He walked past the Thenns, sitting atop their rounded bronze helms about their cookfires. Where did Ygrette get herself to? He found her gear and his together, but no sign of the girl herself. “She took a torch and went off that way,” Grigg the Goat told him, pointing toward the back of the cavern.
Jon followed his finger, and found himself in a dim back room wandering through a maze of columns and stalactites. She can’t be here, he was thinking, when he heard her laugh. He turned toward the sound, but within ten paces he was in a dead end, facing a blank wall of rose and white flowstone. Baffled, he made his way back the way he’d come, and then he saw it: a dark hole under an outthrust of wet stone. He knelt, listened, heard the faint sound of water. “Ygritte?”
“In here,” her voice came back, echoing faintly.
Jon had to crawl a dozen paces before the cave opened up around him. When he stood again, it took his eyes a moment to adjust. Ygritte had brought a torch, but there was no other light. She stood beside a little waterfall that fell from a cleft in the rock down into a wide dark pool. The orange and yellow flames shone against the pale green water.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her.
“I heard water. I wanted t’see how deep the cave went.” She pointed with the torch. “There’s a passage goes down further. I followed it a hundred paces before I turned back.”
“A dead end?”
“You know nothing, Jon Snow. It went on and on and on. There are hundreds o’ caves in these hills, and down deep they all connect. There’s even a way under your Wall. Gorne’s Way.”
“Gorne,” said Jon. “Gorne was King-beyond-the-Wall.”
“Aye,” said Ygritte. “Together with his brother Gendel, three thousand years ago. They led a host o’ free folk through the caves, and the Watch was none the wiser. But when they come out, the wolves o’ Winterfell fell upon them.”
“There was a battle,” Jon recalled. “Gorne slew the King in the North, but his son picked up his banner and took the crown from his head, and cut down Gorne in turn.”
“And the sound o’ swords woke the crows in their castles, and they rode out all in black to take the free folk in the rear.”
“Yes. Gendel had the king to the south, the Umbers to the east, and the Watch to the north of him. He died as well.”
“You know nothing, Jon Snow. Gendel did not die. He cut his way free, through the crows, and led his people back north with the wolves howling at their heels. Only Gendel did not know the caves as Gorne had, and took a wrong turn.” She swept the torch back and forth, so the shadows jumped and moved. “Deeper he went, and deeper, and when he tried t’ turn back the ways that seemed familiar ended in stone rather than sky. Soon his torches began t’ fail, one by one, till finally there was naught but dark. Gendel’s folk were never seen again, but on a still night you can hear their children’s children’s children sobbing under the hills, still looking for the way back up. Listen? Do you hear them?”
All Jon could hear was the falling water and the faint crackle of flames. “This way under the Wall was lost as well?”
“Some have searched for it. Them that go too deep find Gendel’s children, and Gendel’s children are always hungry.” Smiling, she set the torch carefully in a notch of rock, and came toward him. “There’s naught to eat in the dark but flesh,” she whispered, biting at his neck.
Jon nuzzled her hair and filled his nose with the smell of her. “You sound like Old Nan, telling Bran a monster story.”
Ygritte punched his shoulder. “An old woman, am I?”
“You’re older than me.”
“Aye, and wiser. You know nothing, Jon Snow.” She pushed away from him, and shrugged out of her rabbitskin vest.
“What are you doing?”
“Showing you how old I am.” She unlaced her doeskin shirt, tossed it aside, pulled her three woolen undershirts up over her head all at once. “I want you should see me.”
“We shouldn’t—”
“We should.” Her breasts bounced as she stood on one leg to pull one boot, then hopped onto her other foot to attend to the other. Her nipples were wide pink circles. “You as well,” Ygritte said as she yanked down her sheepskin breeches. “If you want to look you have to show. You know nothing, Jon Snow.”
