DAENERYS

She could hear the boom of the sea from below, as black waves and black salt and black sand blasted against the rocks on which the black castle stood. They were a long way from the shore up here, but sound carried easily through the dark empty halls of Dragonstone.

Lord Selwyn Tarth was back again. It had been two weeks since he'd arrived at the island the first time, and in those weeks his ships had been seen all across Blackwater Bay, from Driftmark down to Massey's Hook, up to Crackclaw Point. Now they had returned to her. In the throne room, Dany sat on her seat of black shingled stone, looking down at the Lord of Evenfall Hall at the place where the lamps cast their light most brightly. But even then the lamps were few and far between, and most of the hall had been given to the darkness. Stone carvings of dragons reached out of the walls and snaked their way down the ceiling beams, frozen, but only in this instant. Fire and blood will wake them. Though she did not understand how.

"Your Grace," said Lord Selwyn. "You will have heard that I have brought the banners of the Velaryons, the Bar Emmons, and the Sunglasses."

"I already had the Velaryons," the queen replied. "Aurane Waters—"

"—is a bastard, of a changeable mood, and one particularly disposed to treachery, if you will accept my judgement."

"Some might call you a hypocrite. You had a changeable mood when you fought for Aegon."

He ignored her. "The Velaryons, the Bar Emmons and the Sunglasses," he repeated. "Two thousand men in all."

"I thought it would be more," said Ser Jorah Mormont from the bottom of the steps. "Your Grace, they may be withholding—"

"I find that unlikely," Lord Selwyn said. "They were at the Blackwater too, as I recall. Lord Sunglass the Elder was burned alive by Stannis on this very island, three years ago. And his son was burned alive on the Blackwater, a matter of months ago." He scowled up at her. "Some might say it has a certain poetry. I do not."

"Not all poetry has to rhyme. The next Lord Sunglass might live a long and healthy life."

"That depends on whether Your Grace can resist burning children."

"That depends on whether or not they are loyal," said Dany coldly. "Now, my lord: I cannot help but notice that you did not name the Celtigars among the lords you mentioned. Lord Ardrian is a valued ally of mine in King's Landing, but it would please me to hear that his dependants are similarly loyal."

"Then I must disappoint you, Your Grace. The Celtigars turned me away."

"They refused you audience?"

"Nay, they granted me an audience. But I do not think Your Grace would like to hear what they said."

"Tell me."

"They said that they would not follow you, now or ever. And that even if Lord Celtigar had sworn an oath, they were not honour bound to it. Claw Isle stands alone, they said."

Claw Isle stands with the Tyrells, more like. Olenna, Ser Garlan and their brood had retreated to Highgarden. Lord Willas and Arianne Martell were still locked in her cells, but that did not mean the Reachmen were entirely without influence. And the Dornish were even worse. And the Spider… upon arriving at Dragonstone, she had sent Ser Jorah and a troop of Unsullied to search all the tunnels and the caves of the island for sight of Varys, or his little birds. Yet after two months: nothing. The silence was almost more unsettling than it would have been to know she was being watched, because she did not believe he would leave her unwatched. Not Varys.

"So be it," she said coolly to Lord Selwyn. "But I trust you made them aware of the possible consequences."

"Oh, indeed. And I made them aware that the consequences might be more probable than possible." He lowered his head, and, in a voice full of mocking and contempt, he said, "I am your humble servant, Your Grace."

He turned to go, but Dany was not done. "I'm sure you are, Lord Tarth," she said. "Perhaps you would grace my table with your presence later tonight. I am having all my most honoured guests to supper." Or for supper, as Lord Tarth might have put it. Call it what you like, thought the queen.

"I cannot very well refuse your invitation," said Lord Selwyn flatly. "We will see each other later, then, Your Grace." He went out. This time he did not bother to bow.

Dany turned to Ser Jorah. "I am beginning to think your counsel was flawed."

"Your Grace?"

"Lord Selwyn has brought me little pleasure."

"So long as he has brought you some, that is better than nothing."

She had to admit that was true. "But on your head be it, Ser Jorah." Dany turned away from him. "Come. We are going to see Ser Harry Strickland. I mean to invite him to supper, too. It will be a gathering of all my most trusted advisors."

"Now, Your Grace?"

"Yes. Unless you have any objections." She said it in such a way that even if Jorah did have objections, he had the sense to keep them to himself.

She had taken Strickland from his underground cell two days into his imprisonment and put him up in one of the castle's towers. If she got anything from the Golden Company, she was more likely to get it by keeping their company commander in relative comfort than by abandoning him in some damp dungeon.

