Author's Note: My sincere thanks to all of you who have left such kind and encouraging reviews.
To the Guest reviewer who left reviews on 18 June, it is not that I am unaware of 'A Song of Ice and Fire', but this story is a fix-it based on the abysmal end to the television series, and must therefore follow its canon. Unfortunately, its canon includes a Rhaegar Targaryen who is a selfish, thoughtless git who set aside Elia Martell and their innocent little children, and who didn't have the sense to set the record straight when a rebellion was being waged against his family because he was believed to be a kidnapper and a rapist. It also includes a Lyanna Stark who couldn't be bothered to leave her family a note when she ran off with Rhaegar, to make sure that they didn't commit treason and get themselves killed, and who saw fit to usurp poor little Prince Aegon's name.
Author's Note II: I will be updating the previous chapters to include all eight Sand Snakes.
V
"Birds." Little Sam raises his head from his mother's breast, his eyes wide as he gazes at the sky, and the shapes in the distance.
It is the first word the toddler has spoken in days, and though it is softly spoken, it is enough to attract the attention of the people around him. A few heads turn in his direction, their eyes following the tiny, stubby finger, squinting against the morning sun, but most of the people are still, months of hard travel and scant food leaving them weak and listless, scarcely aware of anything that is happening around them. Gilly does not move, even to restrain her son, who is more alert than he has been in days, and who is beginning to squirm.
"Birds, Mama," Little Sam repeats, tugging insistently at her sleeve when she does not respond.
Gilly's face is drawn and pale, her skin blotchy and her lips chapped and bloody. She huddles on the deck, her back resting against the mast. Her cloak is worn, dirty and stiff with sea spray. She keeps it wrapped as tightly around her as she did when she was in the North, though it is warmer by far at sea, its long folds covering the rust-coloured stains on the skirt of her dress. Even for her son, she cannot muster a smile. To appease him, she turns her head slightly, in the direction he is pointing, but her eyes, clouded by pain, exhaustion and grief, take in nothing, nor can she find the strength to pretend. She makes no protest when the child is plucked from her lap.
"Why don't I take him for a bit, love, give you a rest?" Sam suggests, balancing his small namesake on his hip. Gilly makes a soft noise that he takes for assent, burrowing herself even further into the folds of her cloak.
"Mama?" A frown creases Little Sam's face when she doesn't respond.
Sam carries the child away in haste, his heart aching at how light a burden he is.
Before they left Castle Cerwyn, they raided the larder and granaries to provision themselves for the long journey to White Harbour, and then the voyage to Meereen. There was little enough there to sustain two hundred people. Lord Cerwyn was diligent in following Lady Sansa's order to send the vast bulk of his grain store to Winterfell, where it burned when the great castle did. Some of the women ground what grain was left to bake hard biscuits, food that would keep better than any other on a long journey, and they found salt meat in the larder, and hay and some oats in the stables to sustain the horses. Jon had hoped that they would be able to supplement their meagre rations by hunting, but they had little luck as they made their slow progress across the snow-covered land.
Even Ghost grew leaner as they travelled, his coat and eyes turning dull. Instead of running ahead of their party, alert to any threat, he trotted next to Jon's horse, both animals slowed by exhaustion and hunger.
Most nights, they slept out in the open, erecting crude shelters from blankets and tree boughs in an attempt to shield themselves from the worst of the snow, but on the few nights when they were able to take shelter in abandoned villages, there was always little, if anything, by way of provisions left behind. They counted themselves blessed if they were able to find a blanket or cloak, knowing that cold would kill them even more quickly in their weakened state. Food was always the first thing the people took when they fled their homes in search of safety.
Most of the members of their party would gladly have gone without in order to ensure that the children could be well-fed, and Sam hated being the one to advise Jon against allowing it. He would have liked to be able to put the children first, his instincts screaming at him to safeguard the most innocent and vulnerable among them, whatever the cost, but he knew that they could ill afford for the adults to grow so weak that they would not be able to continue the journey or to fend off an attack should any of the White Walkers find them.
