A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

the butchers and the herdsmen too, and learn who has been gelding goats of late.” Perhaps they would be fortunate, and some frightened goatherd would confess. “Henceforth, see that no man of mine walks alone after dark, whether he has the duty or no.”
    â€œThese ones shall obey.”
    Daenerys pushed her hair back. “Find these cowards for me,” she said fiercely. “Find them, so that I might teach the Harpy’s Sons what it means to wake the dragon.”
    Grey Worm saluted her. His Unsullied closed the shroud once more, lifted the dead man onto their shoulders, and bore him from the hall. Ser Barristan Selmy remained behind. His hair was white, and there were crow’s feet at the corners of his pale blue eyes. Yet his back was still unbent, and the years had not yet robbed him of his skill at arms. “Your Grace,” he said, “I fear your eunuchs are ill-suited for the tasks you set them.”
    Dany settled on her bench and wrapped her pelt about her shoulders once again. “The Unsullied are my finest warriors.”
    â€œSoldiers, not warriors, if it please Your Grace. They were made for the battlefield, to stand shoulder to shoulder behind their shields, with their spears thrust out before them. Their training teaches them to obey, fearlessly, perfectly, without thought or hesitation . . . not to unravel secrets or ask questions.”
    â€œWould knights serve me any better?” Selmy was training knights for her, teaching the sons of slaves to fight with lance and longsword in the Westerosi fashion . . . but what good would lances do, against cowards who killed from the shadows?
    â€œNot in this,” the old man admitted. “And Your Grace has no knights, save me. It will be years before the boys are ready.”
    â€œThen who, if not Unsullied? Dothraki would be even worse.” Her
khalasar
was tiny, and largely of green boys and old men. And Dothraki fought from horseback. Mounted men were of more use in open fields and hills than in the narrow streets and alleys of the city. Beyond Meereen’s walls of many-colored brick her rule was tenuous at best. Thousands of slaves still toiled on vast estates in the hills, growing wheat and olives, herding sheep and goats, and mining salt and copper. Meereen’s storehouses still held ample supplies of grain, oil, olives, dried fruit, and salted meat, but the stores were dwindling. So Dany had dispatched her
khalasar
to subdue the hinterlands, under the command of her three bloodriders, whilst Brown Ben Plumm took his Second Sons south to guard against Yunkish incursions.
    The most crucial task of all she had entrusted to Daario Naharis, glib-tongued Daario with his gold tooth and trident beard, smiling his wicked smile through purple whiskers. Beyond the eastern hills was a range of rounded sandstone mountains, the Khyzai Pass, and Lhazar. If Daario could convince the Lhazarene to reopen the overland trade routes, grains could be brought down the river or over the hills at need . . . but the Lamb Men had no reason to love Meereen. “When the Stormcrows return from Lhazar, perhaps I can use them in the streets,” she told Ser Barristan, “but until then I have only the Unsullied.”
    Dany wondered if Daario had reached Lhazar.
Daario will not fail me . . . but if he does, I will find another way. That is what queens do. They find a way, a way that does not involve taking plows across the river.
Even famine might be preferable to sending plows across the Skahazadhan. It was known. “You must excuse me, ser,” she said. “The petitioners will soon be at my gates. I must don my floppy ears and become their queen again. Summon Reznak and the Shavepate; I’ll see them when I’m dressed.”
    â€œAs Your Grace commands.” Selmy bowed.
    The Great Pyramid shouldered eight hundred feet into the sky, from its huge square base to the lofty apex where the queen kept her private chambers, surrounded by greenery and fragrant pools. As a cool blue dawn broke over the city, Dany walked out onto the terrace. To the west sunlight blazed off the golden domes of the Temple of the Graces, and etched deep shadows behind the stepped pyramids of the mighty.
In some of those pyramids, the Sons of the Harpy are plotting new murders even now,
she thought,
and I am powerless to stop them.
Viserion sensed her disquiet. The white dragon lay coiled around a pear tree, his head resting