“I know I want you,” he heard himself say, all his vows and all his honor forgotten. She stood before him naked as her name day, and he was as hard as the rock around them. He had been in her half a hundred times by now, but always beneath the furs, with others all around them. He had never seen how beautiful she was. Her legs were skinny but well muscled, the hair at the juncture of her thighs a brighter red than that on her head. Does that make it even luckier? He pulled her close. “I love the smell of you,” he said. “I love your red hair. I love your mouth, and the way you kiss me. I love your smile. I love your teats.” He kissed them, one and then the other. “I love your skinny legs, and what’s between them.” He knelt to kiss her there, lightly on her mound at first, but Ygritte moved her legs apart a little, and he saw the pink inside and kissed that as well, and tasted her. She gave a little gasp. “If you love me all so much, why are you still dressed?” she whispered. “You know nothing, Jon Snow. Noth—oh. Oh. OHHH.”
Afterward, she was almost shy, or as shy as Ygritte ever got. “That thing you did,” she said, when they lay together on their piled clothes. “With your . . . mouth.” She hesitated. “Is that . . . is it what lords do to their ladies, down in the south?”
“I don’t think so.” No one had ever told Jon just what lords did with their ladies. “I only . . . wanted to kiss you there, that’s all. You seemed to like it.”
“Aye. I . . . I liked it some. No one taught you such?”
“There’s been no one,” he confessed. “Only you.”
“A maid,” she teased. “You were a maid.”
He gave her closest nipple a playful pinch. “I was a man of the Night’s Watch.” Was, he heard himself say. What was he now? He did not want to look at that. “Were you a maid?”
Ygritte pushed herself onto an elbow. “I am nineteen, and a spearwife, and kissed by fire. How could I be maiden?”
“Who was he?”
“A boy at a feast, five years past. He’d come trading with his brothers, and he had hair like mine, kissed by fire, so I thought he would be lucky. But he was weak. When he came back t’ try and steal me, Longspear broke his arm and ran him off, and he never tried again, not once.”
“It wasn’t Longspear, then?” Jon was relieved. He liked Longspear, with his homely face and friendly ways.
She punched him. “That’s vile. Would you bed your sister?”
“Longspear’s not your brother.”
“He’s of my village. You know nothing, Jon Snow. A true man steals a woman from afar, t’ strengthen the clan. Women who bed brothers or fathers or clan kin offend the gods, and are cursed with weak and sickly children. Even monsters.”
“Craster weds his daughters,” Jon pointed out.
She punched him again. “Craster’s more your kind than ours. His father was a crow who stole a woman out of Whitetree village, but after he had her he flew back t’ his Wall. She went t’ Castle Black once t’ show the crow his son, but the brothers blew their horns and run her off. Craster’s blood is black, and he bears a heavy curse.” She ran her fingers lightly across his stomach. “I feared you’d do the same once. Fly back to the Wall. You never knew what t’ do after you stole me.”
Jon sat up. “Ygritte, I never stole you.”
“Aye, you did. You jumped down the mountain and killed Orell, and afore I could get my axe you had a knife at my throat. I thought you’d have me then, or kill me, or maybe both, but you never did. And when I told you the tale o’ Bael the Bard and how he plucked the rose o’ Winterfell, I thought you’d know to pluck me then for certain, but you didn’t. You know nothing, Jon Snow.” She gave him a shy smile. “You might be learning some, though.”
The li
ght was shifting all about her, Jon noticed suddenly. He looked around. “We had best go up. The torch is almost done.”
“Is the crow afeared o’ Gendel’s children?” she said, with a grin. “It’s only a little way up, and I’m not done with you, Jon Snow.” She pushed him back down on the clothes and straddled him. “Would you . . .” She hesitated.
“What?” he prompted, as the torch began to gutter.
“Do it again?” Ygritte blurted. “With your mouth? The lord’s kiss? And I . . . I could see if you liked it any.”
By the time the torch burned out, Jon Snow no longer cared.
His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good?