If that happened, the children would surely freeze to death, or worse.
Sam accepted his ration along with everybody else, but secretly shared his portion with Little Sam and with Gilly, reasoning that the extra meat on his bones would allow him to last longer than a slender man, even on reduced rations. He could remember Allister Thorne's cruel voice suggesting that a party of rangers could have eaten for a fortnight on him, and still been able to use his bones for soup, and could remember his terrified certainty that, given half a chance, Thorne would gladly have butchered him to feed the brothers he deemed worthier of wearing the black. He took a grim satisfaction from the thought that the weight he carried, the weight that led Thorne to scorn him as worse than useless and his own father to despise him so much that he would choose to see him dead rather than have his fellow lords mock him or, worse still, pity him for having a fat, soft craven as his heir, could help to sustain him, and allow him to provide his family with a little extra food.
Even so, it wasn't enough.
It wasn't enough to keep Little Sam from growing thinner and weaker, until, like the other children, he lacked the energy to run and play, and spent his days lying in the back of a wagon, then on the deck of the ship, stiller and quieter than any child should ever be, no longer clamouring for songs or stories or games to help pass the time.
It wasn't enough to keep Gilly from losing their babe.
"Mama is tired. She needs to have a rest. Why don't you show me what you were looking at?"
Little Sam spends a few moments looking back at his mother, too young to know the reason for her sorrow, too young to understand that the change in her is no fault of his and that she loves him as dearly as she ever did, even if she does not have the energy or the will to play with him, sing to him or tell him stories as she usually does.
"Mama sad."
"Yes, she is," Sam agrees, wishing with all his heart that he could do more for her. He spent far more of his brief time in the Citadel scrubbing soiled bed pans and serving meals to the Maesters in the refectory than he did in practicing the art of healing. Lord Commander Mormont's son was the only patient he treated directly, and though he succeeded in treating his greyscale, his success was not rewarded with further training in the medical arts. Instead, he was condemned to copying manuscripts, and it was only by sheer chance that he happened upon any information of note. He had had to let a few of the matrons take charge of Gilly when the babe began to come away, so many months before its time that they all knew that they could hold out no hope it would live. Even if he had had access to the books in the Citadel's great library, he had no medicines to give her to heal her body or her heart. "You and I will need to take very good care of her. Will you help me?" Little Sam nods, looking so grave that it breaks Sam's heart to see it. "Now what was it that you were looking at?"
Little Sam's enthusiasm seems to have died, but he points anyway. "Birds."
For as long as he can remember, Sam has not been able to see as well as other men. When his father's Master at Arms forced him to drill with bow and arrow, he often had trouble making out the bull's eye and if he stood too far away, even the outline of the target was blurred. Sometimes, it even looked as though there were two targets, overlapping one another by a couple of handspans, and he never knew which of them he should be aiming at. When he dared to say as much, the man cuffed him soundly for seeking to make excuses for his poor performance, and forced him to spend additional hours practicing, for all the good it did him. On more than one occasion, his father scoffed that, not content with being a fat craven, he was determined to crown their House's shame by making himself blind spending his days poring over books. Even his mother, whose love was the only thing to make his childhood bearable, gently chided him for spending so much of his time in the gloomy library at Horn Hill, fretting that too many hours of reading in the dim light would strain his eyes.
He can make out the shapes in the distance, but cannot hazard a guess as to what kind of bird Little Sam spotted. For the sake of the child in his arms, he feigns interest and delight in the sight, spending a couple of minutes observing the birds to appease him. Even if he cannot tell what kind of bird it is, he takes comfort in the certainty that their presence must surely mean that they are not far from land.
As he watches, it strikes him that the movement of the birds is different somehow. He squints, resettling Little Sam so he can hold him in one arm and using his free hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he observes the pattern of their flight. He lets out an involuntary squeak, planting a quick kiss on Little Sam's pale cheek before hastening along the deck in search of Jon.
