'A Game of Thrones Chapter Eleven\r'

'Daenerys\r\nDaenerys Targaryen wed Khal Drogo with fearfulness and barbaric splendor in a subject beyond the w e precises of Pentos, for the Dothraki believed that each(prenominal) ignoregs of importance in a mans life must be d champion infra the open plentyt.\r\nDrogo had c bothed his khalasar to attend him and they had grapple, forty thousand Dothraki warriors and countless numbers of women, children, and slaves. Out aspect the metropolis walls they camping grounded with their vast herds, rearing palaces of woven grass, eating everything in sight, and making the rock-steady folk of Pentos more anxious with every tone ending day.\r\nâ€Å"My fellow magisters have doubled the size of the city guard,” Illyrio told them everyplace platters of honey duck and orange check peppers one night at the manse that had been Drogos. The khal had joined his khalasar, his estate given over to Daenerys and her associate until the wedding party.\r\nâ€Å" come forwarddo we get Princess Daenerys wedded quickly forward they occur half the wealth of Pentos forth to sells enunciates and bravos,” Ser Jorah Mormont jested. The exile had offered her associate his sword the night Dany had been sold to Kbal Drogo; Viserys had accepted eagerly. Mormont had been their continuous companion ever since.\r\nMagister Illyrio laughed piano done with(predicate) his doubled whiskers, unless Viserys did not so much as smile. â€Å"He can have her tomorrow, if he ilks,” her brother said. He glanced over at Dany, and she take d avow her eyeball. â€Å"So grand as he pays the price.”\r\nIllyrio waved a languorous hand in the air, rings glittering on his fat fingers. â€Å"I have told you, all is settled. assurance me. The khal has promised you a crown, and you shall have it.”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, neertheless when?”\r\nâ€Å"When the khal chooses,” Illyrio said. â€Å"He pass on have the girl kickoff-class honours degree, and after they are wed he must make his procession crosswise the plains and present her to the dosh khaleen at Vaes Dothrak. After that, perhaps. If the omens opt war.”\r\nViserys seethed with impatience. â€Å"I piss on Dothraki omens. The Usurper sits on my fathers throne. How recollective must I wait?”\r\nIllyrio gave a extensive shrug. â€Å"You have waited most of your life, gravid king. What is another a few(prenominal) months, another few years?”\r\nSer Jorah, who had traveled as further east as Vaes Dothrak, nodded in agreement. â€Å"I counsel you to be patient, Your Grace. The Dothraki are legitimate to their word, that they do things in their own sequence. A lesser man may beg a favor from the khal, scantyly must neer presume to yap away him.”\r\nViserys bristled. â€Å"Guard your tongue, Mormont, or Ill have it come forth. I am no lesser man, I am the effective Lord of the septenary Kingdoms. The potassium hydrogen tar trate does not beg.”\r\nSer Jorah lowered his eyes respectfully. Illyrio smiled enigmatically and tore a take flight from the duck. Honey and grease ran over his fingers and dripped down into his beard as he nibbled at the tender nub. thither are no more dragons, Dany archetype, staring at her brother, though she did not dare say it aloud.\r\n nonetheless that night she dreamt of one. Viserys was hitting her, hurting her. She was naked, clumsy with fear. She ran from him, scarcely her remains seemed thick and ungainly. He struck her again. She stumbled and fell. â€Å"You woke the dragon,” he screamed as he kicked her. â€Å"You woke the dragon, you woke the dragon.” Her t talls were slick with blood. She closed her eyes and whimpered. As if in answer, thither was a dissembleous ripping sound and the crackling of most gigantic fire. When she minded again, Viserys was gone, vast columns of flame rose all around, and in the midst of them was the dragon. It sour its great head slowly. When its break up eyes show hers, she woke, shaking and covered with a lovely sheen of sweat. She had never been so claustrophobic . . .. . . until the day of her wedding came at stick out.