A Feast for Dragons

Barristan’s doubts. “We discussed this. You agreed it would be my way.”
    “I agreed,” the Shavepate grumbled, “but that was before
Groleo. The head. The slavers have no honor.”
    “We do,” said Ser Barristan.
    The Shavepate muttered something in Ghiscari, then said, “As
you wish. Though we will rue your old man’s honor before this game is done, I
think. What of Hizdahr’s guards?”
    “His Grace keeps two men by him when he sleeps. One on the
door of his bedchamber, a second within, in an adjoining alcove. Tonight it
will be Khrazz and Steelskin.”
    “Khrazz,” the Shavepate grumbled. “That I do not like.”
    “It need not come to blood,” Ser Barristan told him. “I mean
to talk to Hizdahr. If he understands we do not intend to kill him, he may
command his guards to yield.”
    “And if not? Hizdahr must not escape us.”
    “He will not escape.” Selmy did not fear Khrazz, much less
Steelskin. They were only pit fighters. Hizdahr’s fearsome collection of former
fighting slaves made indifferent guards at best. Speed and strength and
ferocity they had, and some skill at arms as well, but blood games were poor
training for protecting kings. In the pits their foes were announced with horns
and drums, and after the battle was done and won the victors could have their
wounds bound up and quaff some milk of the poppy for the pain, knowing that the
threat was past and they were free to drink and feast and whore until the next
fight. But the battle was never truly done for a knight of the Kingsguard. Threats
came from everywhere and nowhere, at any time of day or night. No trumpets
announced the foe: vassals, servants, friends, brothers, sons, even wives, any
of them might have knives concealed beneath their cloaks and murder hidden in
their hearts. For every hour of fighting, a Kingsguard knight spent ten
thousand hours watching, waiting, standing silent in the shadows. King
Hizdahr’s pit fighters were already growing bored and restive with their new
duties, and bored men were lax, slow to react.
    “I shall deal with Khrazz,” said Ser Barristan. “Just make
certain I do not need to deal with any Brazen Beasts as well.”
    “Have no fear. We will have Marghaz in chains before he can
make mischief. I told you, the Brazen Beasts are mine.”
    “You say you have men amongst the Yunkishmen?”
    “Sneaks and spies. Reznak has more.”
    Reznak cannot be trusted. He smells too sweet and
feels too foul
. “Someone needs to free our hostages. Unless we get our
people back, the Yunkai’i will use them against us.”
    Skahaz snorted through the noseholes of his mask. “Easy to
speak of rescue. Harder to do. Let the slavers threaten.”
    “And if they do more than threaten?”
    “Would you miss them so much, old man? A eunuch, a savage,
and a sell sword?”
    Hero, Jhogo, and Daario
. “Jhogo is the
queen’s bloodrider, blood of her blood. They came out of the Red Waste
together. Hero is Grey Worm’s second-in-command. And Daario …”
She
loves Daario
. He had seen it in her eyes when she looked at him, heard
it in her voice when she spoke of him. “… Daario is vain and rash, but he
is dear to Her Grace. He must be rescued, before his Stormcrows decide to take
matters into their own hands. It can be done. I once brought the queen’s father
safely out of Duskendale, where he was being held captive by a rebel lord,
but …”
    “… you could never hope to pass unnoticed amongst the
Yunkai’i. Every man of them knows your face by now.”
    I could hide my face, like you
, thought
Selmy, but he knew the Shavepate was right. Duskendale had been a lifetime ago.
He was too old for such heroics. “Then we must needs find some other way. Some
other rescuer. Someone known to the Yunkishmen, whose presence in their camp
might go unnoticed …”
    “Daario calls you Ser Grandfather,” Skahaz reminded him. “I will
not say what he calls me. If you and I were the hostages, would he risk his
skin for us?”
    Not likely
, he thought, but he said, “He
might.”
    “Daario might piss on us if we were burning. Elsewise do not
look to him for help. Let the Stormcrows choose another captain, one who knows
his place. If the queen does not return, the world will be one sellsword short.
Who will grieve?”
    “And when she does return?”
    “She will weep and tear her hair and curse the Yunkai’i. Not
us. No blood on our hands. You can comfort her. Tell her some tale of the old
days, she