He finds Jon in the tiny cabin where he spends most of his time, when he is not discussing their progress with Ser Davos and the Manderley men, or going out among the people to show them that their King is there to care for them and to protect them. He takes all of his meals in the privacy of his cabin, though Sam knows well that he refuses to consider taking a crumb more than his fair share of the rations. He suspects that this voyage, where Jon is of little use as a sailor and not needed as King or commander, has given his friend his first chance to grieve over his lost brother and sister, and to come to terms with his defeat at the hands of the Night King. There is little else he can do until they reach Meereen, and can approach Daenerys Targaryen for her help.
The cabin is furnished with a narrow bunk set against one of the bulkheads, and a ledge that serves as a table. It is tiny and spare compared to the chambers that a King should occupy, even compared to the austere rooms Jon occupied as Lord Commander, but privacy and a bed are luxuries afforded to only a few of the passengers. Most of them must find a spot on the crowded deck by day, or in the belly of the ship by night.
Jon has a map in front of him when Sam enters but he is staring at it without actually seeing it. His eyes are dull, his brow creased in the frown he has worn since before the Night King defeated him. He glances up when Sam enters, irritated by the interruption, but manages a faint smile when he sees Little Sam.
"What is it?"
"You have to come and see!" Sam insists. Once Jon gets to his feet, he begins to push him out of the cabin, hustling him ahead of him, before they're gone. Once he reaches the spot where Little Sam saw them, he points. "There."
No bird moves as these creatures do. Even with his poor eyesight, Sam can see them dipping and soaring, can see the long tails that no bird that he knows of could boast. Behind them, a city rises, as if from the ocean.
"Birds."
"They're not birds," Sam tells the child in his arms. "They're dragons."
"No," Jon corrects him. For the first time in far too long, his eyes are shining and his smile is wide and genuine. "They're hope."
"I say we toss them back into the sea."
"We can't do that."
"Off the walls of the city, then."
"That's not funny."
Daario scowls at Jorah's reproachful tone. "Do you think that I'm joking? You weren't here when Quaithe showed her what would happen. You didn't see how much it hurt her. She didn't just see it, she lived it. It was months for her, months of fighting and horror and loss that ended with somebody she loved driving a dagger into her heart. The coward took advantage of her trust and murdered her as soon as her guard was down. She thought that she was a monster, no matter how many times we told her that she wasn't. She barely ate or slept. She woke up screaming at night. She's been happier since you came back, and she's making peace with her choice. I don't want to see her lose that because these damned bastards have decided to show up. There's a big world out there. What right have they to come to her corner of it? They've taken too much from her already."
"They haven't done anything to her, not in this time." Jorah defends, albeit half-heartedly, no happier with the actions that the people of his homeland would have taken against his Khaleesi, or with their decision to impose their presence on her, than Daario is. He chooses not to point out that what Daario terms Daenerys' corner of the world is far from small, and set to expand. Were he a betting man, he would wager every coin he possesses that, before she is ten years older, all of Essos will look to Daenerys as their ruler.
At least Jorah knows that, in that other time, he would have died protecting the woman he loves.
Daario would be lying if he claimed not to be offended and hurt that, on Tyrion Lannister's advice, Daenerys would have left him behind in Meereen while she sailed to Westeros to claim her father's throne. He likes to think that, once he learned of her fate, he would have seen to it that Westeros suffered for it, and that the man who killed her died at the end of his blade, but only after he made certain that he was given ample cause to regret that he ever harmed a hair on her head. Alas, he is sure that by the time the news reached him, Grey Worm and the Dothraki would have taken care of it, assuming that Drogon did not beat them to it.
"Only because she knew better than to give them another chance to bring her down."
"They will never have that chance. You, and I, and hundreds of thousands of others, stand with her. But we can't shield her from everything in this world that might cause her pain, and she wouldn't be the woman we love if she let us try. It is for her to decide what is to become of the people from the North, not us."