Outside Strickland's room two Unsullied were standing guard. Dany sent them away – she reckoned she would be more than a match for Strickland in single combat, never mind her bear knight – and had Ser Jorah open the door.

Ser Harry was sitting on an upturned pail in the centre of the room. From his prepared pose, it seemed he had been awaiting her audience. "Your Grace," he said, rising. "I am honoured—"

"Spare me your prattle," said Dany. "If you were paid the other way, you would slit my throat without a moment's thought. Maybe there will be money in it for you. I imagine the Spider and Magister Illyrio would still pay you well for my death."

"It was never Varys who paid me, Your Grace," said Strickland. "True, Varys gave me some information, but I was in Aegon's employ. Are you familiar with the history of the Golden Company, perchance?"

"I did not come here to be lectured to."

"Neither did I," said Ser Harry with surprising boldness. "The Company was founded after the First Blackfyre Rebellion, which ended at the Redgrass Field where Daemon Blackfyre and his eldest sons were slain. But Daemon's brother, Aegor Bittersteel, escaped the battle with his supporters, and fled to Essos. Where he founded this company with a sole aim. Helping a Blackfyre take back the Iron Throne." He paused a moment. "That aim has never changed."

Dany did not flinch. "I trust you are telling me what I already suspected: my nephew was not my nephew at all. He was a Blackfyre."

"More than that, Your Grace. There is a whole dynasty of Blackfyres still existing in Essos. Magister Illyrio is a part of it. He is a half-forgotten descendant of Bittersteel herself. And his first wife, Serra, was a descendant of Aerion Brightflame, the madman who drank wildfire to turn himself into a dragon. She was also, some say, cousin – or even sister – to Varys the Spider. Aegon was born to Illyrio and Serra, a descendant of two false dragons, with Targaryen blood and Targaryen features.

So, then. The mummer's dragon unveiled. It had not come as a surprise, in the end. What was a mystery was why Ser Harry Strickland had come all this way to offer this information to her. Was it mercy he wanted, or something more? So she asked him.

"What I want, Your Grace," he said, on his knees now, "is to go home. The Golden Company is a brotherhood of exiles. Bittersteel intended it to bring him and his descendants home to rule, but even without him, there are a great many of us wishing to return to the land of our birth. With Aegon gone, and us stranded in Westeros by storms on the Narrow Sea, it seems only natural to winter here. And if that is our intention, then we would much sooner Your Grace did not burn us as traitors."

"But you are traitors," said Dany. "You have already betrayed me once. Why should I believe you will not betray me again?"

Strickland took a deep breath. "At the Blackwater, hundreds of my men were burned by dragonfire. Nay, they were consumed by it, immolated, destroyed. After the battle there were no bones to gather, only piles of ash. I have seen what your dragons can do."

Dragon, thought Dany. I have only the one now. She did not know if she would still be feared if the fact Viserion had still not returned to her became widely-known. "It would," she said, "save me a lot of bother if I just burned you here and now."

"Maybe so," said Strickland. "However, you will not."

"Won't I?"

"I am a terrible coward, Your Grace. You know that. If I thought there was even the slightest threat upon my life, I would never have come here. But you cannot kill me, I know that. Otherwise I would be dead already. You cannot kill me, because if you do, you will give the lords of the Seven Kingdoms another reason not to return to your side. And that is something you cannot afford."

"Some might say that with my dragons, I do not need the following of men anymore."

"There is an old proverb, Your Grace. Dragons plant no trees."

"I know it." Quaithe had told her so in a dream. Only with Strickland, the meaning was more literal.

She did not think he was right. Burning Strickland would be a completely justified course; he had been at the forefront of the coalition against her. And yet… what good would more enemies ever do her?

"Very well, ser," Dany said. "I will give you one chance. Tonight you will sup with me. After that, we will decide if a deal can be made." Then she turned and walked out, leaving him supplicant on his knees.

In her chambers she dismissed Ser Jorah and called in her two Dothraki maids, Irri and Jhiqui, who had been with her since leaving Pentos all those years ago. They, who were almost all she had left. They helped her bathe, scrubbed her back and unbraided and re-braided her hair. Neither of them said anything about the swell of her belly, though it was impossible not to notice. And very soon, it would be impossible for her councillors not to notice either.

When she had finished bathing, they found her a new gown; Dany dressed, and went out to where Jorah was waiting to escort her down to supper.

The others were already seated. Lord Selwyn of Tarth and Edric Storm were down the left-hand side; across from them sat Harry Strickland. Jorah drew out Dany's chair at the head of the table, then sat down in the empty seat beside Ser Harry.

"Will you take wine, Your Grace?" asked Strickland, smarmy from the first.

