"Your Grace, a thousand pardons." The old man knelt. "It's dead. Did I break your hand?"
She closed her fingers, wincing. "I don't think so."
"I had to knock it away," he started, but her bloodriders were on him before he could finish. Aggo kicked his staff away and Jhogo seized him round the shoulders, forced him to his knees, and pressed a dagger to his throat. "Khaleesi, we saw him strike you. Would you see the color of his blood?"
"Release him." Dany climbed to her feet. "Look at the bottom of his staff, blood of my blood." Ser Jorah had been shoved off his feet by the eunuch. She ran between them as arakh and longsword both came flashing from their sheaths. "Put down your steel! Stop it!"
"Your Grace?" Mormont lowered his sword only an inch. "These men attacked you."
"They were defending me." Dany snapped her hand to shake the sting from her fingers. "It was the other one, the Qartheen." When she looked around he was gone. "He was a Sorrowful Man. There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand." The brass merchant was still rolling on the ground. She went to him and helped him to his feet. "Were you stung?"
"No, good lady," he said, shaking, "or else I would be dead. But it touched me, aieeee, when it fell from the box it landed on my arm." He had soiled himself, she saw, and no wonder.
She gave him a silver for his trouble and sent him on his way before she turned back to the old man with the white beard. "Who is it that I owe my life to?"
"You owe me nothing, Your Grace. I am called Arstan, though Belwas named me Whitebeard on the voyage here." Though Jhogo had released him the old man remained on one knee. Aggo picked up his staff, turned it over, cursed softly in Dothraki, scraped the remains of the manticore off on a stone, and handed it back.
"And who is Belwas?" she asked.
The huge brown eunuch swaggered forward, sheathing his arakh. "I am Belwas. Strong Belwas they name me in the fighting pits of Meereen. Never did I lose." He slapped his belly, covered with scars. "I let each man cut me once, before I kill him. Count the cuts and you will know how many Strong Belwas has slain."
Dany had no need to count his scars; there were many, she could see at a glance. "And why are you here, Strong Belwas?"
"From Meereen I am sold to Qohor, and then to Pentos and the fat man with sweet stink in his hair. He it was who send Strong Belwas back across the sea, and old Whitebeard to serve him."
The fat man with sweet stink in his hair . . . "Illyrio?" she said. "You were sent by Magister Illyrio?"
"We were, Your Grace," old Whitebeard replied. "The Magister begs your kind indulgence for sending us in his stead, but he cannot sit a horse as he did in his youth, and sea travel upsets his digestion." Earlier he had spoken in the Valyrian of the Free Cities, but now he changed to the Common Tongue. "I regret if we caused you alarm. If truth be told, we were not certain, we expected someone more . . . more . . . "
"Regal?" Dany laughed. She had no dragon with her, and her raiment was hardly queenly. "You speak the Common Tongue well, Arstan. Are you of Westeros?"
"I am. I was born on the Dornish Marches, Your Grace. As a boy I squired for a knight of Lord Swann's household." He held the tall staff upright beside him like a lance in need of a banner. "Now I squire for Belwas."
"A bit old for such, aren't you?" Ser Jorah had shouldered his way to her side, holding the brass platter awkwardly under his arm. Belwas's hard head had left it badly bent.
"Not too old to serve my liege, Lord Mormont."
"You know me as well?"
"I saw you fight a time or two. At Lannisport where you near unhorsed the Kingslayer. And on Pyke, there as well. You do not recall, Lord Mormont?"
Ser Jorah frowned. "Your face seems familiar, but there were hundreds at Lannisport and thousands on Pyke. And I am no lord. Bear Island was taken from me. I am but a knight."
"A knight of my Queensguard." Dany took his arm. "And my true friend and good counselor." She studied Arstan's face. He had a great dignity to him, a quiet strength she liked. "Rise, Arstan Whitebeard. Be welcome, Strong Belwas. Ser Jorah you know. Ko Aggo and Ko Jhogo are blood of my blood. They crossed the red waste with me, and saw my dragons born."
"Horse boys." Belwas grinned toothily. "Belwas has killed many horse boys in the fighting pits. They jingle when they die."
Aggo's arakh leapt to his hand. "Never have I killed a fat brown man. Belwas will be the first."
"Sheath your steel, blood of my blood," said Dany, "this man comes to serve me. Belwas, you will accord all respect to my people, or you will leave my service sooner than you'd wish, and with more scars than when you came."
The gap-toothed smile faded from the giant's broad brown face, replaced by a confused scowl. Men did not often threaten Belwas, it would seem, and less so girls a third his size.
Dany gave him a smile, to take a bit of the sting from the rebuke. "Now tell me, what would Magister Illyrio have of me, that he would send you all the way from Pentos?"
"He would have dragons," said Belwas gruffly, "and the girl who makes them. He would have you."
"Belwas has the truth of us, Your Grace," said Arstan. "We were told to find you and bring you back to Pentos. The Seven Kingdoms have need of you. Robert the Usurper is dead, and the realm bleeds. When we set sail from Pentos there were four kings in the land, and no justice to be had."
