A Feast for Dragons

sound a hornets’ nest might make an instant before
hornets all came boiling out. And on the faces in the crowd he saw anger,
grief, suspicion, fear.
    Hardly had the king’s new herald called the court to order
than the ugliness began. One woman began to wail about a brother who had died
at Daznak’s Pit, another of the damage to her palanquin. A fat man tore off his
bandages to show the court his burned arm, where the flesh was still raw and
oozing. And when a man in a blue-and-gold
tokar
began to speak
of Harghaz the Hero, a freedman behind him shoved him to the floor. It took six
Brazen Beasts to pull them apart and drag them from the hall.
Fox, hawk,
seal, locust, lion, toad
. Selmy wondered if the masks had meaning to
the men who wore them. Did the same men wear the same masks every day, or did
they choose new faces every morning?
    “Quiet!” Reznak mo Reznak was pleading. “Please! I will
answer if you will only …”
    “Is it true?” a freedwoman shouted. “Is our mother dead?”
    “No, no, no,” Reznak screeched. “Queen Daenerys will return
to Meereen in her own time in all her might and majesty. Until such time, His
Worship King Hizdahr shall—”
    “He is no king of mine,” a freedman yelled.
    Men began to shove at one another.
“The queen is not
dead,”
the seneschal proclaimed. “Her bloodriders have been dispatched
across the Skahazadhan to find Her Grace and return her to her loving lord and
loyal subjects. Each has ten picked riders, and each man has three swift
horses, so they may travel fast and far. Queen Daenerys shall be found.”
    A tall Ghiscari in a brocade robe spoke next, in a voice as
sonorous as it was cold. King Hizdahr shifted on his dragon throne, his face
stony as he did his best to appear concerned but unperturbed. Once again his
seneschal gave answer.
    Ser Barristan let Reznak’s oily words wash over him. His
years in the Kingsguard had taught him the trick of listening without hearing,
especially useful when the speaker was intent on proving that words were truly
wind. Back at the rear of the hall, he spied the Dornish princeling and his two
companions.
They should not have come. Martell does not realize his
danger. Daenerys was his only friend at this court, and she is gone
.
He wondered how much they understood of what was being said. Even he could not
always make sense of the mongrel Ghiscari tongue the slavers spoke, especially
when they were speaking fast.
    Prince Quentyn was listening intently, at least.
That
one is his father’s son
. Short and stocky, plain-faced, he seemed a
decent lad, sober, sensible, dutiful … but not the sort to make a
young girl’s heart beat faster. And Daenerys Targaryen, whatever else she might
be, was still a young girl, as she herself would claim when it pleased her to
play the innocent. Like all good queens she put her people first—else she would
never have wed Hizdahr zo Loraq—but the girl in her still yearned for poetry,
passion, and laughter.
She wants fire, and Dorne sent her mud
.
    You could make a poultice out of mud to cool a fever. You
could plant seeds in mud and grow a crop to feed your children. Mud would
nourish you, where fire would only consume you, but fools and children and
young girls would choose fire every time.
    Behind the prince, Ser Gerris Drinkwater was whispering
something to Yronwood. Ser Gerris was all his prince was not: tall and lean and
comely, with a swordsman’s grace and a courtier’s wit. Selmy did not doubt that
many a Dornish maiden had run her fingers through that sun-streaked hair and
kissed that teasing smile off his lips.
If this one had been the prince,
things might have gone elsewise
, he could not help but
think … but there was something a bit too pleasant about Drinkwater
for his taste.
False coin
, the old knight thought. He had known
such men before.
    Whatever he was whispering must have been amusing, for his
big bald friend gave a sudden snort of laughter, loud enough so that the king
himself turned his head toward the Dornishmen. When he saw the prince, Hizdahr
zo Loraq frowned.
    Ser Barristan did not like that frown. And when the king
beckoned his cousin Marghaz closer, leaned down, and whispered in his ear, he
liked that even less.
    I swore no oath to Dorne
, Ser Barristan told
himself. But Lewyn Martell had been his Sworn Brother, back in the days when
the bonds between the Kingsguard still went deep.
I could not help
Prince Lewyn on the Trident, but I can help