A Feast for Dragons

hidden. “Only
royal blood can wash out my father’s murder.”
    “Oberyn died during single combat, fighting in a matter that
was none of his concern. I do not call that murder.”
    “Call it what you will. We sent them the finest man in
Dorne, and they are sending back a bag of bones.”
    “He went beyond anything I asked of him. ‘Take the measure
of this boy king and his council, and make note of their strengths and
weaknesses,’ I told him, on the terrace. We were eating oranges. ‘Find us
friends, if there are any to be found. Learn what you can of Elia’s end, but
see that you do not provoke Lord Tywin unduly,’ those were my words to him.
Oberyn laughed, and said, ‘When have I provoked any man . . . unduly? You would do better to warn the Lannisters against provoking me.’ He wanted
justice for Elia, but he would not wait—”
    “He waited ten-and-seven years,” the Lady Nym broke in.
“Were it you they’d killed, my father would have led his banners north before
your corpse was cold. Were it you, the spears would be falling thick as rain
upon the marches now.”
    “I do not doubt it.”
    “No more should you doubt this, my prince—my sisters and I
shall not wait ten-and-seven years for our vengeance.” She put her spurs
into the mare and she was off, galloping toward Sunspear with her tail in hot
pursuit.
    The prince leaned back against his pillows and closed his
eyes, but Hotah knew he did not sleep. He is in pain. For a moment he
considered calling Maester Caleotte up to the litter, but if Prince Doran had
wanted him, he would have called himself.
    The shadows of the afternoon were long and dark and the sun
was as red and swollen as the prince’s joints before they glimpsed the towers
of Sunspear to the east. First the slender Spear Tower, a hundred-and-a-half
feet tall and crowned with a spear of gilded steel that added another thirty
feet to its height; then the mighty Tower of the Sun, with its dome of gold and
leaded glass; last the dun-colored Sandship, looking like some monstrous
dromond that had washed ashore and turned to stone.
    Only three leagues of coast road divided Sunspear from the
Water
Gardens
,
yet they were two different worlds. There children frolicked naked in the sun,
music played in tiled courtyards, and the air was sharp with the smell of
lemons and blood oranges. Here the air smelled of dust, sweat, and smoke, and
the nights were alive with the babble of voices. In place of the pink marble of
the
Water
Gardens
, Sunspear was
built from mud and straw, and colored brown and dun. The ancient stronghold of
House Martell stood at the easternmost end of a little jut of stone and sand,
surrounded on three sides by the sea. To the west, in the shadows of Sunspear’s
massive walls, mud-brick shops and windowless hovels clung to the castle like
barnacles to a galley’s hull. Stables and inns and winesinks and pillow houses
had grown up west of those, many enclosed by walls of their own, and yet more
hovels had risen beneath those walls. And so and so and so, as the
bearded priests would say. Compared to Tyrosh or Myr or Great Norvos, the
shadow city was no more than a town, yet it was the nearest thing to a true
city that these Dornish had.
    Lady Nym’s arrival had preceded theirs by some hours, and no
doubt she had warned the guards of their coming, for the Threefold Gate was
open when they reached it. Only here were the gates lined up one behind the other
to allow visitors to pass beneath all three of the Winding Walls directly to
the
Old
Palace
, without first
making their way through miles of narrow alleys, hidden courts, and noisy
bazaars.
    Prince Doran had closed the draperies of his litter as soon as
the
Spear
Tower
came in sight, yet
still the smallfolk shouted out to him as the litter passed. The Sand Snakes
have stirred them to a boil, the captain thought uneasily. They crossed the
squalor of the outer crescent and went through the second gate. Beyond, the
wind stank of tar and salt water and rotting seaweed, and the crowd grew
thicker with every step. “Make way for Prince Doran!” Areo Hotah boomed
out, thumping the butt of his longaxe on the bricks. “Make way for the
Prince of Dorne!”
    “The prince is dead!” a woman shrilled behind him.
    “To spears!” a man bellowed from a balcony.
    “Doran!” called some highborn voice. “To the spears!”
    Hotah gave up looking for the speakers; the press was too
thick, and a third of them were shouting.