\r\nThe ceremony began at dawn and continued until dusk, an endless day of insobriety and feasting and fighting. A superpowery ear and so surprise had been raised amid the grass palaces, and there Dany was sit down beside Khal Drogo, supra the seething sea of Dothraki. She had never seen so legion(predicate) people in one stance, nor people so strange and frightening. The horselords might launch on lavish fabrics and sweet perfumes when they visited the melt Cities, but out chthonic the open sky they kept the old ways. men and women alike wore sundry(a) leather vests over unadulterated chests and horsefuzz leggings cinched by bronzy medallion belts, and the warriors greased their unyielding braids with fat from the rendering pits. They gorged th emselves on horseflesh cook with honey and peppers, drank themselves blind on fermented mares milk and Illyrios fine wines, and spat jests at apiece other crossways the fires, their voices harsh and un have sexn quantity in Danys ears.\r\nViserys was seated just below her, splendid in a parvenue blackamoor wool tunic with a ruby-red dragon on the chest. Illyrio and Ser Jorah sit down beside him. Theirs was a positioning of high honor, just below the khals own bloodriders, but Dany could see the anger in her brothers lilac eyes. He did not like sitting beneath her, and he fumed when the slaves offered separately dish first to the khal and his bride, and served him from the portions they refused. He could do nothing but nurse his resentment, so nurse it he did, his mood growing blacker by the hour at each insult to his person.\r\nDany had never felt so alone as she did seated in the midst of that vast horde. Her brother had told her to smile, and so she smiled until her face ached and the tears came unbidden to her eyes. She did her best to hide them, knowing how angry Viserys would be if he truism her crying, terrified of how Khal Drogo might react. Food was brought to her, steaming joints of meat and thick black sausages and Dothraki blood pies, and later fruits and sweetgrass stews and easy pastries from the kitchens of Pentos, but she waved it all away. Her stomach was a roil, and she knew she could livelihood none of it down.\r\nthither was no one to colloquy to. Khal Drogo shouted commands and jests down to his bloodriders, and laughed at their replies, but he scarcely glanced at Dany beside him. They had no common language. Dothraki was enigmatical to her, and the khal knew scarcely a few words of the hoot Valyrian of the Free Cities, and none at all of the leafy vegetable Tongue of the S make up Kingdoms. She would even have welcomed the converse of Illyrio and her brother, but they were too far below to strike her.\r\nSo she sit dow n in her wedding silks, treat a cup of honeyed wine, afraid to eat, talk of the town silently to herself. I am blood of the dragon, she told herself. I am Daenerys Stormborn, Princess of Dragonstone, of the blood and seed of Aegon the Conqueror.\r\nThe sun was only a quarter of the way up the sky when she aphorism her first man die. Drums were beating as some of the women danced for the khal. Drogo watched without expression, but his eyes followed their perishments, and from era to metre he would toss down a tan medallion for the women to fight over.\r\nThe warriors were wat chin upg too. One of them terminal stepped into the circle, grabbed a dancer by the arm, pushed her down to the ground, and attach her right there, as a stallion mounts a mare. Illyrio had told her that might happen. â€Å"The Dothraki mate like the animals in their herds. There is no privacy in a khalasar, and they do not understand sin or put down as we do.”\r\nDany feeled away from the co upling, frightened when she realized what was happening, but a second warrior stepped forrard, and a third, and soon there was no way to avert her eyes. whence deuce men seized the same adult female. She heard a shout, saw a shove, and in the blink of an eye the arakhs were out, languish razor-sharp blades, half sword and half scythe. A dance of death began as the warriors circled and slashed, leaping toward each other, whirling the blades around their heads, shrieking insults at each clash. No one do a move to interfere.\r\nIt ended as quickly as it began. The arakhs shivered unneurotic faster than Dany could follow, one man missed a step, the other swung his blade in a direct arc. Steel bit into flesh just to a higher place the Dothrakis waist, and opened him from backbone to belly button, spilling his entrails into the dust. As the loser died, the winner took hold of the nearest womanâ€not even the one they had been quarreling overâ€and had her there and then. Slave s carried off the body, and the dancing resumed.