A Feast for Dragons

to
her face.
    The rest was a tedium the queen knew well. She sat upon her
cushions, listening, one foot jiggling with impatience. Jhiqui brought a
platter of figs and ham at midday. There seemed to be no end to the
petitioners. For every two she sent off smiling, one left red-eyed or
muttering.
    It was close to sunset before Daario Naharis appeared with
his new Stormcrows, the Westerosi who had come over to him from the Windblown.
Dany found herself glancing at them as yet another petitioner droned on and on.
These are my people. I am their rightful queen
. They seemed a
scruffy bunch, but that was only to be expected of sellswords. The youngest
could not have been more than a year older than her; the oldest must have seen
sixty namedays. A few sported signs of wealth: gold arm rings, silken tunics,
silver-studded sword belts.
Plunder
. For the most part, their
clothes were plainly made and showed signs of hard wear.
    When Daario brought them forward, she saw that one of them
was a woman, big and blond and all in mail. “Pretty Meris,” her captain named
her, though
pretty
was the last thing Dany would have called
her. She was six feet tall and earless, with a slit nose, deep scars in both
cheeks, and the coldest eyes the queen had ever seen. As for the rest …
    Hugh Hungerford was slim and saturnine, long-legged,
long-faced, clad in faded finery. Webber was short and muscular, with spiders
tattooed across his head and chest and arms. Red-faced Orson Stone claimed to
be a knight, as did lanky Lucifer Long. Will of the Woods leered at her even as
he took a knee. Dick Straw had cornflower-blue eyes, hair as white as flax, and
an unsettling smile. Ginger Jack’s face was hidden behind a bristly orange
beard, and his speech was unintelligible. “He bit off half his tongue in his
first battle,” Hungerford explained to her.
    The Dornishmen seemed different. “If it please Your Grace,”
said Daario, “these three are Greenguts, Gerrold, and Frog.”
    Greenguts was huge and bald as a stone, with arms thick
enough to rival even Strong Belwas. Gerrold was a lean, tall youth with sun
streaks in his hair and laughing blue-green eyes.
That smile has won
many a maiden’s heart, I’ll wager
. His cloak was made of soft brown
wool lined with sandsilk, a goodly garment.
    Frog, the squire, was the youngest of the three, and the
least impressive, a solemn, stocky lad, brown of hair and eye. His face was
squarish, with a high forehead, heavy jaw, and broad nose. The stubble on his
cheeks and chin made him look like a boy trying to grow his first beard. Dany
had no inkling why anyone would call him Frog.
Perhaps he can jump
farther than the others
.
    “You may rise,” she said. “Daario tells me you come to us
from Dorne. Dornishmen will always have a welcome at my court. Sunspear stayed
loyal to my father when the Usurper stole his throne. You must have faced many
perils to reach me.”
    “Too many,” said Gerrold, the handsome one with the
sun-streaked hair. “We were six when we left Dorne, Your Grace.”
    “I am sorry for your losses.” The queen turned to his large
companion. “Greenguts is a queer sort of name.”
    “A jape, Your Grace. From the ships. I was greensick the
whole way from Volantis. Heaving and … well, I shouldn’t say.”
    Dany giggled. “I think that I can guess, ser. It is
ser
,
is it not? Daario tells me that you are a knight.”
    “If it please Your Grace, we are all three knights.”
    Dany glanced at Daario and saw anger flash across his face.
He
did not know
. “I have need of knights,” she said.
    Ser Barristan’s suspicions had awakened. “Knighthood is
easily claimed this far from Westeros. Are you prepared to defend that boast
with sword or lance?”
    “If need be,” said Gerrold, “though I will not claim that
any of us is the equal of Barristan the Bold. Your Grace, I beg your pardon,
but we have come before you under false names.”
    “I knew someone else who did that once,” said Dany, “a man
called Arstan Whitebeard. Tell me your true names, then.”
    “Gladly … but if we may beg the queen’s
indulgence, is there some place with fewer eyes and ears?”
    Games within games
. “As you wish. Skahaz,
clear my court.”
    The Shavepate roared out orders. His Brazen Beasts did the
rest, herding the other Westerosi and the rest of the day’s petitioners from
the hall. Her counselors remained.
    “Now,” Dany said, “your names.”
    Handsome young Gerrold