Chapter Five
A/N: Thank you to RMoors and Anarra for reviewing the last chapter.
Jorah slipped down off his saddle, leaving the stallion to be attended to by one of the young braidless Dothraki boys, and made his way immediately in the direction of the queen's tent. It was not difficult to miss, in a culture where a great spectacle would be made of where their khal and khaleesi, or in this case simply the latter, slept, as the Dothraki looked to their leaders as their strength, people who did not need to be hidden away. For a second before he continued his journey, Jorah thought bitterly of how the whole situation could have been avoided, if there had been a lack of this ridiculous custom.
Upon reaching the tent, which was far more richly fabricked than any other, most likely the result of pillaging a rich city, judging by the quality of the cloth, the knight bowed at the doorway, at which two guards were placed, and was allowed inside.
The air seemed a great deal denser inside the tent than it had done out of it, which was strange, as the fabric on the posts was not thick enough to really inhibit the flow of the sparse winds. It was nowhere near as busy inside as it had been out among the people, and himself aside, the only other person moving about the room was Jhiqui, who had been charged with looking after her mistress.
Finally, when he could avoid doing so no longer, Jorah cast his eyes down to where Daenerys lay on the bed. She was paler than the moon which would soon appear again above the horizon, though she had hardly been tanned to begin with, and her hair had a glint of grease in it, from the countless times she had fitted in pain. When he placed the back of his hand on her brow, he retracted it within a moment, the intense heat close to burning his skin. However, Ser Jorah was unsure as to whether this was a result of her fever, or whether it was the fire of the Targaryen line which burned beneath her skin.
Suddenly, unbidden, his eyes began to glaze with tears. He could hardly comprehend the fact that he was crying for a second time in so short a period, particularly when he could count the amount of times he had done so on two hands, but the sight of the young woman, the ruler of the Dothraki, so weak and helpless was far too much for him to take. He knew what would happen now, it was only a matter of time.
She was going to die, he knew that much as surely as he knew the gods were cruel. Of all the injustices in the world, it was the death of young people, men and women barely grown enough to be called such, that reminded him constantly of this fact. The gods of Valyria, Westeros, the Free Cities, it made no difference. Gods are gods because they have no mercy, he remembered the former Hand of the King once telling him, and he had not truly known until now how right the man had been.
He was not the only one who believed the khaleesi was soon to die. The khalasar had changed their course, at the behest of Daenerys' bloodriders, and were now travelling at a steady pace towards Vaes Dothrak. The bloodriders had insisted that this was so that the Dothraki gods could watch over her, and that they could restore her life if they saw fit to do so, but Jorah knew this was a lie to try and keep the fear of the khalasar at bay. If possible for them to do so, the bloodriders of a khal, or a khaleesi in this case, would take their leader to Vaes Dothrak, so that the gods could take them more swiftly to the Night Lands. They were preparing for Daenerys Stormborn's life to end.
'It is hardly surprising.' the man reasoned. 'After all, as I told her many a time, the Dothraki follow only the strong, and if their leader is dying, they will take them to the gods and select a new leader before her ashes have blown away from the pyre. It is merely the way of the horselords.'
But Daenerys Targaryen was not just another Dothraki leader. She was a woman for a start, the first female leader that a khalasar had ever respected as an independant, and not just another mindless broodmare for their khal. She had the pure blood of Old Valyria coursing through her veins, a rich noble line that existed in precious few individuals now. But most of all, she was strong; she was the strongest woman that Jorah Mormont had ever known, stronger even than the women of the halls of Bear Island, aunts and cousins of his that had hunted and skinned bears alongside him and his father. The Dothraki had learnt with the ascension of their newest ruler that they could even respect a woman, provided that this khaleesi had the strength a khal would have had. There would never be another like her; that much was certain.
Unable to take the pain any longer, the man stormed from the tent, making his way quickly to the privacy of his own. As it was near to the edge of the encampment, given that he spent the majority of his time guarding the royal tent and did not need to be central to the camp, hardly anyone would ever disturb him, unless it was completely necessary that he should be contacted, an unlikely circumstance, it seemed, in the current situation. This gave Jorah the time he needed to be alone with his thoughts, and to think of what he would do, should the worst happen now.
'I had never thought that this would happen.' he thought. 'If I lose her, then I will have nothing. I have nothing in my life but her now. If she should die, then I might as well die with her.'
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