A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

Astapor. A healer, a scholar, and a priest.”
    â€œYour Worship, those sly rogues betrayed your trust. It was revealed that they were scheming to restore the Good Masters to power and the people to chains. Great Cleon exposed their plots and hacked their heads off with a cleaver, and the grateful folk of Astapor have crowned him for his valor.”
    â€œNoble Ghael,” said Missandei, in the dialect of Astapor, “is this the same Cleon once owned by Grazdan mo Ullhor?”
    Her voice was guileless, yet the question plainly made the envoy anxious. “The same,” he admitted. “A great man.”
    Missandei leaned close to Dany. “He was a butcher in Grazdan’s kitchen,” the girl whispered in her ear. “It was said he could slaughter a pig faster than any man in Astapor.”
    I have given Astapor a butcher king.
Dany felt ill, but she knew she must not let the envoy see it. “I will pray that King Cleon rules well and wisely. What would he have of me?”
    Ghael rubbed his mouth. “Perhaps we should speak more privily, Your Grace?”
    â€œI have no secrets from my captains and commanders.”
    â€œAs you wish. Great Cleon bids me declare his devotion to the Mother of Dragons. Your enemies are his enemies, he says, and chief among them are the Wise Masters of Yunkai. He proposes a pact between Astapor and Meereen, against the Yunkai’i.”
    â€œI swore no harm would come to Yunkai if they released their slaves,” said Dany.
    â€œThese Yunkish dogs cannot be trusted, Your Worship. Even now they plot against you. New levies have been raised and can be seen drilling outside the city walls, warships are being built, envoys have been sent to New Ghis and Volantis in the west, to make alliances and hire sellswords. They have even dispatched riders to Vaes Dothrak to bring a
khalasar
down upon you. Great Cleon bid me tell you not to be afraid. Astapor remembers. Astapor will not forsake you. To prove his faith, Great Cleon offers to seal your alliance with a marriage.”
    â€œA marriage? To me?”
    Ghael smiled. His teeth were brown and rotten. “Great Cleon will give you many strong sons.”
    Dany found herself bereft of words, but little Missandei came to her rescue. “Did his first wife give him sons?”
    The envoy looked at her unhappily. “Great Cleon has three daughters by his first wife. Two of his newer wives are with child. But he means to put all of them aside if the Mother of Dragons will consent to wed him.”
    â€œHow noble of him,” said Dany. “I will consider all you’ve said, my lord.” She gave orders that Ghael be given chambers for the night, somewhere lower in the pyramid.
    All my victories turn to dross in my hands
, she thought.
Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror
. When word of what had befallen Astapor reached the streets, as it surely would, tens of thousands of newly freed Meereenese slaves would doubtless decide to follow her when she went west, for fear of what awaited them if they stayed . . . yet it might well be that worse would await them on the march. Even if she emptied every granary in the city and left Meereen to starve, how could she feed so many? The way before her was fraught with hardship, bloodshed, and danger. Ser Jorah had warned her of that. He’d warned her of so many things . . . he’d . . .
No, I will not think of Jorah Mormont. Let him keep a little longer
. “I shall see this trader captain,” she announced. Perhaps he would have some better tidings.
    That proved to be a forlorn hope. The master of the
Indigo Star
was Qartheen, so he wept copiously when asked about Astapor. “The city bleeds. Dead men rot unburied in the streets, each pyramid is an armed camp, and the markets have neither food nor slaves for sale. And the poor children! King Cleaver’s thugs have seized every highborn boy in Astapor to make new Unsullied for the trade, though it will be years before they are trained.”
    The thing that surprised Dany most was how unsurprised she was. She found herself remembering Eroeh, the Lhazarene girl she had once tried to protect, and what had happened to her.
It will be the same in Meereen once I march
, she thought. The slaves from the fighting pits, bred and trained to slaughter, were already proving themselves unruly and quarrelsome. They seemed to think they owned the city now, and every man and woman in