"And if she decides that she wants them thrown out of her city? Or into the Bay of Dragons?"
Jorah chuckles grimly. "Then we will have to hope that the Dothraki and the Unsullied are willing to spare a few of them for us."
The city of Meereen is like nothing Jon has ever seen before.
Its immense sandstone walls dwarf those of any castle or keep in Westeros, save the Wall itself, but where the Wall is grim and austere, its builders concerned only with its size, it is clear at first glance that the walls of Meereen were constructed with an eye to beauty as well as defence. The sandstone glows in the sunlight, and intricate patterns are carved in the walls. The gates stretch close to a hundred feet high, flanked on either side by giant statues of winged creatures standing sentinel. Even with the gates opened less than a quarter-way, he estimates that the gap between them is wide enough for a dozen wagons to pass through it, side by side.
Jon doubts that King's Landing is half as defensible as this city.
There are soldiers in dark leather tunics and helms, armed with shields and spears, stationed at the gate but they make no attempt to keep Jon and his party from entering the city.
He supposes that the soldiers are unlikely to deem them a threat worth stopping, not in their current state.
It is not far from the port where their ship is docked to the city, but perhaps it is the knowledge that this is to be the last leg of their journey that has led his people to give in to their fatigue rather than fighting it as they did during the long weeks it took them to travel from Castle Cerwyn to White Harbour. In the North, they knew that if they gave in to their need to rest, if they allowed themselves to stop when they had no shelter, they would surely freeze to death, and while they were at sea, they needed every able-bodied man to assist the few experienced sailors in keeping them moving. Now, without desperation and determination to lend them strength, their steps are sluggish, and their breath comes in ragged gasps as they walk, at a slower pace than he would like to set. Every member of their party, man or woman, old or young, highborn or smallfolk, travels on foot now; those horses still alive when they reached White Harbour had to be left behind, as they had no space on the ship for them, and no provisions to sustain them. Jon gave orders that they be killed, to spare them a slow death by starvation.
Or perhaps it is the heat.
It is difficult for him to believe that, while Westeros is in the grip of winter, one the Maesters predicted will be the longest and harshest in living memory, when it was so cold in Winterfell, and Castle Cerwyn, and White Harbour that they were never able to get warm, even with fires burning in the great hearths, and when they risked losing hands and feet to the cold, this land is bathed in sunshine, baking and blistering skins more accustomed to being nipped by frost. Their clothes are little better than rags, worn and soiled after nearly three moons of travel by land and sea, but even so, the thick wool of their shabby garments, woven for a Northern winter, is stifling.
Ghost stays close to him, as always, whining miserably in the heat, his tail drooping. He allows Jon to pat his head and looks up at him with reproachful eyes, as if to ask why he has taken him away from the snowy North, his natural home, to this land of warmth and sunshine.
Their group attracts some curious, pitying looks as they enter the city, and Jon can see fingers pointed at them, though he cannot understand a word they are saying.
"Do you speak their language?" He addresses the question to Davos and Sam, reasoning that they are the most likely to be able to understand what is being said; Davos is widely travelled, and has sailed to some of the Free Cities many times, though he has not been to Meereen itself, while Sam's scholarly leanings have given him a broader education than most sons of a noble house. Ned Stark saw to it that Jon was given the same lessons as Robb, despite his wife's ill-concealed disapproval and her muttered predictions that no good would come of allowing a bastard the education of a future Lord, but the lessons that Maester Luwin gave them did not extend to any of the languages of Essos. Septa Mordane likewise saw no need for the young ladies in her charge to learn any language other than the Common Tongue.
A fresh wave of grief washes over him as he remembers how Arya clamoured to learn Valyrian when she was a little girl of five or six, wanting to be able to speak the same language as Visenya Targaryen.
"'Fraid not, Your Grace."
"I don't, sorry." After a moment, a concerned frown furrows Sam's brow. "Do you think that Daenerys speaks... surely she must speak the Common Tongue, right?"
