A Feast for Dragons

dead, this will be the song they sing of me
.
He rose abruptly. “It’s time.”
    His friends got to their feet. Ser Archibald drained the
last of his goat’s milk and wiped the milk mustache from his upper lip with the
back of a big hand. “I’ll get our mummer’s garb.”
    He returned with the bundle that they had collected from the
Tattered Prince at their second meeting. Within were three long hooded cloaks
made from myriad small squares of cloth sewn together, three cudgels, three
shortswords, three masks of polished brass. A bull, a lion, and an ape.
    Everything required to be a Brazen Beast.
    “They may ask for a word,” the Tattered Prince had warned
them when he handed over the bundle. “It’s
dog.”
    “You are certain of that?” Gerris had asked him.
    “Certain enough to wager a life upon it.”
    The prince did not mistake his meaning. “My life.”
    “That would be the one.”
    “How did you learn their word?”
    “We chanced upon some Brazen Beasts and Meris asked them
prettily. But a prince should know better than to pose such questions, Dornish.
In Pentos, we have a saying. Never ask the baker what went into the pie. Just
eat.”
    Just eat
. There was wisdom in that, Quentyn
supposed.
    “I’ll be the bull,” Arch announced.
    Quentyn handed him the bull mask. “The lion for me.”
    “Which makes a monkey out of me.” Gerris pressed the ape
mask to his face. “How do they breathe in these things?”
    “Just put it on.” The prince was in no mood for japes.
    The bundle contained a whip as well—a nasty piece of old
leather with a handle of brass and bone, stout enough to peel the hide off an
ox. “What’s that for?” Arch asked.
    “Daenerys used a whip to cow the black beast.” Quentyn
coiled the whip and hung it from his belt. “Arch, bring your hammer as well. We
may have need of it.”
    It was no easy thing to enter the Great Pyramid of Meereen
by night. The doors were closed and barred each day at sunset and remained
closed until first light. Guards were posted at every entrance, and more guards
patrolled the lowest terrace, where they could look down on the street.
Formerly those guards had been Unsullied. Now they were Brazen Beasts. And that
would make all the difference, Quentyn hoped.
    The watch changed when the sun came up, but dawn was still
half an hour off as the three Dornishmen made their way down the servants’
steps. The walls around them were made of bricks of half a hundred colors, but
the shadows turned them all to grey until touched by the light of the torch
that Gerris carried. They encountered no one on the long descent. The only
sound was the scuff of their boots on the worn bricks beneath their feet.
    The pyramid’s main gates fronted on Meereen’s central plaza,
but the Dornishmen made their way to a side entrance opening on an alley. These
were the gates that slaves had used in former days as they went about their
masters’ business, where smallfolk and tradesmen came and went and made their
deliveries.
    The doors were solid bronze, closed with a heavy iron bar.
Before them stood two Brazen Beasts, armed with cudgels, spears, and short
swords. Torchlight glimmered off the polished brass of their masks—a rat and a
fox. Quentyn gestured for the big man to stay back in the shadows. He and
Gerris strode forward together.
    “You come early,” the fox said.
    Quentyn shrugged. “We can leave again, if you like. You’re
welcome to stand our watch.” He sounded not at all Ghiscari, he knew; but half
the Brazen Beasts were freed slaves, with all manner of native tongues, so his
accent went unremarked.
    “Bugger that,” the rat remarked.
    “Give us the day’s word,” said the fox.
    “Dog,” said the Dornishman.
    The two Brazen Beasts exchanged a look. For three long
heartbeats Quentyn was afraid that something had gone amiss, that somehow Pretty
Meris and the Tattered Prince had gotten the word wrong. Then the fox grunted.
“Dog, then,” he said. “The door is yours.” As they moved off, the prince began
to breathe again.
    They did not have long. The real relief would doubtless turn
up shortly. “Arch,” he called, and the big man appeared, the torchlight shining
off his bull’s mask. “The bar. Hurry.”
    The iron bar was thick and heavy, but well oiled. Ser
Archibald had no trouble lifting it. As he was standing it on end, Quentyn
pulled the doors open and Gerris stepped through, waving the torch. “Bring it
in now. Be quick