A Feast for Dragons

other Meereenese advisors,
deciding how best to respond to Yunkai’s demands … but Barristan
Selmy was no longer a part of such councils. Nor did he have a king to guard.
Instead he made the rounds of the pyramid from top to bottom, to ascertain that
the sentries were all at their posts. That took most of the morning. He spent
that afternoon with his orphans, even took up sword and shield himself to
provide a sterner test for a few of the older lads.
    Some of them had been training for the fighting pits when
Daenerys Targaryen took Meereen and freed them from their chains. Those had had
a good acquaintance with sword and spear and battle-axe even before Ser
Barristan got hold of them. A few might well be ready.
The boy from the
Basilisk Isles, for a start. Tumco Lho
. Black as maester’s ink he was,
but fast and strong, the best natural swordsman Selmy had seen since Jaime
Lannister.
Larraq as well. The Lash
. Ser Barristan did not
approve of his fighting style, but there was no doubting his skills. Larraq had
years of work ahead of him before he mastered proper knightly weapons, sword
and lance and mace, but he was deadly with his whip and trident. The old knight
had warned him that the whip would be useless against an armored foe … until
he saw how Larraq used it, snapping it around the legs of his opponents to yank
them off their feet.
No knight as yet, but a fierce fighter
.
    Larraq and Tumco were his best. After them the Lhazarene,
the one the other boys called Red Lamb, though as yet that one was all ferocity
and no technique. Perhaps the brothers too, three lowborn Ghiscari enslaved to
pay their father’s debts.
    That made six.
Six out of twenty-seven
.
Selmy might have hoped for more, but six was a good beginning. The other boys were
younger for the most part, and more familiar with looms and plows and chamber
pots than swords and shields, but they worked hard and learned quickly. A few
years as squires, and he might have six more knights to give his queen. As for
those who would never be ready, well, not every boy was meant to be a knight.
The
realm needs candlemakers and innkeeps and armorers as well
. That was
as true in Meereen as it was in Westeros.
    As he watched them at their drills, Ser Barristan pondered
raising Tumco and Larraq to knighthood then and there, and mayhaps the Red Lamb
too. It required a knight to make a knight, and if something should go awry
tonight, dawn might find him dead or in a dungeon. Who would dub his squires
then? On the other hand, a young knight’s repute derived at least in part from
the honor of the man who conferred knighthood on him. It would do his lads no
good at all if it was known that they were given their spurs by a traitor, and
might well land them in the dungeon next to him.
They deserve better
,
Ser Barristan decided.
Better a long life as a squire than a short one
as a soiled knight
.
    As the afternoon melted into evening, he bid his charges to
lay down their swords and shields and gather round. He spoke to them about what
it meant to be a knight. “It is chivalry that makes a true knight, not a
sword,” he said. “Without honor, a knight is no more than a common killer. It
is better to die with honor than to live without it.” The boys looked at him
strangely, he thought, but one day they would understand.
    Afterward, back at the apex of the pyramid, Ser Barristan
found Missandei amongst piles of scrolls and books, reading. “Stay here
tonight, child,” he told her. “Whatever happens, whatever you see or hear, do
not leave the queen’s chambers.”
    “This one hears,” the girl said. “If she may ask—”
    “Best not.” Ser Barristan stepped out alone onto the terrace
gardens.
I am not made for this
, he reflected as he looked out
over the sprawling city. The pyramids were waking, one by one, lanterns and
torches flickering to life as shadows gathered in the streets below.
Plots,
ploys, whispers, lies, secrets within secrets, and somehow I have become part
of them
.
    Perhaps by now he should have grown used to such things. The
Red Keep had its secrets too.
Even Rhaegar
. The Prince of
Dragonstone had never trusted him as he had trusted Arthur Dayne. Harrenhal was
proof of that.
The year of the false spring
.
    The memory was still bitter. Old Lord Whent had announced
the tourney shortly after a visit from his brother, Ser Oswell Whent of the
Kingsguard. With Varys whispering in his ear, King Aerys became convinced that
his son was