A Feast for Dragons

that burden. Serjeant said I was too young, that I’d only waste
it all on whores and such. He let me keep the jerkin, though.” He spat. “You
don’t never want to trust a sellsword, m’lady.”
    “I have learned that much. One day I must be sure to thank
you for the lesson.”
    Brown Ben’s eyes crinkled up. “No need. I know the sort o’
thanks you have in mind.” He bowed again and moved away.
    Dany turned to gaze out over her city. Beyond her walls the
yellow tents of the Yunkai’i stood in orderly rows beside the sea, protected by
the ditches their slaves had dug for them. Two iron legions out of New Ghis,
trained and armed in the same fashion as Unsullied, were encamped across the
river to the north. Two more Ghiscari legions had made camp to the east,
choking off the road to the Khyzai Pass. The horse lines and cookfires of the
free companies lay to the south. By day thin plumes of smoke hung against the
sky like ragged grey ribbons. By night distant fires could be seen. Hard by the
bay was the abomination, the slave market at her door. She could not see it
now, with the sun set, but she knew that it was there. That just made her
angrier.
    “Ser Barristan?” she said softly.
    The white knight appeared at once. “Your Grace.”
    “How much did you hear?”
    “Enough. He was not wrong. Never trust a sellsword.”
    Or a queen
, thought Dany. “Is there some man
in the Second Sons who might be persuaded
to … remove … Brown Ben?”
    “As Daario Naharis once removed the other captains of the
Stormcrows?” The old knight looked uncomfortable. “Perhaps. I would not know,
Your Grace.”
    No
, she thought,
you are too honest
and too honorable
. “If not, the Yunkai’i employ three other
companies.”
    “Rogues and cutthroats, scum of a hundred battlefields,” Ser
Barristan warned, “with captains full as treacherous as Plumm.”
    “I am only a young girl and know little of such things, but
it seems to me that we
want
them to be treacherous. Once,
you’ll recall, I convinced the Second Sons and Stormcrows to join us.”
    “If Your Grace wishes a privy word with Gylo Rhegan or the
Tattered Prince, I could bring them up to your apartments.”
    “This is not the time. Too many eyes, too many ears. Their
absence would be noted even if you could separate them discreetly from the
Yunkai’i. We must find some quieter way of reaching out to them … not
tonight, but soon.”
    “As you command. Though I fear this is not a task for which
I am well suited. In King’s Landing work of this sort was left to Lord
Littlefinger or the Spider. We old knights are simple men, only good for
fighting.” He patted his sword hilt.
    “Our prisoners,” suggested Dany. “The Westerosi who came
over from the Windblown with the three Dornishmen. We still have them in cells,
do we not? Use them.”
    “Free them, you mean? Is that wise? They were sent here to
worm their way into your trust, so they might betray Your Grace at the first
chance.”
    “Then they failed. I do not trust them. I will never trust
them.” If truth be told, Dany was forgetting how to trust. “We can still use
them. One was a woman. Meris. Send her back, as a … a gesture of my
regard. If their captain is a clever man, he will understand.”
    “The woman is the worst of all.”
    “All the better.” Dany considered a moment. “We should sound
out the Long Lances too. And the Company of the Cat.”
    “Bloodbeard.” Ser Barristan’s frown deepened. “If it please
Your Grace, we want no part of him. Your Grace is too young to remember the
Ninepenny Kings, but this Bloodbeard is cut from the same savage cloth. There
is no honor in him, only hunger … for gold, for glory, for blood.”
    “You know more of such men than me, ser.” If Bloodbeard
might be truly the most dishonorable and greedy of the sellswords, he might be
the easiest to sway, but she was loath to go against Ser Barristan’s counsel in
such matters. “Do as you think best. But do it soon. If Hizdahr’s peace should
break, I want to be ready. I do not trust the slavers.”
I do not trust
my husband
. “They will turn on us at the first sign of weakness.”
    “The Yunkai’i grow weaker as well. The bloody flux has taken
hold amongst the Tolosi, it is said, and spread across the river to the third
Ghiscari legion.”
    The pale mare
. Daenerys sighed.
Quaithe
warned me of the pale mare’s coming. She told me of the Dornish prince as well,
the sun’s