A Feast for Crows

“More 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.

“How can I punish them when I do not know who they are?” Dany demanded of him. “Tell me that, bold Skahaz.”

“You 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.

“How much gold have we offered for information concerning the Sons of the Harpy?” Dany asked of Reznak.

“One hundred honors, if it please Your Radiance.”

“One thousand honors would please us more. Make it so.”

“Your 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?

“Skahaz,” she told the Shavepate, “I thank you for your counsel. Reznak, see what one thousand honors may accomplish.” Clutching her tokar, Daenerys swept past them down the broad marble stair. She took one step at a time, lest she trip over her fringe and go tumbling headfirst into court.

Missandei announced her. The little scribe had a sweet, strong voice. “All kneel for Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Shackles and Mother of Dragons,” she cried as Dany made her slow descent.

The hall had filled. Unsullied stood with their backs to the pillars, holding their shields and spears, the spikes on their caps jutting upward like a row of knives. The Meereenese had gathered beneath the eastern windows, in a throng of shaven pates and hairy horns and hands and spirals. Her freedmen stood well apart from their former masters. Until they stand together, Meereen will know no peace. “Arise.” Dany settled onto her bench. The hall rose. That at least they do as one.

Reznak mo Reznak had a list. Custom demanded that the queen begin with the Astapori envoy, a former slave who called himself Lord Ghael, though no one seemed to know what he was lord of.

Lord Ghael had a mouth of brown and rotten teeth and the pointed yellow face of a weasel. He also had a gift. “Cleon the Great sends these slippers as a token of his love for Daenerys Stormborn, the Mother of Dragons,” he announced.