The grotto was pitch-dark by the time they finished. The only light was the dim glow of the passage back up to the larger cavern, where a score of fires burned. They were soon fumbling and bumping into each other as they tried to dress in the dark. Ygritte stumbled into the pool and screeched at the cold of the water. When Jon laughed, she pulled him in too. They wrestled and splashed in the dark, and then she was in his arms again, and it turned out they were not finished after all.
“Jon Snow,” she told him, when he’d spent his seed inside her, “don’t move now, sweet. I like the feel of you in there, I do. Let’s not go back t’ Styr and Jarl. Let’s go down inside, and join up with Gendel’s children. I don’t ever want t’ leave this cave, Jon Snow. Not ever.”
DAENERYS
All?” The slave girl sounded wary. “Your Grace, did this one’s worthless ears mishear you?”
Cool green light filtered down through the diamond-shaped panes of colored glass set in the sloping triangular walls, and a breeze was blowing gently through the terrace doors, carrying the scents of fruit and flowers from the garden beyond. “Your ears heard true,” said Dany. “I want to buy them all. Tell the Good Masters, if you will.”
She had chosen a Qartheen gown today. The deep violet silk brought out the purple of her eyes. The cut of it bared her left breast. While the Good Masters of Astapor conferred among themselves in low voices, Dany sipped tart persimmon wine from a tall silver flute. She could not quite make out all that they were saying, but she could hear the greed.
Each of the eight brokers was attended by two or three body slaves . . . though one Grazdan, the eldest, had six. So as not to seem a beggar, Dany had brought her own attendants; Irri and Jhiqui in their sandsilk trousers and painted vests, old Whitebeard and mighty Belwas, her bloodriders. Ser Jorah stood behind her sweltering in his green surcoat with the black bear of Mormont embroidered upon it. The smell of his sweat was an earthy answer to the sweet perfumes that drenched the Astapori.
“All,” growled Kraznys mo Nakloz, who smelled of peaches today. The slave girl repeated the word in the Common Tongue of Westeros. “Of thousands, there are eight. Is this what she means by all? There are also six centuries, who shall be part of a ninth thousand when complete. Would she have them too?”
“I would,” said Dany when the question was put to her. “The eight thousands, the six centuries . . . and the ones still in training as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes.”
Kraznys turned back to his fellows. Once again they conferred among themselves. The translator had told Dany their names, but it was hard to keep them straight. Four of the men seemed to be named Grazdan, presumably after Grazdan the Great who had founded Old Ghis in the dawn of days. They all looked alike; thick fleshy men with amber skin, broad noses, dark eyes. Their wiry hair was black, or a dark red, or that queer mixture of red and black that was peculiar to Ghiscari. All wrapped themselves in tokars, a garment permitted only to freeborn men of Astapor.
It was the fringe on the tokar that proclaimed a man’s status, Dany had been told by Captain Groleo. In this cool green room atop the pyramid, two of the slavers wore tokars fringed in silver, five had gold fringes, and one, the oldest Grazdan, displayed a fringe of fat white pearls that clacked together softly when he shifted in his seat or moved an arm.
“We cannot sell half-trained boys,” one of the silver-fringe Grazdans was saying to the others.
“We can, if her gold is good,” said a fatter man whose fringe was gold.
“They are not Unsullied. They have not killed their sucklings. If they fail in the field, they will shame us. And even if we cut five thousand raw boys tomorrow, it would be ten years before they are fit for sale. What would we tell the next buyer who comes seeking Unsullied?”
“We will tell him that he must wait,” said the fat man. “Gold in my purse is better than gold in my future.”
Dany let them argue, sipping the tart persimmon wine and trying to keep her face blank and ignorant. I will have them all, no matter the price, she told herself. The city had a hundred slave traders, but the eight before her were the greatest. When selling bed slaves, fieldhands, scribes, craftsmen, and tutors, these men were rivals, but their ancestors had allied one with the other for the purpose of making and selling the Unsullied. Brick and blood built Astapor, and brick and blood her people.