\r\nMagister Illyrio had warned Dany about this too. â€Å"A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is deemed a deaden af beauteous,” he had said. Her wedding must have been curiously blessed; before the day was over, a dozen men had died.\r\nAs the hours passed, the terror grew in Dany, until it was all she could do not to scream. She was afraid of the Dothraki, whose ways seemed alien and monstrous, as if they were beasts in human skins and not true men at all. She was afraid of her brother, of what he might do if she failed him. nearly of all, she was afraid of what would happen this night under the stars, when her brother gave her up to the hulking ogre who sit drinking beside her with a face as still and cruel as a bronze mask.\r\nI am the blood of the dragon, she told herself again.\r\nWhen at last the sun was low in the sky, Khal Drogo clapped his work force together, and the drums and the yelling and feast ing came to a sudden halt. Drogo stood and pulled Dany to her feet beside him. It was time for her bride gifts.\r\nAnd after the gifts, she knew, after the sun had gone down, it would be time for the first ride and the consummation of her marriage. Dany tried to put the aspect aside, but it would not leave her. She hugged herself to testify to keep from shaking.\r\nHer brother Viserys gifted her with three handmaids. Dany knew they had follow him nothing; Illyrio no doubt had provided the girls. Irri and Jhiqui were copper-skinned Dothraki with black sensory hair and almond-shaped eyes, Doreah a fair-haired, blue-eyed Lysene girl. â€Å"These are no common servants, sweet sister,” her brother told her as they were brought forward one by one. â€Å"Illyrio and I selected them personally for you. Irri allow for teach you riding, Jhiqui the Dothraki tongue, and Doreah pass on instruct you in the womanish arts of love.” He smiled thinly. â€Å"Shes very good, Illyr io and I can both swear to that.”\r\nSer Jorah Mormont apologized for his gift. â€Å"It is a vitiated thing, my princess, but all a poor exile could afford,” he said as he laid a small stack of old books before her. They were histories and songs of the Seven Kingdoms, she saw, written in the putting surface Tongue. She thanked him with all her oculus.\r\nMagister Illyrio murmured a command, and four burly slaves hurried forward, bearing amongst them a great cedar chest enclose in bronze. When she opened it, she found piles of the finest velvets and damasks the Free Cities could produce . . . and resting on top, nestled in the well-off cloth, three huge eggs. Dany gasped. They were the most beautiful things she had ever seen, each different than the others, patterned in much(prenominal) rich colors that at first she thought they were crusted with jewels, and so large it took both of her hands to hold one. She lift it delicately, expecting that it would be made of some fine porcelain or delicate enamel, or even blown glass, but it was much heavier than that, as if it were all of solid stone. The surface of the shell was covered with piffling scales, and as she false the egg between her fingers, they shimmered like polished metal in the light of the climb sun. One egg was a deep green, with smart bronze flecks that came and went depending on how Dany turned it. Another was sentinel cream streaked with gold. The last was black, as black as a midnight sea, only alive with red ripples and swirls. â€Å"What are they?” she asked, her voice hushed and full of wonder.\r\nâ€Å"Dragons eggs, from the tint Lands beyond Asshai,” said Magister Illyrio. â€Å"The eons have turned them to stone, yet still they burn bright with beauty.”\r\nâ€Å"I shall apprise them always.” Dany had heard tales of such eggs, but she had never seen one, nor thought to see one. It was a truly magnificent gift, though she knew that Illy rio could afford to be lavish. He had collected a fortune in horses and slaves for his part in interchange her to Khal Drogo.\r\nThe khals bloodriders offered her the traditional three weapons, and splendid weapons they were. Haggo gave her a great leather whip with a bills handle, Cohollo a magnificent arakh chased in gold, and Qotho a double-curved dragonbone shelve taller than she was. Magister Illyrio and Ser Jorah had taught her the traditional refusals for these offerings. â€Å"This is a gift worthy of a great warrior, O blood of my blood, and I am but a woman. Let my lord hubby bear these in my stead.” And so Khal Drogo too stock his â€Å"bride gifts.”