"If you please," said Dany, holding out her cup. But the table was long, and Strickland was too far from her to pour, so he had to content himself with passing the flagon across to Ser Jorah.

Dany took a sip of the wine. It was cold and sour on her tongue. "Now that we are settled and our disagreements have been resolved," she said to the unanswering hall, "I thought we might have some polite conversation at our table. In the spirit of reconciliation."

Strickland, being the sycophant he was, was quick to agree. "Of course, I will be only too willing to serve Your Grace's pleasure. I suppose you will wanting to know when I will be able to rally the support of the others in my company."

Dany raised an eyebrow: continue.

"I will have to sail back to the Kingswood, first, but I am sure Your Grace will permit me that. Give me a swift ship, and I will be back before week's end."

"I hope so," said Dany. "That is when we intend to sail. For the North."

"The North?" Strickland evidently did not know anything. "I saw the ships, Your Grace, but I presumed King's Landing or Oldtown would be—"

"King's Landing is already in my control. I see no reason to land there. As for Oldtown, the maesters were left ruined by the Greyjoy battle, and that was before my time. No, Ser Harry. We are going North. To the Wall. The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch has asked for my support."

Strickland gaped at her. "To what end, Your Grace?"

"He says… says that he is challenged by unearthly foes. Others, he calls them."

"And does it not occur to you that he might just be speaking in superstition?" asked Strickland.

"Ser Jorah informs me that the Night's Watch are men of good character and truth. Or, at least, his father was."

"And according to his letter, this Jon Snow served my father as steward," Jorah agreed. "If that is true, then my father trusted him. And if he did, then we have no reason to doubt in Lord Snow."

"Snow, Your Grace," said Strickland. "That is a bastard name. Forgive my forwardness, but in my lifetime, I have served with many men bastard-born, and found the majority of them to be men of unreliability and duplicity."

"And I have known the company of many who have no name at all," said Dany, "yet I have found them to be far more worthy than their noble counterparts."

Curiously, the bastard boy Edric Storm did not move a muscle through all of it. His eyes remained fixed on Dany.

"The boy is a bastard, aye," said Selwyn Tarth. "But he is Ned Stark's bastard. I only met Stark once, but even from that brief encounter I knew him to be not just a man who told the truth, but a man incapable of lying. I think any son of his would be much the same."

"Sons are not always the same as their fathers," Dany remarked.

"You are right," said Lord Selwyn. "Often it is the daughters, desperate for approval, that take on a particular sort of madness."

Jorah began. "You dare—"

"Hold yourself still, ser; I do not speak of your damned queen." He looked across at Dany. "You asked me on the day we met about my daughter, Brienne. I told you that she stuck to what she was good at. It just so happened that she was always good at fighting. Better than any of the boys who mocked her, I have no doubt."

"A lady knight." Dany could not hide the slight admiration from her voice.

"She probably thought she was breaking free of her bonds, too. That she was getting away from me before I could tie her down in marriage – though that would not be easy, to tell the harsh truth; Brienne is a homely mad. But..." Here he broke for breath. "She told me she was going to serve King Renly. But afterwards there was rumours that she slew him, and after that she was seen in Catelyn Stark's company, and then in King's Landing, and then, most recently, in Harrenhal, with Aegon Targaryen and Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer."

"Fine friends all," said Ser Jorah acidly.

"You may laugh, ser. But I do not know where my daughter is. I have not seen her face in more than three years. She may be dead, for all I know."

Dany looked Lord Tarth in the eye. So this is what he wants. "My lord, if I ever come across your daughter, I will send word to you immediately."

"That isn't what I'm telling you," said Lord Selwyn tersely. "Seven bloody hells no. What I'm saying is that Brienne's path is not as singular as she might care to think. I would have wandered that path, too. I never wanted to be Lord of Evenfall Hall. But I lost an elder brother to the waves and to the gods. And here we are. Brienne had an elder brother, too, who would have inherited first. Galladon. He lived till only a young age. Then he drowned, too. Her story is the same as mine. Try as we might, and try as they might, our children are doomed to follow in our footsteps more oft than we would like to admit."

There was a long pause.

"Whether this Jon Snow is his father's son or not," said Harry Strickland. "You cannot expect me to return to the Kingswood and tell my men that we are sailing to the bloody Wall."

"I can, and I do," said Dany. "That is the condition I am releasing you on."

"Your Grace, I cannot—"

"You can and you will." She felt suddenly irritable. "You're not acting out of honour, Ser Harry, we both know that. You're acting because you want three meals a day to eat and a warm hall to die in. So you will return to your men, and you will tell them that we are heading North, or else I will give them something warmer."

