A Feast for Dragons

was too much for
even the boldest of them. And the Blue Graces had never come, though he’d sent
for them four times. Perhaps the last of them had been carried off by the pale
mare by now.
    The tiny Naathi scribe looked up at his approach. “Honored
ser. The prince is beyond pain now. His Dornish gods have taken him home. See?
He smiles.”
    How can you tell? He has no lips
. It would
have been kinder if the dragons had devoured him. That at least would have been
quick. This … 
Fire is a hideous way to die. Small wonder half
the hells are made of flame
. “Cover him.”
    Missandei pulled the coverlet over the prince’s face. “What
will be done with him, ser? He is so very far from home.”
    “I’ll see that he’s returned to Dorne.”
But how? As
ashes?
That would require more fire, and Ser Barristan could not
stomach that.
We’ll need to strip the flesh from his bones. Beetles, not
boiling
. The silent sisters would have seen to it at home, but this
was Slaver’s Bay. The nearest silent sister was ten thousand leagues away. “You
should go sleep now, child. In your own bed.”
    “If this one may be so bold, ser, you should do the same.
You do not sleep the whole night through.”
    Not for many years, child. Not since the Trident
.
Grand Maester Pycelle had once told him that old men do not need as much sleep
as the young, but it was more than that. He had reached that age when he was
loath to close his eyes, for fear that he might never open them again. Other
men might wish to die in bed asleep, but that was no death for a knight of the
Kingsguard.
    “The nights are too long,” he told Missandei, “and there is much
and more to do, always. Here, as in the Seven Kingdoms. But you have done
enough for now, child. Go and rest.”
And if the gods are good, you will
not dream of dragons
.
    After the girl was gone, the old knight peeled back the
coverlet for one last look at Quentyn Martell’s face, or what remained of it.
So much of the prince’s flesh had sloughed away that he could see the skull
beneath. His eyes were pools of pus.
He should have stayed in Dorne. He
should have
stayed a frog. Not all men are meant to dance with
dragons
. As he covered the boy once more, he found himself wondering
whether there would be anyone to cover his queen, or whether her own corpse
would lie unmourned amongst the tall grasses of the Dothraki sea, staring
blindly at the sky until her flesh fell from her bones.
    “No,” he said aloud. “Daenerys is not dead. She was riding
that dragon. I saw it with mine own two eyes.” He had said the same a hundred
times before … but every day that passed made it harder to believe.
Her
hair was afire. I saw that too. She was burning … and if I did not
see her fall, hundreds swear they did
.
    Day had crept upon the city. Though the rain still fell, a
vague light suffused the eastern sky. And with the sun arrived the Shavepate.
Skahaz was clad in his familiar garb of pleated black skirt, greaves, and
muscled breastplate. The brazen mask beneath his arm was new—a wolf’s head with
lolling tongue. “So,” he said, by way of greeting, “the fool is dead, is he?”
    “Prince Quentyn died just before first light.” Selmy was not
surprised that Skahaz knew. Word traveled quickly within the pyramid. “Is the
council assembled?”
    “They await the Hand’s pleasure below.”
    I am no Hand
, a part of him wanted to cry
out.
I am only a simple knight, the queen’s protector. I never wanted
this
. But with the queen gone and the king in chains, someone had to
rule, and Ser Barristan did not trust the Shavepate. “Has there been any word
from the Green Grace?”
    “She is not yet returned to the city.” Skahaz had opposed
sending the priestess. Nor had Galazza Galare herself embraced the task. She
would go, she allowed, for the sake of peace, but Hizdahr zo Loraq was better
suited to treat with the Wise Masters. But Ser Barristan did not yield easily,
and finally the Green Grace had bowed her head and sworn to do her best.
    “How stands the city?” Selmy asked the Shavepate now.
    “All the gates are closed and barred, as you commanded. We
are hunting down any sellswords or Yunkai’i left inside the city and expelling
or arresting those we catch. Most seem to have gone to ground. Inside the
pyramids, beyond a doubt. The Unsullied man the walls and towers, ready for any
assault. There are two hundred highborn gathered in the square, standing in the
rain in