\r\nOther gifts she was given in plenty by other Dothraki: slippers and jewels and argent rings for her hair, medallion belts and painted vests and comfortable furs, sandsilks and jars of scent, take uples and feathers and tiny bottles of purple glass, and a dress made from the skin of a thousand mice. â €Å"A handsome gift, Khaleesi,” Magister Illyrio said of the last, after he had told her what it was. â€Å"Most lucky.” The gifts mounted up around her in great piles, more gifts than she could possibly imagine, more gifts than she could want or use.\r\nAnd last of all, Khal Drogo brought forth his own bride gift to her. An large(p) hush rippled out from the center of the camp as he left her side, growing until it had swallowed the safe and sound khalasar. When he returned, the dense press of Dothraki gift-givers parted before him, and he led the horse to her.\r\nShe was a unsalted filly, spirited and splendid. Dany knew just enough about horses to know that this was no ordinary animal. There was something about her that took the breath away. She was grey as the winter sea, with a mane like silver smoke.\r\nHesitantly she reached out and stroked the horses neck, ran her fingers through the silver of her mane. Khal Drogo said something in Dothraki and Magister Ill yrio translated. â€Å"Silver for the silver of your hair, the khal says.”\r\nâ€Å"Shes beautiful,” Dany murmured.\r\nâ€Å"She is the pride of the khalasar, ” Illyrio said. â€Å"Custom decrees that the khaleesi must ride a mount worthy of her place by the side of the khal.”\r\nDrogo stepped forward and put his hands on her waist. He lifted her up as easily as if she were a child and set her on the thin Dothraki saddle, so much smaller than the ones she was used to. Dany sat there uncertain for a flake. No one had told her about this part. â€Å"What should I do?” she asked Illyrio.\r\nIt was Ser Jorah Mormont who answered. â€Å"Take the reins and ride. You need not go far.”\r\nNervously Dany gathered the reins in her hands and slid her feet into the short stirrups. She was only a fair rider; she had spent far more time traveling by ship and wagon and palanquin than by horseback. Praying that she would not fall off and take down herself , she gave the filly the lightest and most timid give ear with her knees.\r\nAnd for the first time in hours, she forgot to be afraid. Or perhaps it was for the first time ever.\r\nThe silver-grey filly moved with a smooth and aerodynamic gait, and the crowd parted for her, every eye upon them. Dany found herself moving faster than she had intended, yet somehow it was raise rather than terrifying. The horse broke into a trot, and she smiled. Dothraki move to clear a path. The slightest pressure with her legs, the lightest touch on the reins, and the filly responded. She sent it into a gallop, and now the Dothraki were hooting and laughing and yelling at her as they jumped out of her way. As she turned to ride back, a firepit loomed ahead, directly in her path. They were hemmed in on either side, with no room to stop. A daring she had never known filled Daenerys then, and she gave the filly her head.\r\nThe silver horse leapt the flames as if she had wings.\r\nWhen she pulled up before Magister Illyrio, she said, â€Å" fork Khal Drogo that he has given me the wind.” The fat Pentoshi stroked his yellow beard as he repeated her words in Dothraki, and Dany saw her new husband smile for the first time.\r\nThe last sliver of sun vanished behind the high walls of Pentos to the west just then. Dany had lost all baseball swing of time. Khal Drogo commanded his bloodriders to bring forth his own horse, a disposition red stallion. As the khal was saddling the horse, Viserys slid close to Dany on her silver, turn over his fingers into her leg, and said, â€Å"Please him, sweet sister, or I swear, you will see the dragon wake as it has never woken before.”\r\nThe fear came back to her then, with her brothers words. She felt like a child once more, only thirteen and all alone, not ready for what was about to happen to her.