A Game of Thrones(63)

36.DAENERYS(1)

“Viserys hates horsemeat.”
   “As you say, Khaleesi.”
   She brought back a haunch of goat and a basket of fruits and vegetables. Jhiqui roasted the meat with sweetgrass and firepods, basting it with honey as it cooked, and there were melons and pomegranates and plums and some queer eastern fruit Dany did not know. While her handmaids prepared the meal, Dany laid out the clothing she’d had made to her brother’s measure: a tunic and leggings of crisp white linen, leather sandals that laced up to the knee, a bronze medallion belt, a leather vest painted with fire-breathing dragons. The Dothraki would respect him more if he looked less a beggar, she hoped, and perhaps he would forgive her for shaming him that day in the grass. He was still her king, after all, and her brother. They were both blood of the dragon.
   She was arranging the last of his gifts, a sandsilk cloak, green as grass, with a pale grey border that would bring out the silver in his hair, when Viserys arrived, dragging Doreah by the arm. Her eye was red where he’d hit her. “How dare you send this whore to give me commands,” he said. He shoved the handmaid roughly to the carpet.
   The anger took Dany utterly by surprise. “I only wanted?.?.?.?Doreah, what did you say?”
   “Khaleesi, pardons, forgive me. I went to him, as you bid, and told him you commanded him to join you for supper.”
   “No one commands the dragon,” Viserys snarled. “I am your king! I should have sent you back her head!”
   The Lysene girl quailed, but Dany calmed her with a touch. “Don’t be afraid, he won’t hurt you. Sweet brother, please, forgive her, the girl misspoke herself, I told her to ask you to sup with me, if it pleases Your Grace.” She took him by the hand and drew him across the room. “Look. These are for you.”
   Viserys frowned suspiciously. “What is all this?”
   “New raiment. I had it made for you.” Dany smiled shyly.
   He looked at her and sneered. “Dothraki rags. Do you presume to dress me now?”
   “Please?.?.?.?you’ll be cooler and more comfortable, and I thought?.?.?.?maybe if you dressed like them, the Dothraki?.?.?.?” Dany did not know how to say it without waking his dragon.
   “Next you’ll want to braid my hair.”
   “I’d never?.?.?.?” Why was he always so cruel? She had only wanted to help. “You have no right to a braid, you have won no victories yet.”
   It was the wrong thing to say. Fury shone from his lilac eyes, yet he dared not strike her, not with her handmaids watching and the warriors of her khas outside. Viserys picked up the cloak and sniffed at it. “This stinks of manure. Perhaps I shall use it as a horse blanket.”
   “I had Doreah sew it specially for you,” she told him, wounded. “These are garments fit for a khal.”
   “I am the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, not some grass-stained savage with bells in his hair,” Viserys spat back at her. He grabbed her arm. “You forget yourself, slut. Do you think that big belly will protect you if you wake the dragon?”
   His fingers dug into her arm painfully and for an instant Dany felt like a child again, quailing in the face of his rage. She reached out with her other hand and grabbed the first thing she touched, the belt she’d hoped to give him, a heavy chain of ornate bronze medallions. She swung it with all her strength.
   It caught him full in the face. Viserys let go of her. Blood ran down his cheek where the edge of one of the medallions had sliced it open. “You are the one who forgets himself,” Dany said to him. “Didn’t you learn anything that day in the grass? Leave me now, before I summon my khas to drag you out. And pray that Khal Drogo does not hear of this, or he will cut open your belly and feed you your own entrails.”
   Viserys scrambled back to his feet. “When I come into my kingdom, you will rue this day, slut.” He walked off, holding his torn face, leaving her gifts behind him.
   Drops of his blood had spattered the beautiful sandsilk cloak. Dany clutched the soft cloth to her cheek and sat cross-legged on her sleeping mats.
   “Your supper is ready, Khaleesi,” Jhiqui announced.
   “I’m not hungry,” Dany said sadly. She was suddenly very tired. “Share the food among yourselves, and send some to Ser Jorah, if you would.” After a moment she added, “Please, bring me one of the dragon’s eggs.”
   Irri fetched the egg with the deep green shell, bronze flecks shining amid its scales as she turned it in her small hands. Dany curled up on her side, pulling the sandsilk cloak across her and cradling the egg in the hollow between her swollen belly and small, tender breasts. She liked to hold them. They were so beautiful, and sometimes just being close to them made her feel stronger, braver, as if somehow she were drawing strength from the stone dragons locked inside.
   She was lying there, holding the egg, when she felt the child move within her?.?.?.?as if he were reaching out, brother to brother, blood to blood. “You are the dragon,” Dany whispered to him, “the true dragon. I know it. I know it.” And she smiled, and went to sleep dreaming of home.