A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

resisted her at every turn. They had freed their slaves, yes . . . only to hire them back as servants at wages so meager that most could scarce afford to eat. Freedmen too old or young to be of use had been cast into the streets, along with the infirm and the crippled. And still the Great Masters gathered atop their lofty pyramids to complain of how the dragon queen had filled their noble city with hordes of unwashed beggars, thieves, and whores.
    To rule Meereen I must win the Meereenese, however much I may despise them.
“I am ready,” she told Irri.
    Reznak and Skahaz waited atop the marble steps. “Great queen,” declared Reznak mo Reznak, “you are so radiant today I fear to look on you.” The Seneschal wore a
tokar
of maroon silk with a golden fringe. A small, damp man, he smelled as if he had bathed in perfume and spoke a bastard form of High Valyrian, much corrupted and flavored with a thick Ghiscari growl.
    â€œYou are kind to say so,” Dany answered, in a purer form of the same tongue.
    â€œMy queen,” growled Skahaz mo Kandaq, of the shaven head. Ghiscari hair was dense and wiry; it had long been the fashion for the men of the Slaver Cities to tease it into horns and spikes and wings. By shaving, Skahaz had put old Meereen behind him to accept the new. His Kandaq kin had done the same after his example. Others followed, though whether from fear, fashion, or ambition, Dany could not say; shavepates, they were called. Skahaz was
the
Shavepate . . . and the vilest of traitors to the Sons of the Harpy and their ilk. “We were told about the eunuch.”
    â€œHis name was Stalwart Shield.”
    â€œMore will die, unless the murderers are punished.” Even with his shaven scalp, Skahaz had an odious face; a beetled brow, small eyes with heavy bags beneath them, a big nose dark with blackheads, oily skin that looked more yellow than the usual amber of Ghiscari. It was a blunt, brutal, angry face. She could only pray it was an honest one as well.
    â€œHow can I punish them when I do not know who they are?” Dany demanded of him. “Tell me that, bold Skahaz.”
    â€œYou have no lack of enemies, Your Grace. You can see their pyramids from your terrace. Zhak, Hazkar, Ghazeen, Merreq, Loraq, all the old slaving families. Pahl. Pahl, most of all. A house of women now. Bitter old women with a taste for blood. Women do not forget. Women do not forgive.”
    No,
Dany thought,
and the Usurper’s dogs will learn that, when I return to Westeros.
It was true that there was blood between her and the house of Pahl. Oznak zo Pahl had been Meereen’s hero until Strong Belwas slew him. His father, commander of the city watch, had died defending the gates when Joso’s Cock smashed them into splinters. His uncle had been one of the hundred sixty-three on the plaza.
    â€œHow much gold have we offered for information concerning the Sons of the Harpy?” Dany asked of Reznak.
    â€œOne hundred honors, if it please Your Radiance.”
    â€œOne thousand honors would please us more. Make it so.”
    â€œYour Grace has not asked for my counsel,” said Skahaz Shavepate, “but I say that blood must pay for blood. Take one man from each of the families I have named and kill him. The next time one of yours is slain, take two from each great house and kill them both. There will not be a third murder.”
    Reznak squealed in distress. “Noooo . . . gentle queen, such savagery would bring down the ire of the gods. We will find the murderers, I promise you, and when we do they will prove to be baseborn filth, you shall see.”
    The Seneschal was as bald as Skahaz, though in his case the gods were responsible. “Should any hair be so insolent as to appear, my barber stands with razor ready,” he had said when she raised him up. There were times when Dany wondered if that razor might not be better used on Reznak’s throat. He was a useful man, but she liked him little and trusted him less. She had not forgotten the
maegi
Mirri Maz Duur, who had repaid her kindness by murdering her sun-and-stars and unborn child.
    The Undying had told her she would be thrice betrayed. The
maegi
had been the first, Ser Jorah the second.
Will Reznak be the third, or the Shavepate, or Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?
    â€œSkahaz,” she told the Shavepate, “I thank you for your