"What else would she speak?"
Sam quails a little at Jon's impatient demand, but doesn't back down. "She hasn't been to Westeros since she was a tiny baby. The Targaryens' mother tongue is High Valyrian, so her brother probably taught her to speak it, and I know that they speak Valyrian in the Free Cities, where she grew up, so..."
"So we have come all this way to see her and you're telling me that she might not be able to understand a word I'm saying?"
"Let's not borrow trouble," Davos cuts in. "If it comes to it, she's bound to have someone with her who speaks our language."
"Lord Commander Mormont's son served her before he got sick," Sam interjects. "He said that he was going to return to her after he got better. If he has made it back to her, he can translate for us."
What little Jon knows of Mormont's son from Ned Stark and from Mormont himself, is not flattering. Ned Stark was disgusted with both the man's crime and his flight from justice, while Mormont considered his son to have disgraced his House. Both would undoubtedly have an even poorer opinion of him if they knew that he had pledged himself to the service of a Targaryen during his time in exile, and that he had intended to help her take the Iron Throne. However, he takes some comfort in knowing that Daenerys numbers a Northerner among her advisors, somebody who, despite his past sins, must understand the threat that all of Westeros faces, and the need for her to help fight it. Mormont's son must urge her to send her forces to Westeros, for the sake of his father's memory and the Night's Watch he dedicated himself to, if nothing else.
"How many people do you think live here?"
He hears Sansa's voice and turns to see that she has caught up with them.
While most of the women and girls of their party wear their hair in braids, or tucked under a scarf, or even cut it short to save trouble as they travel, Sansa's long hair is loose, half-obscuring the right side of her face.
Had Maester Wolkan survived, and had they been able to take the time to treat her before their flight to Castle Cerwyn, he might have been able to clean and stitch Sansa's wounds, anointing them with one of his concoctions to ensure that they healed well, and that if there was any scarring, it would be so faint as to be all but invisible. Without proper treatment, the long, deep scratches on her face and neck festered, and even when they healed, they left livid, bumpy scars. The left side of her face was almost entirely untouched, but the right was marred by mottled, jagged slashes through smooth, pale skin.
Every time he sees them, Jon feels fresh guilt for his failure. Ned Stark loved him like a son, sacrificed his honour and reputation, lied to his dearest friend and the King he swore fealty to, and almost destroyed his chance for a happy marriage with Lady Catelyn in order to protect him. The least he owed the man who, though he was his uncle in blood, was his father in all ways that mattered, was to protect his children, and he could not do even this much.
He stayed with the Night's Watch rather than fight by Robb's side.
He couldn't reach Rickon quickly enough to shield him from Ramsey's arrow.
Bran and Arya were casualties of his failed attempt to fight against the Night King.
Even Sansa, the only one he has managed to keep alive, he has not been able to keep out of harm's way.
It is a cruel joke that he should have made it through the battle with scarcely a scratch to show for it, while his sister, who should have been protected from the fighting, will carry its scars for the rest of her life.
"Hard to say, milady," Davos says in answer to her question. "Hundreds of thousands, at the very least. It's at least as big as King's Landing, though not as crowded, as near as I can tell. Smells a damn sight better too."
"That's not difficult," Sansa points out, grimacing at the memory of her time in the capital that had so failed to live up to her girlhood dreams. She rarely speaks of it to Jon, but when she does, it is clear that it was not just her imprisonment at the hands of the Lannisters that made King's Landing an unpleasant memory for her.
Their walk through the city brings them to a noisy, bustling marketplace, the street lined with rows of stalls laden with wares of every kind, and the air full of aromas of cooking and baking
Some of the children begin to cry at the sight and smell of the food, pleading with their parents or guardians for something to eat, and Jon feels like crying himself. He has grown accustomed to travelling on a near-empty stomach, and thought that he had learned to master his hunger, but the rich, appetising scents around him make his stomach growl and cramp with hunger, until it feels as if the pain will rob him of breath. His own hunger hurts less than the knowledge that his people, who look to him to protect and sustain them, are starving and he cannot alleviate their hunger. He has no coin to buy food, and though Longclaw would undoubtedly command a handsome price from any man of means with a taste for fine blades, he knows that he cannot afford to part with one of their few weapons capable of killing White Walkers.