Then the doors opened and the serving men entered, bearing the supper dishes. There was little meat on Dragonstone that was not salted, but they had managed to find a lamb in the hills somewhere, for that was present, sauced with sage and garlic. And there was fish too: a crab with its claws pulled, and a whole trout, with its scales still glimmering as the men sliced it up. But first came a thin fish soup with bits of whitefish and salmon, and hot rye bread.

"My lords," said Dany, when the food was served. "Let us, for now, set aside enmities, and let a mood of reconciliation—"

"There won't be any reconciliation here," said a bold yet boyish voice. "Not between you and me."

Dany sighed. It was only a matter of time. "Forgive my entreaty, squire Edric, but I fear I do not understand."

The Storm boy stared back at her from under angry dark eyebrows raised above storm blue eyes. His face had the beginnings of a beard, and was framed by his thick black hair. He was broad in the shoulders – even now he had not ceased his martial training – but strangely gaunt and pale in the face as he spoke.

"You heard me," the boy said. "I won't. You can drag me to the Wall, but I won't be reconciling with you. Ever."

"Is that so?" Dany steeled herself; she could not back down. "As it happens, squire, I do not think you have much of a choice in the matter. I have ordered that—"

"I don't have to listen to your orders. I don't have to stay here, either." He made to leave the table, but Selwyn Tarth caught his arm. "Edric, lad, now is not the time."

"When is the time, then?" The boy shook free of the old lord's grasp. "Look at her! All of you! She sits there and calls her queen, and you think there's nothing wrong with that! She burned thousands on the Blackwater. She left King's Landing in ruins. Have you forgotten? Or have you merely become so meek and cowardly that you will let her do the same again, up and down the Seven Kingdoms? Burning and burning and burning until only ashes are left! And then what?" He broke off. It was not an indictment but an appeal. He wanted them to act. And that was what made him dangerous.

Dany rose from her chair and took a quiet, steady tone. "Come the morrow, you will set sail for the Wall with the rest of us, squire Edric. And you will remember that today I showed you mercy, and not for the first time. When your father the Usurper took King's Landing, he murdered Princess Elia and Princess Rhaenys, though they were innocent of any crime. If I were like him, you would have died hideously. But I am not your father, nor am I mine. Maybe it was foolish of me to show you mercy despite your birth – no, I know it was, but Barristan Selmy got into my head. You should be thankful that he did. And so am I. So: you will go to the Wall. We will win this war there, and we will return south, and maybe, just maybe, you will sit in Storm's End someday. Aegon the Conqueror showed mercy to his foes. I am capable of the same."

But Edric's face did not move. "I will never serve you," he said. "And when they realise what you are, neither will anyone else." He picked up his carving knife, and slammed it down hard into the table, where it quivered on its end. "Never."

She could see that he would not be deterred. "Very well," she said, "Ser Jorah, take him to a cell—"

Just then the door banged open behind her, and Marwyn the Mage and Moqorro came in. Their faces bore dark, uneasy expressions. "Your Grace," the archmaester said, bending to her ear. "We have had news from King's Landing. It would appear that… that Lord Rosby and the Velaryons were not quite as faithful as they seemed."

Dany felt that sink in like a stone. "And the prisoners?" she dared to ask.

Marwyn seemed incapable of answering that, so Moqorro answered for him. "Escaped, Your Grace. Both the pretender's queen and Lord Tyrell. Gone from the sight of my fires, but it is not hard to work out where they are going."

"How long have they been gone?" asked the queen.

"A week, Your Grace," said Marwyn, and paused. "At least a week."

Dany felt anger boiling through her, red-hot. "And are my treacherous councillors still in King's Landing?"

"As far as we know, Your Grace."

Ser Jorah spoke up. "Your Grace, the fleet is prepared to sail north—"

"The fleet can sail without me," said Dany. She turned her gaze on Harry Strickland. "You were a distraction. Something to keep me occupied while all this was happening behind my back."

The captain of the Golden Company went pale. "Your Grace, I do not know what you are talking about."

Dany turned away, in disgust. "Seize him. And bring him down to the beach. Oh, and the Storm boy, too. I want him to watch."

Ser Jorah dared to grab her arm. "Daenerys," he hissed, his breath hot in her ear. "You do not know what you are doing. If you go ahead with this, you will prove the boy right—"

"I know exactly what I am doing," said Dany. She shrugged free of his grip. "I offered them peace, and they threw it back in my face. They have played their hand. Now I will play mine." She looked out of the window towards the beach, and beyond that the caves where Drogon made his nest. Enough with the clever plans.