A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

buffeted the sellsword in his face. The white dragon landed awkwardly with one foot on the man’s head and one on his shoulder, shrieked, and flew off again. “He likes you, Ben,” said Dany.
    â€œAnd well he might.” Brown Ben laughed. “I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know.”
    â€œYou?” Dany was startled. Plumm was a creature of the free companies, an amiable mongrel. He had a broad brown face with a broken nose and a head of nappy grey hair, and his Dothraki mother had bequeathed him large, dark, almond-shaped eyes. He claimed to be part Braavosi, part Summer Islander, part Ibbenese, part Qohorik, part Dothraki, part Dornish, and part Westerosi, but this was the first she had heard of Targaryen blood. She gave him a searching look and said, “How could that be?”
    â€œWell,” said Brown Ben, “there was some old Plumm in the Sunset Kingdoms who wed a dragon princess. My grandmama told me the tale. He lived in King Aegon’s day.”
    â€œWhich King Aegon?” Dany asked. “Five Aegons have ruled in Westeros.” Her brother’s son would have been the sixth, but the Usurper’s men had dashed his head against a wall.
    â€œFive, were there? Well, that’s a confusion. I could not give you a number, my queen. This old Plumm was a lord, though, must have been a famous fellow in his day, the talk of all the land. The thing was, begging your royal pardon, he had himself a cock six foot long.”
    The three bells in Dany’s braid tinkled when she laughed. “You mean inches, I think.”
    â€œFeet,” Brown Ben said firmly. “If it was inches, who’d want to talk about it, now? Your Grace.”
    Dany giggled like a little girl. “Did your grandmother claim she’d actually seen this prodigy?”
    â€œThat the old crone never did. She was half-Ibbenese and half-Qohorik, never been to Westeros, my grandfather must have told her. Some Dothraki killed him before I was born.”
    â€œAnd where did your grandfather’s knowledge come from?”
    â€œOne of them tales told at the teat, I’d guess.” Brown Ben shrugged. “That’s all I know about Aegon the Unnumbered or old Lord Plumm’s mighty manhood, I fear. I best see to my Sons.”
    â€œGo do that,” Dany told him.
    When Brown Ben left, she lay back on her cushions. “If you were grown,” she told Drogon, scratching him between the horns, “I’d fly you over the walls and melt that harpy down to slag.” But it would be years before her dragons were large enough to ride.
And when they are, who shall ride them? The dragon has three heads, but I have only one
. She thought of Daario.
If ever there was a man who could rape a woman with his eyes
. . .
    To be sure, she was just as guilty. Dany found herself stealing looks at the Tyroshi when her captains came to council, and sometimes at night she remembered the way his gold tooth glittered when he smiled. That, and his eyes.
His bright blue eyes
. On the road from Yunkai, Daario had brought her a flower or a sprig of some plant every evening when he made his report . . . to help her learn the land, he said. Waspwillow, dusky roses, wild mint, lady’s lace, daggerleaf, broom, prickly ben, harpy’s gold . . .
He tried to spare me the sight of the dead children too
. He should not have done that, but he meant it kindly. And Daario Naharis made her laugh, which Ser Jorah never did.
    Dany tried to imagine what it would be like if she allowed Daario to kiss her, the way Jorah had kissed her on the ship. The thought was exciting and disturbing, both at once.
It is too great a risk
. The Tyroshi sellsword was not a good man, no one needed to tell her that. Under the smiles and the jests he was dangerous, even cruel. Sallor and Prendahl had woken one morning as his partners; that very night he’d given her their heads.
Khal Drogo could be cruel as well, and there was never a man more dangerous
. She had come to love him all the same.
Could I love Daario? What would it mean, if I took him into my bed? Would that make him one of the heads of the dragon
? Ser Jorah would be angry, she knew, but he was the one who’d said she had to take two husbands.
Perhaps I should marry them both and be done with it
.
    But these were foolish thoughts. She had a city to take, and dreaming of kisses and some sellsword’s bright blue eyes would not