The children's crying has attracted attention, but instead of irritation or disgust or indifference, Jon sees pity in the eyes of the stall owners and their customers.
The first to approach them is a woman with hair and eyes as black as dragonglass, olive skin, and a kind smile. She hastily gathers a basket of round, flat loaves from her stall, and as soon as she reaches their party, she offers one to every child she sees before handing over her basket so the remaining loaves can be distributed among the adults. The children cannot understand her words any more than Jon can, but her voice is gentle and compassionate, her meaning unmistakable, and they need no prompting to snatch at the food she is offering and cram it into their mouths, lest she change her mind and take it back.
The woman is only the first to help them. Others distribute bread or fruit or strips of dried meat, or carry over buckets of water and dippers.
"No money." Jon doesn't expect any of them to understand his words but he holds out his empty hands, palm up, praying that they will understand his meaning, that they do not assume that they can offer goods first, and expect payment after. His objection is waved aside, and though he cannot understand their language, he hears several of them speak the same word.
"Mhysa?" Sam too catches the repeated word. "Maybe it's their word for 'charity'."
"You'd not see this in Flea Bottom," Davos mutters.
Jon can't help but wonder if there is any market in the Seven Kingdoms where the hungry would be offered food without payment being demanded. More than once, men and women were brought to Winterfell to face his father's judgement after they were caught stealing food or poaching, and not even pleas that they had no other way to feed starving parents or wives or children could earn them a remission of the punishments prescribed by law. His father knew his duty, and did not shrink from carrying it out. People lost hands to Ice, or accepted a life of service in the Night's Watch, for less than the food that is being pressed on his people by these generous strangers.
The loaf that is thrust into his hand is still hot from the oven, and smells deliciously of some herb he cannot recognize. It is no thicker than his smallest finger, and when he tears it in two, he can see that it is hollow inside. It tastes so good, especially after months of living almost entirely on scant rations of hard travel biscuits, that he cannot care that it burns his tongue.
Ghost does better still; Jon does not see who feeds his direwolf, but when he looks down at him, he sees Ghost crunching through a raw fowl of some kind with the kind of relish that can only be born of hunger.
Jon has finished his bread and accepted a dipper of water when he hears the sound of approaching footsteps, many of them, moving in unison. He looks up to see a company of about twenty men, clad in the same dark leather tunic and helms as those who guarded the gates of the city, marching in formation towards them.
His first instinct is to draw Longclaw but he forces himself to stay his hand, knowing that it would be a bad mistake on his part to show aggression in this city, lest its people change their minds about welcoming his.
The men stop a few yards in front of his group. The crowd of Meereenese people step back to let them through, but show no sign of being wary or frightened in their presence. Jon takes this as a good sign. When one of the soldiers takes a couple of paces forward, Jon does the same.
"You will come with us," the man, who Jon assumes to be an officer of some kind, though he wears no insignia on his tunic that sets him apart from the others, announces. He is slightly taller than Jon, but slenderer in build. His skin is dark and his face expressionless as he issues the command. His speech is accented, but clear.
"Why? We didn't steal anything; they gave us the food."
"You will come with us," the man repeats. "Daenerys Jelmazmo has ordered it so."
"She already knows that we're here?" Sansa speaks up from behind Jon, sounding suspicious.
Jon cannot fault her for being wary, especially after her experience with another Queen, but he reasons that this is why they came to Meereen, and however Daenerys Targaryen has learned of their arrival, anything that will speed up the process of getting an audience with her and obtaining her help against the Night King is welcome.
"We will come."
