A Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle

who mounts the world,”
Drogo whispered hoarsely. His hands still smelled of horse blood. He bit at her throat, hard, in the moment of his pleasure, and when he lifted her off, his seed filled her and trickled down the inside of her thighs. Only then was Doreah permitted to drape her in the scented sandsilk, and Irri to fit soft slippers to her feet.
    Khal Drogo laced himself up and spoke a command,and horses were brought to the lakeshore. Cohollo had the honor of helping the
khaleesi
onto her silver. Drogo spurred his stallion, and set off down the godsway beneath the moon and stars. On her silver, Dany easily kept pace.
    The silk tenting that roofed Khal Drogo’s hall had been rolled up tonight, and the moon followed them inside. Flames leapt ten feet in the air from three huge stone-lined firepits. The air was thick with the smells of roasting meat and curdled, fermented mare’s milk. The hall was crowded and noisy when they entered, the cushions packed with those whose rank and name were not sufficient to allow them at the ceremony. As Dany rode beneath the arched entry and up the center aisle, every eye was on her. The Dothraki screamed out comments on her belly and her breasts, hailing the life within her. She could not understand all they shouted, but one phrase came clear.
“The stallion that mounts the world,”
she heard, bellowed in a thousand voices.
    The sounds of drums and horns swirled up into the night. Half-clothed women spun and danced on the low tables, amid joints of meat and platters piled high with plums and dates and pomegranates. Many of the men were drunk on clotted mare’s milk, yet Dany knew no
arakhs
would clash tonight, not here in the sacred city, where blades and bloodshed were forbidden.
    Khal Drogo dismounted and took his place on the high bench. Khal Jommo and Khal Ogo, who had been in Vaes Dothrak with their
khalasars
when they arrived, were given seats of high honor to Drogo’s right and left. The bloodriders of the three
khals
sat below them, and farther down Khal Jommo’s four wives.
    Dany climbed off her silver and gave the reins to one of the slaves. As Doreah and Irri arranged her cushions, she searched for her brother. Even across the length of the crowded hall, Viserys should have been conspicuous with his pale skin, silvery hair, and beggar’s rags, but she did not see him anywhere.
    Her glance roamed the crowded tables near the walls, where men whose braids were even shorter than their manhoods sat on frayed rugs and flat cushions around the low tables, but all the faces she saw had black eyes and copper skin. She spied Ser Jorah Mormont near the centerof the hall, close to the middle firepit. It was a place of respect, if not high honor; the Dothraki esteemed the knight’s prowess with a sword. Dany sent Jhiqui to bring him to her table. Mormont came at once, and went to one knee before her.
“Khaleesi,”
he said, “I am yours to command.”
    She patted the stuffed horsehide cushion beside her. “Sit and talk with me.”
    â€œYou honor me.” The knight seated himself cross-legged on the cushion. A slave knelt before him, offering a wooden platter full of ripe figs. Ser Jorah took one and bit it in half.
    â€œWhere is my brother?” Dany asked. “He ought to have come by now, for the feast.”
    â€œI saw His Grace this morning,” he told her. “He told me he was going to the Western Market, in search of wine.”
    â€œWine?” Dany said doubtfully. Viserys could not abide the taste of the fermented mare’s milk the Dothraki drank, she knew that, and he was oft at the bazaars these days, drinking with the traders who came in the great caravans from east and west. He seemed to find their company more congenial than hers.
    â€œWine,” Ser Jorah confirmed, “and he has some thought to recruit men for his army from the sellswords who guard the caravans.” A serving girl laid a blood pie in front of him, and he attacked it with both hands.
    â€œIs that wise?” she asked. “He has no gold to pay soldiers. What if he’s betrayed?” Caravan guards were seldom troubled much by thoughts of honor, and the Usurper in King’s Landing would pay well for her brother’s head. “You ought to have gone with him, to keep him safe. You are his sworn sword.”
    â€œWe are in Vaes Dothrak,” he reminded her. “No one may carry a blade here