A Clash of Kings

“I would be glad to leave this city, if truth be told,” the knight said when she was done. “But not for Asshai.”

“Where, then?”

“East,” he said.

“I am half a world away from my kingdom even here. If I go any farther east I may never find my way home to Westeros.”

“If you go west, you risk your life.”

“House Targaryen has friends in the Free Cities,” she reminded him. “Truer friends than Xaro or the Pureborn.”

“If you mean Illyrio Mopatis, I wonder. For sufficient gold, Illyrio would sell you as quickly as he would a slave.”

“My brother and I were guests in Illyrio’s manse for half a year. If he meant to sell us, he could have done it then.”

“He did sell you,” Ser Jorah said. “To Khal Drogo.”

Dany flushed. He had the truth of it, but she did not like the sharpness with which he put it. “Illyrio protected us from the Usurper’s knives, and he believed in my brother’s cause.”

“Illyrio believes in no cause but Illyrio. Gluttons are greedy men as a rule, and magisters are devious. Illyrio Mopatis is both. What do you truly know of him?”

“I know that he gave me my dragon eggs.”

He snorted. “If he’d known they were like to hatch, he would have sat on them himself.”

That made her smile despite herself. “Oh, I have no doubt of that, ser. I know Illyrio better than you think. I was a child when I left his manse in Pentos to wed my sun-and-stars, but I was neither deaf nor blind. And I am no child now.”

“Even if Illyrio is the friend you think him,” the knight said stubbornly, “he is not powerful enough to enthrone you by himself, no more than he could your brother.”

“He is rich,” she said. “Not so rich as Xaro, perhaps, but rich enough to hire ships for me, and men as well.”

“Sellswords have their uses,” Ser Jorah admitted, “but you will not win your father’s throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil.”

“I am their rightful queen,” Dany protested.

“You are a stranger who means to land on their shores with an army of outlanders who cannot even speak the Common Tongue. The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least.”

“And how am I to do that, if I go east as you counsel?”

He ate an olive and spit out the pit into his palm. “I do not know, Your Grace,” he admitted, “but I do know that the longer you remain in one place, the easier it will be for your enemies to find you. The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much so that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?”

Drogon was curled up beneath her arm, as hot as a stone that has soaked all day in the blazing sun. Rhaegal and Viserion were fighting over a scrap of meat, buffeting each other with their wings as smoke hissed from their nostrils. My furious children , she thought. They must not come to harm. “The comet led me to Qarth for a reason. I had hoped to find my army here, but it seems that will not be. What else remains, I ask myself?” I am afraid , she realized, but I must be brave. “Come the morrow, you must go to Pyat Pree.”

TYRION

The girl never wept. Young as she was, Myrcella Baratheon was a princess born. And a Lannister, despite her name , Tyrion reminded himself, as much Jaime’s blood as Cersei’s.

To be sure, her smile was a shade tremulous when her brothers took their leave of her on the deck of the Seaswift , but the girl knew the proper words to say, and she said them with courage and dignity. When the time came to part, it was Prince Tommen who cried, and Myrcella who gave him comfort.

Tyrion looked down upon the farewells from the high deck of King Robert’s Hammer , a great war galley of four hundred oars. Rob’s Hammer , as her oarsmen called her, would form the main strength of Myrcella’s escort. Lionstar, Bold Wind , and Lady Lyanna would sail with her as well.