A Feast for Dragons

queen a simple meal
of goat cheese and olives, with raisins for a sweet. “Your Grace needs more
than wine to break her fast. You are such a tiny thing, and you will surely
need your strength today.”
    That made Daenerys laugh, coming from a girl so small. She
relied so much on the little scribe that she oft forgot that Missandei had only
turned eleven. They shared the food together on her terrace. As Dany nibbled on
an olive, the Naathi girl gazed at her with eyes like molten gold and said, “It
is not too late to tell them that you have decided not to wed.”
    It is, though
, the queen thought, sadly.
“Hizdahr’s blood is ancient and noble. Our joining will join my freedmen to his
people. When we become as one, so will our city.”
    “Your Grace does not love the noble Hizdahr. This one thinks
you would sooner have another for your husband.”
    I must not think of Daario today
. “A queen
loves where she must, not where she will.” Her appetite had left her. “Take
this food away,” she told Missandei. “It is time I bathed.”
    Afterward, as Jhiqui was patting Daenerys dry, Irri
approached with her
tokar
. Dany envied the Dothraki maids their
loose sandsilk trousers and painted vests. They would be much cooler than her
in her
tokar
, with its heavy fringe of baby pearls. “Help me
wind this round myself, please. I cannot manage all these pearls by myself.”
    She should be eager with anticipation for her wedding and
the night that would follow, she knew. She remembered the night of her first
wedding, when Khal Drogo had claimed her maidenhead beneath the stranger stars.
She remembered how frightened she had been, and how excited. Would it be the
same with Hizdahr?
No. I am not the girl I was, and he is not my
sun-and-stars
.
    Missandei reemerged from inside the pyramid. “Reznak and
Skahaz beg the honor of escorting Your Grace to the Temple of the Graces.
Reznak has ordered your palanquin made ready.”
    Meereenese seldom rode within their city walls. They
preferred palanquins, litters, and sedan chairs, borne upon the shoulders of
their slaves. “Horses befoul the streets,” one man of Zakh had told her,
“slaves do not.” Dany had freed the slaves, yet palanquins, litters, and sedan
chairs still choked the streets as before, and none of them floated magically
through the air.
    “The day is too hot to be shut up in a palanquin,” said
Dany. “Have my silver saddled. I would not go to my lord husband upon the backs
of bearers.”
    “Your Grace,” said Missandei, “this one is so sorry, but you
cannot ride in a
tokar
.”
    The little scribe was right, as she so often was. The
tokar
was not a garment meant for horseback. Dany made a face. “As you say. Not the
palanquin, though. I would suffocate behind those drapes. Have them ready a
sedan chair.” If she must wear her floppy ears, let all the rabbits see her.
    When Dany made her descent, Reznak and Skahaz dropped to
their knees. “Your Worship shines so brightly, you will blind every man who
dares to look upon you,” said Reznak. The seneschal wore a
tokar
of maroon samite with golden fringes. “Hizdahr zo Loraq is most fortunate in you … and
you in him, if I may be so bold as to say. This match will save our city, you
will see.”
    “So we pray. I want to plant my olive trees and see them
fruit.”
Does it
matter that Hizdahr’s kisses do not
please me? Peace will please me. Am I a queen or just a woman?
    “The crowds will be thick as flies today.” The Shavepate was
clad in a pleated black skirt and a muscled breastplate, with a brazen helm
shaped like a serpent’s head beneath one arm.
    “Should I be afraid of flies? Your Brazen Beasts will keep
me safe from any harm.”
    It was always dusk inside the base of the Great Pyramid.
Walls thirty feet thick muffled the tumult of the streets and kept the heat
outside, so it was cool and dim within. Her escort was forming up inside the
gates. Horses, mules, and donkeys were stabled in the western walls, elephants
in the eastern. Dany had acquired three of those huge, queer beasts with her
pyramid. They reminded her of hairless grey mammoths, though their tusks had
been bobbed and gilded, and their eyes were sad.
    She found Strong Belwas eating grapes, as Barristan Selmy
watched a stableboy cinch the girth on his dapple grey. The three Dornishmen
were with him, talking, but they broke off when the queen appeared. Their
prince went to one knee. “Your Grace, I must entreat you. My