Dragons

that I will not say, but I told him that he could
give it to you. You would not make a liar of Daario Naharis?” Dany was helpless
to refuse. “As you wish. Bring your frog to court tomorrow. The others too. The
Westerosi.” It would be nice to hear the Common Tongue from someone besides Ser
Barristan.
    “As my queen commands.” Daario bowed deeply, grinned, and
took his leave, his cloak swirling behind him.
    Dany sat amongst the rumpled bedclothes with her arms about
her knees, so forlorn that she did not hear when Missandei came creeping in
with bread and milk and figs. “Your Grace? Are you unwell? In the black of
night this one heard you scream.”
    Dany took a fig. It was black and plump, still moist with
dew.
Will Hizdahr ever make me scream?
“It was the wind that
you heard screaming.” She took a bite, but the fruit had lost its savor now
that Daario was gone. Sighing, she rose and called to Irri for a robe, then
wandered out onto her terrace.
    Her foes were all about her. There were never less than a
dozen ships drawn up on the shore. Some days there were as many as a hundred,
when the soldiers were disembarking. The Yunkai’i were even bringing in wood by
sea. Behind their ditches, they were building catapults, scorpions, tall
trebuchets. On still nights she could hear the hammers ringing through the
warm, dry air.
No siege towers, though. No battering rams
. They
would not try to take Meereen by storm. They would wait behind their siege
lines, flinging stones at her until famine and disease had brought her people
to their knees.
    Hizdahr will bring me peace. He must
.
    That night her cooks roasted her a kid with dates and
carrots, but Dany could only eat a bite of it. The prospect of wrestling with
Meereen once more left her feeling weary. Sleep came hard, even when Daario
came back, so drunk that he could hardly stand. Beneath her coverlets she
tossed and turned, dreaming that Hizdahr was kissing her … but his
lips were blue and bruised, and when he thrust himself inside her, his manhood
was cold as ice. She sat up with her hair disheveled and the bedclothes
atangle. Her captain slept beside her, yet she was alone. She wanted to shake
him, wake him, make him hold her, fuck her, help her forget, but she knew that
if she did, he would only smile and yawn and say, “It was just a dream, my
queen. Go back to sleep.”
    Instead she slipped into a hooded robe and stepped out onto
her terrace. She went to the parapet and stood there gazing down upon the city
as she had done a hundred times before.
It will never be my city. It
will never be my home
.
    The pale pink light of dawn found her still out on her
terrace, asleep upon the grass beneath a blanket of fine dew. “I promised
Daario that I would hold court today,” Daenerys told her handmaids when they
woke her. “Help me find my crown. Oh, and some clothes to wear, something light
and cool.”
    She made her descent an hour later. “All
kneel for
Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the
Rhoynar and the First Men
, Khaleesi
of Great Grass Sea, Breaker
of Shackles and Mother of Dragons,”
Missandei called.
    Reznak mo Reznak bowed and beamed. “Magnificence, every day
you grow more beautiful. I think the prospect of your wedding has given you a
glow. Oh, my shining queen!”
    Dany sighed. “Summon the first petitioner.”
    It had been so long since she last held court that the crush
of cases was almost overwhelming. The back of the hall was a solid press of
people, and scuffles broke out over precedence. Inevitably it was Galazza
Galare who stepped forward, her head held high, her face hidden behind a
shimmering green veil. “Your Radiance, it might be best were we to speak in
private.”
    “Would that I had the time,” said Dany sweetly. “I am to be
wed upon the morrow.” Her last meeting with the Green Grace had not gone well.
“What would you have of me?”
    “I would speak to you about the presumption of a certain
sellsword captain.”
    She dares say that in open court?
Dany felt
a blaze of anger.
She has courage, I grant that, but if she thinks I am
about to suffer another scolding
,
she could not be more wrong
.
“The treachery of Brown Ben Plumm has shocked us all,” she said, “but your
warning comes too late. And now I know you will want to return to your temple
to pray for peace.”
    The Green Grace bowed. “I shall pray for you as well.”
    Another slap
, thought Dany, color rising