Daenerys is sitting at the table with her council when Grey Worm returns.
He snaps to attention when he enters the room. "It is done, my Queen."
"Thank you, my friend." She nods for him to take a seat, and knows without looking that she is not the only one to smile when he takes the seat closest to Missandei, who occupies her customary place at Daenerys' left side.
Jorah and Daario are seated to her right, and Quaithe just beyond them. Lady Olenna sits directly opposite Daenerys, in the place that Tyrion used to claim as often as not, before the imposing dowager arrived in Meereen. Once she decided that the seat should be hers, nobody else would presume to take it. Tyrion is now relegated to the place between Lady Olenna and Quaithe. Lady Ellaria, who attends the council meetings as a representative of Dorne, sits on Olenna's other side, and Lady Sarella Sand, the last of Prince Oberyn's daughters to join her half-sisters in Meereen, sits next between her and Greyworm.
Daenerys once thought Tyrion Lannister the most intelligent person she knew, but if he had not already lost that title after her vision, he would have lost it as soon as she became acquainted with Sarella. The other woman is several years her senior and beautiful, with glossy black hair cropped short, eyes so dark that the pupils are almost indistinguishable from the irises, and warm brown skin, and her beauty is easily exceeded by her mind. She was still at Oldtown when Ellaria and her half-sisters were evacuated to Meereen, but travelled to Dorne for one of the later crossings. At Oldtown, disguised as a boy, she studied at the Citadel, where no woman is permitted to set foot, and earned the links for her chain three times faster than the other acolytes. She wears those links in a decorative belt around her waist, cinching her silk gown, rather than around her neck.
There is no doubt but that Daenerys should count herself blessed that Sarella consented to join her Council, her knowledge on a broad range of subjects making her an invaluable advisor.
Had she been able to take the Iron Throne, she likes to think that she would have named Sarella Grand Maester.
"What did you do with them?"
The wary tone with which Tyrion asks the question irritates her more than she cares to admit, but she manages to conceal her feelings as she answers. "I asked Grey Worm to see the Northerners safely to the barracks, where they will find food and shelter. They're already prepared and stocked for the new arrivals from Volantis, and a few more will make no difference. How many of them are there?"
"Less than two hundred, my Queen," Grey Worm reports. "Most are men."
"Are there any children?" She is half-afraid of the answer. She remembers how many children there were at Winterfell in her visions, some there with their families, others orphaned and alone. Even in her vision, too many of them died when the Stark dead rose from their tombs and attacked those who sought refuge in the crypts. How many more of them died this time, when her armies and her dragons were not there to thin the Night King's forces before they could breach the walls of Winterfell?
"Eleven, my Queen."
There is silence as they all take this in. Daenerys feels light-headed, her stomach roiling. Jorah catches her hand in his, squeezing it gently, while Daario reaches out to fill a goblet with water, sliding it down the table to her.
After a few uncomfortable minutes, Lady Olenna breaks the silence. "How long do you plan to keep them waiting for an audience, Your Grace?" There is no judgement or censure in her voice, only mild curiousity.
"You don't need to see them before you're ready," Jorah tells her in a soft voice, meant only for her ears. "Or at all, if you'd rather not. You owe them nothing."
"They are in my city now," she reminds him. "Everybody in this city has the right seek an audience with its Queen."
"Shall I send for them and invite them to the Great Pyramid?" Tyrion suggests.
"No." She won't deny them an audience, but she is not about to seek them out either. If they want something from her, they can have the decency to come before her. "If they wish to see me, they can do as everybody else in the city does. If they ask at the barracks, they will be told of the days I am due to hear petitions."
"And they can wait their turn, like everybody else in the city?" Ellaria suggests, a glint of amusement in her eyes. She has been here long enough to know that on the days when Daenerys hears petitions, a hundred people or more will flock to the Great Pyramid to lay their cause before her.
"Yes."
Daario chuckles. "Then let's hope they're early risers."
TBC.