Joy bloomed in her heart, but Dany kept it from her face. "I have three dragons," she said, "and more than a hundred in my khalasar, with all their goods and horses."
"it is no matter," boomed Belwas. "We take all. The fat man hires three ships for his little silverhair queen."
"It is so, Your Grace," Arstan Whitebeard said. "The great cog Saduleon is berthed at the end of the quay, and the galleys Summer Sun and Joso's Prank are anchored beyond the breakwater."
Three heads has the dragon, Dany thought, wondering. "I shall tell my people to make ready to depart at once. But the ships that bring me home must bear different names."
"As you wish," said Arstan. "What names would you prefer?"
"Vhagar," Daenerys told him. "Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned."
Chapter Sixty-four
ARYA
The heads had been dipped in tar to slow the rot. Every morning when Arya went to the well to draw fresh water for Roose Bolton's basin, she had to pass beneath them. They faced outward, so she never saw their faces, but she liked to pretend that one of them was Joffrey's. She tried to picture how his pretty face would look dipped in tar. If I was a crow I could fly down and peck off his stupid fat pouty lips.
The heads never lacked for attendants. The carrion crows wheeled about the gatehouse in raucous unkindness and quarreled upon the ramparts over every eye, screaming and cawing at each other and taking to the air whenever a sentry passed along the battlements. Sometimes the maester's ravens joined the feast as well, flapping down from the rookery on wide black wings. When the ravens came the crows would scatter, only to return the moment the larger birds were gone.
Do the ravens remember Maester Tothmure? Arya wondered. Are they sad for him? When they quork at him, do they wonder why he doesn't answer? Perhaps the dead could speak to them in some secret tongue the living could not hear.
Tothmure had been sent to the axe for dispatching birds to Casterly Rock and King's Landing the night Harrenhal had fallen, Lucan the armorer for making weapons for the Lannisters, Goodwife Harra for telling Lady Whent's household to serve them, the steward for giving Lord Tywin the keys to the treasure vault. The cook was spared (some said because he'd made the weasel soup), but stocks were hammered together for pretty Pia and the other women who'd shared their favors with Lannister soldiers. Stripped and shaved, they were left in the middle ward beside the bear pit, free for the use of any man who wanted them.
Three Frey men-at-arms were using them that morning as Arya went to the well. She tried not to look, but she could hear the men laughing. The pail was very heavy once full. She was turning to bring it back to Kingspyre when Goodwife Amabel seized her arm. The water went sloshing over the side onto Amabel's legs. "You did that on purpose," the woman screeched.
"What do you want?" Arya squirmed in her grasp. Amabel had been half-crazed since they'd cut Harra's head off.
"See there?" Arnabel pointed across the yard at Pia. "When this northman falls you'll be where she is."
"Let me go." She tried to wrench free, but Amabel only tightened her fingers.
"He will fall too, Harrenhal pulls them all down in the end. Lord Tywin's won now, he'll be marching back with all his power, and then it will be his turn to punish the disloyal. And don't think he won't know what you did!" The old woman laughed. "I may have a turn at you myself. Harra had an old broom, I'll save it for you. The handle's cracked and splintery - "
Arya swung the bucket. The weight of the water made it turn in her hands, so she didn't smash Amabel's head in as she wanted, but the woman let go of her anyway when the water came out and drenched her. "Don't ever touch me," Arya shouted, "or I'll kill you. You get away."
Sopping, Goodwife Amabel jabbed a thin finger at the flayed man on the front of Arya's tunic. "You think you're safe with that little bloody man on your teat, but you're not! The Lannisters are coming! See what happens when they get here."
Three-quarters of the water had splashed out on the ground, so Arya had to return to the well. If I told Lord Bolton what she said, her head would be up next to Harra's before it got dark, she thought as she drew up the bucket again. She wouldn't, though.
Once, when there had been only half as many heads, Gendry had caught Arya looking at them. "Admiring your work?" he asked.
He was angry because he'd liked Lucan, she knew, but it still wasn't fair. "It's Steelshanks Walton's work," she said defensively. "And the Mummers, and Lord Bolton."
"And who gave us all them? You and your weasel soup."
Arya punched his arm. "It was just hot broth. You hated Ser Amory too."
"I hate this lot worse. Ser Amory was fighting for his lord, but the Mummers are sellswords and turncloaks. Half of them can't even speak the Common Tongue. Septon Utt likes little boys, Qyburn does black magic, and your friend Biter eats people."
The worst thing was, she couldn't even say he was wrong. The Brave Companions did most of the foraging for Harrenhal, and Roose Bolton had given them the task of rooting out Lannisters. Vargo Hoat had pided them into four bands, to visit as many villages as possible. He led the largest group himself, and gave the others to his most trusted captains. She had heard Rorge laughing over Lord Vargo's way of finding traitors. All he did was return to places he had visited before under Lord Tywin's banner and seize those who had helped him. Many had been bought with Lannister silver, so the Mummers often returned with bags of coin as well as baskets of heads. "A riddle!" Shagwell would shout gleefully. "If Lord Bolton's goat eats the men who fed Lord Lannister's goat, how many goats are there?"