A Feast for Dragons

“To spears! Vengeance for the
Viper!” By the time they reached the third gate, the guards were shoving
people aside to clear a path for the prince’s litter, and the crowd was
throwing things. One ragged boy darted past the spearmen with a half-rotten
pomegranate in one hand, but when he saw Areo Hotah in his path, with longaxe
at the ready, he let the fruit fall unthrown and beat a quick retreat. Others
farther back let fly with lemons, limes, and oranges, crying “War! War! To
the spears!” One of the guards was hit in the eye with a lemon, and the
captain himself had an orange splatter off his foot.
    No answer came from within the litter. Doran Martell stayed
cloaked within his silken walls until the thicker walls of the castle swallowed
all of them, and the portcullis came down behind them with a rattling crunch.
The sounds of shouting dwindled away slowly. Princess Arianne was waiting in
the outer ward to greet her father, with half the court about her: the old
blind seneschal Ricasso, Ser Manfrey Martell the castellan, young Maester Myles
with his grey robes and silky perfumed beard, twoscore of Dornish knights in
flowing linen of half a hundred hues. Little Myrcella Baratheon stood with her
septa and Ser Arys of the Kingsguard, sweltering in his white-enameled scales.
    Princess Arianne strode to the litter on snakeskin sandals
laced up to her thighs. Her hair was a mane of jet-black ringlets that fell to
the small of her back, and around her brow was a band of copper suns. She is
still a little thing, the captain thought. Where the Sand Snakes were tall,
Arianne took after her mother, who stood but five foot two. Yet beneath her
jeweled girdle and loose layers of flowing purple silk and yellow samite she
had a woman’s body, lush and roundly curved. “Father,” she announced as the
curtains opened, “Sunspear rejoices at your return.”
    “Yes, I heard the joy.” The prince smiled wanly and cupped
his daughter’s cheek with a reddened, swollen hand. “You look well. Captain, be
so good as to help me down from here.”
    Hotah slid his longaxe into its sling across his back and
gathered the prince into his arms, tenderly so as not to jar his swollen
joints. Even so, Doran Martell bit back a gasp of pain.
    “I have commanded the cooks to prepare a feast for this
evening,” Arianne said, “with all your favorite dishes.”
    “I fear I could not do them justice.” The prince glanced
slowly around the yard. “I do not see Tyene.”
    “She begs a private word. I sent her to the throne room to
await your coming.”
    The prince sighed. “Very well. Captain? The sooner I am done
with this, the sooner I may rest.”
    Hotah bore him up the long stone steps of the Tower of the
Sun, to the great round chamber beneath the dome, where the last light of the
afternoon was slanting down through thick windows of many-colored glass to
dapple the pale marble with diamonds of half a hundred colors. There the third
Sand Snake awaited them.
    She was sitting cross-legged on a pillow beneath the raised
dais where the high seats stood, but she rose as they entered, dressed in a
clinging gown of pale blue samite with sleeves of Myrish lace that made her
look as innocent as the Maid herself. In one hand was a piece of embroidery she
had been working on, in the other a pair of golden needles. Her hair was gold
as well, and her eyes were deep blue pools . . . and yet somehow they reminded
the captain of her father’s eyes, though Oberyn’s had been as black as night. All
of Prince Oberyn’s daughters have his viper eyes, Hotah realized suddenly. The
color does not matter.
    “Uncle,” said Tyene Sand, “I have been waiting for you.”
    “Captain, help me to the high seat.”
    There were two seats on the dais, near twin to one another,
save that one had the Martell spear inlaid in gold upon its back, whilst the
other bore the blazing Rhoynish sun that had flown from the masts of Nymeria’s
ships when first they came to Dorne. The captain placed the prince beneath the
spear and stepped away.
    “Does it hurt so much?” Lady Tyene’s voice was gentle, and
she looked as sweet as summer strawberries. Her mother had been a septa, and
Tyene had an air of almost otherworldy innocence about her. “Is there aught
that I might do to ease your pain?”
    “Say what you would and let me rest. I am weary, Tyene.”
    “I made this for you, Uncle.” Tyene unfolded the piece she’d
been embroidering. It showed her father,