\r\nThey rode out together as the stars came out, leaving the khalasar and the grass palaces behind. Khal Drogo round no word to h er, but drove his stallion at a hard trot through the gathering dusk. The tiny silver bells in his massive braid rang softly as he rode. â€Å"I am the blood of the dragon,” she utter aloud as she followed, trying to keep her courage up. â€Å"I am the blood of the dragon. I am the blood of the dragon.” The dragon was never afraid.\r\nAfterward she could not say how far or how long they had ridden, but it was full bleached when they stopped at a grassy place beside a small stream. Drogo swung off his horse and lifted her down from hers. She felt as fragile as glass in his hands, her limbs as weak as water. She stood there helpless and trembling in her wedding silks while he secured the horses, and when he turned to look at her, she began to cry.\r\nKhal Drogo stared at her tears, his face strangely blank of expression. â€Å"No,” he said. He lifted his hand and rubbed away the tears roughly with a callused thumb.\r\nâ€Å"You speak the Common Tongue,” Dany said in wonder.\r\nâ€Å"No,” he said again.\r\n peradventure he had only that word, she thought, but it was one word more than she had known he had, and somehow it made her feel a little better. Drogo touched her hair lightly, sliding the silver-blond strands between his fingers and murmuring softly in Dothraki. Dany did not understand the words, yet there was ecstasy in the tone, a tenderness she had never expect from this man.\r\nHe put his finger under her chin and lifted her head, so she was looking up into his eyes. Drogo towered over her as he towered over everyone. Taking her lightly under the arms, he lifted her and seated her on a rounded rock beside the stream. Then he sat on the ground facing her, legs cut across beneath him, their faces finally at a height. â€Å"No,” he said.\r\nâ€Å"Is that the only word you know?” she asked him.\r\nDrogo did not reply. His long heavy braid was coiled in the grime beside him. He pulled it over his right shoulder and began to exact the bells from his hair, one by one. After a moment Dany leaned forward to help. When they were done, Drogo gestured. She understood. Slowly, carefully, she began to undo his braid.\r\nIt took a long time. completely the while he sat there silently, observance her. When she was done, he shook his head, and his hair spread out behind him like a river of darkness, oiled and gleaming. She had never seen hair so long, so black, so thick.\r\nThen it was his turn. He began to undress her.\r\nHis fingers were deft and strangely tender. He removed her silks one by one, carefully, while Dany sat unmoving, silent, looking at his eyes. When he bared her small breasts, she could not help herself. She averted her eyes and covered herself with her hands. â€Å"No,” Drogo said. He pulled her hands away from her breasts, mildly but firmly, then lifted her face again to make her look at him. â€Å"No,” he repeated.\r\nâ€Å"No,” she echoed back at him.\r\nHe stood her up then and pulled her close to remove the last of her silks. The night air was chilly on her bare skin. She shivered, and gooseflesh covered her arms and legs. She was afraid of what would come next, but for a while nothing happened. Khal Drogo sat with his legs crossed, looking at her, drinking in her body with his eyes.\r\nAfter a while he began to touch her. Lightly at first, then harder. She could sense the rumbustious strength in his hands, but he never hurt her. He held her hand in his own and brushed her fingers, one by one. He ran a hand gently down her leg. He stroked her face, canvas the curve of her ears, running a finger gently around her mouth. He put both hands in her hair and combed it with his fingers. He turned her around, massaged her shoulders, slid a knuckle down the path of her spine.\r\nIt seemed as if hours passed before his hands finally went to her breasts. He stroked the soft skin underneath until it tingled. He circled her nipples w ith his thumbs, pinched them between thumb and forefinger, then began to pull at her, very lightly at first, then more insistently, until her nipples stiffened and began to ache.\r\nHe stopped then, and drew her down onto his lap. Dany was flushed and breathless, her heart fluttering in her chest. He cupped her face in his huge hands and looked into his eyes. â€Å"No?” he said, and she knew it was a question.\r\nShe took his hand and moved it down to the wetness between her thighs. â€Å"Yes,” she whispered as she put his finger inside her.\r\n'