It was Kraznys who finally announced their decision. “Tell her that the eight thousands she shall have, if her gold proves sufficient. And the six centuries, if she wishes. Tell her to come back in a year, and we will sell her another two thousand.”
“In a year I shall be in Westeros,” said Dany when she had heard the translation. “My need is now. The Unsullied are well trained, but even so, many will fall in battle. I shall need the boys as replacements to take up the swords they drop.” She put her wine aside and leaned toward the slave girl. “Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm.”
The girl told them. The answer was still no.
Dany frowned in annoyance. “Very well. Tell them I will pay double, so long as I get them all.”
“Double?” The fat one in the gold fringe all but drooled.
“This little whore is a fool, truly,” said Khaznys mo Nakloz. “Ask her for triple, I say. She is desperate enough to pay. Ask for ten times the price of every slave, yes.”
The tall Grazdan with the spiked beard spoke in the Common Tongue, though not so well as the slave girl. “Your Grace,” he growled, “Westeros is being wealthy, yes, but you are not being queen now. Perhaps will never being queen. Even Unsullied may be losing battles to savage steel knights of Seven Kingdoms. I am reminding, the Good Masters of Astapor are not selling flesh for promisings. Are you having gold and trading goods sufficient to be paying for all these eunuchs you are wanting?”
“You know the answer to that better than I, Good Master,” Dany replied. “Your men have gone through my ships and tallied every bead of amber and jar of saffron. How much do I have?”
“Sufficient to be buying one of thousands,” the Good Master said, with a contemptuous smile. “Yet you are paying double, you are saying. Five centuries, then, is all you buy.”
“Your pretty crown might buy another century,” said the fat one in Valyrian. “Your crown of the three dragons.”
Dany waited for his words to be translated. “My crown is not for sale.” When Viserys sold their mother’s crown, the last joy had gone from him, leaving only rage. “Nor will I enslave my people, nor sell their goods and horses. But my ships you can have. The great cog Balerion and the galleys Vhagar and Meraxes.” She had warned Groleo and the other captains it might come to this, though they had protested the necessity of it furiously. “Three good ships should be worth more than a few paltry eunuchs.”
The fat Grazdan turned to the others. They conferred in low voices once again. “Two of the thousands,” the one with the spiked beard said when he turned back. “It is too much, but the Good Masters are being generous and your need is being great.”
Two thousand would never serve for what she meant to do. I must have them all. Dany knew what she mus
t do now, though the taste of it was so bitter that even the persimmon wine could not cleanse it from her month. She had considered long and hard and found no other way. It is my only choice. “Give me all,” she said, “and you may have a dragon.”
There was the sound of indrawn breath from Jhiqui beside her. Kraznys smiled at his fellows. “Did I not tell you? Anything, she would give us.”
Whitebeard stared in shocked disbelief. His hand trembled where it grasped the staff. “No.” He went to one knee before her. “Your Grace, I beg you, win your throne with dragons, not slaves. You must not do this thing—”
“You must not presume to instruct me. Ser Jorah, remove Whitebeard from my presence.”
Mormont seized the old man roughly by an elbow, yanked him back to his feet, and marched him out onto the terrace.
“Tell the Good Masters I regret this interruption,” said Dany to the slave girl. “Tell them I await their answer.”
She knew the answer, though; she could see it in the glitter of their eyes and the smiles they tried so hard to hide. Astapor had thousands of eunuchs, and even more slave boys waiting to be cut, but there were only three living dragons in all the great wide world. And the Ghiscari lust for dragons. How could they not? Five times had Old Ghis contended with Valyria when the world was young, and five times gone down to bleak defeat. For the Freehold had dragons, and the Empire had none.
The oldest Grazdan stirred in his seat, and his pearls clacked together softly. “A dragon of our choice,” he said in a thin, hard voice. “The black one is largest and healthiest.”
“His name is Drogon.” She nodded.
George R. R. Martin's a Game of Thrones 4-Book Bundle Page 226
