A Feast for Dragons

Yunkai will trade in slaves, Meereen will not, this is
what we have agreed. Endure this for a little while longer, and it shall pass.”
    So Daenerys sat silent through the meal, wrapped in a
vermilion
tokar
and black thoughts, speaking only when spoken
to, brooding on the men and women being bought and sold outside her walls, even
as they feasted here within the city. Let her noble husband make the speeches
and laugh at the feeble Yunkish japes. That was a king’s right and a king’s
duty.
    Much of the talk about the table was of the matches to be
fought upon the morrow. Barsena Blackhair was going to face a boar, his tusks
against her dagger. Khrazz was fighting, as was the Spotted Cat. And in the
day’s final pairing, Goghor the Giant would go against Belaquo Bonebreaker. One
would be dead before the sun went down.
No queen has clean hands
,
Dany told herself. She thought of Doreah, of Quaro, of Eroeh … of a
little girl she had never met, whose name had been Hazzea.
Better a few
should die in the pit than thousands at the gates. This is the price of peace,
I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost
.
    The Yunkish Supreme Commander, Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, might have
been alive during Aegon’s Conquest, to judge by his appearance. Bent-backed,
wrinkled, and toothless, he was carried to the table by two strapping slaves. The
other Yunkish lords were hardly more impressive. One was small and stunted,
though the slave soldiers who attended him were grotesquely tall and thin. The
third was young, fit, and dashing, but so drunk that Dany could scarce
understand a word he said.
How could I have been brought to this pass by
creatures such as these?
    The sellswords were a different matter. Each of the four
free companies serving Yunkai had sent its commander. The Windblown were
represented by the Pentoshi nobleman known as the Tattered Prince, the Long
Lances by Gylo Rhegan, who looked more shoemaker than soldier and spoke in
murmurs. Bloodbeard, from the Company of the Cat, made enough noise for him and
a dozen more. A huge man with a great bush of beard and a prodigious appetite for
wine and women, he bellowed, belched, farted like a thunderclap, and pinched
every serving girl who came within his reach. From time to time he would pull
one down into his lap to squeeze her breasts and fondle her between the legs.
    The Second Sons were represented too.
If Daario were
here, this meal would end in blood
. No promised peace could ever have
persuaded her captain to permit Brown Ben Plumm to stroll back into Meereen and
leave alive. Dany had sworn that no harm would come to the seven envoys and
commanders, though that had not been enough for the Yunkai’i. They had required
hostages of her as well. To balance the three Yunkish nobles and four sellsword
captains, Meereen sent seven of its own out to the siege camp: Hizdahr’s
sister, two of his cousins, Dany’s bloodrider Jhogo, her admiral Groleo, the
Unsullied captain Hero, and Daario Naharis.
    “I will leave my girls with you,” her captain had said,
handing her his sword belt and its gilded wantons. “Keep them safe for me,
beloved. We would not want them making bloody mischief amongst the Yunkai’i.”
    The Shavepate was absent as well. The first thing Hizdahr
had done upon being crowned was to remove him from command of the Brazen
Beasts, replacing him with his own cousin, the plump and pasty Marghaz zo
Loraq.
It is for the best. The Green Grace says there is blood between
Loraq and Kandaq, and the Shavepate never made a secret of his disdain for my
lord husband. And Daario …
    Daario had only grown wilder since her wedding. Her peace
did not please him, her marriage pleased him less, and he had been furious at
being deceived by the Dornishmen. When Prince Quentyn told them that the other
Westerosi had come over to the Stormcrows at the command of the Tattered
Prince, only the intercession of Grey Worm and his Unsullied prevented Daario
from killing them all. The false deserters had been imprisoned safely in the
bowels of the pyramid … but Daario’s rage continued to fester.
    He will be safer as a hostage. My captain was not
made for peace
. Dany could not risk his cutting down Brown Ben Plumm,
making mock of Hizdahr before the court, provoking the Yunkai’i, or otherwise
upsetting the agreement that she had given up so much to win. Daario was war
and woe. Henceforth, she must keep him out of her bed, out of her heart, and
out of her. If he did not