Chapter 174: Rhapsody of Pentos (8)
The carriage rumbled to a halt before the entrance of the White Cat Inn.
Ian wasted no time. He swept aside the curtain, swung himself up into the carriage, and gently lifted out Daenerys, who was wrapped tightly in a red robe. He then had Case hoist Viserys's body onto his back.
"Stay here," Ian commanded the Unsullied who remained by the carriage. "Let no one enter."
The Unsullied guards saw no reason to question an order that did not appear to harm their master, Illyrio. They could only obey.
Leaving the last of his escort to stand guard, Ian led the others into the inn.
They passed through the messy, crowded common room and slipped out through the back door. There, 'Black Falcon' Dorian and Bronn were waiting with more than thirty men. Beside them stood a plain carriage, the kind used by common merchants.
Seeing Ian appear, Dorian hurried to greet him.
"We've spread the news throughout the port, just as you instructed," he reported. "Every ship in Pentos is scrambling to cast off. The entire harbor is in chaos." He then gestured to the soldiers behind him. "These men are all trustworthy old hands we brought from Westeros. I've dismissed all the others we recruited in the city."
Ian gave him a sharp nod. "Burn this inn as well," he ordered.
With that, Ian placed Daenerys and the body of Viserys into the new carriage, and they set off for the port.
***
Amid countless watchful eyes, both hidden and overt, the great doors of the Parliament Palace finally swung open once more.
Protected by a phalanx of guards, a eunuch ascended the high platform outside the palace to announce the resolutions of the Grand Council.
The declaration was only two short sentences.
First, Governor Guerrero Tetrus was accused of treason. The Grand Council had sentenced him to death and decreed that the Tetrus family be stripped of all property and power.
Second, Prince Tregg Mohharis had been murdered by the traitorous Governor. The Grand Council had therefore elected Hazan Mohharis as the new Prince of Pentos.
The announcement sent shockwaves through the city.
The bloody light of the setting sun reflected the fires blazing in the port. Thousands of sailors poured from the surrounding inns and tenements, rushing toward the docks. Illyrio's harbor guards were powerless to stop such a massive tide of panicked men. They could only shrink their defensive lines, retreating into the towers and letting the exodus continue unabated.
Mixed within the surge of sailors, Ian and his party reached the docks without drawing any undue attention. The din of the crowd easily drowned out the sound of Daenerys's quiet sobbing from within the carriage.
For as long as she could remember, Daenerys had spent her life hiding from assassins. Though she had never seen one, she knew it was her brother who kept her safe—or so he had always told her.
But just now, her brother had died at the hands of an assassin, right before her eyes.
The moment the crossbow bolt had slammed into Viserys's chest, Daenerys felt her entire world collapse.
Though Viserys had grown selfish, irritable, and cruel, Dany would always remember the warmth of their childhood, and every time she provoked the dragon's wrath, she would forgive him.
Even though he had decided to marry her off to Khal Drogo.
Even if she would never be able to return home, at least *he* could have gone back, couldn't he? He could have led brave and loyal knights like Ian to overthrow the Usurper's tyranny and save the people of Westeros.
But now? What was she to do now?
Daenerys did not know.
She felt a deep cold spreading through her body. Was it a fever? She couldn't tell. She was half-lying in the carriage, curled into a tight ball, her hands clutching something desperately.
Suddenly, she heard Ian's voice. "Your Majesty. Your Majesty!"
*There is no Your Majesty!* Dany screamed in her heart. *Viserys is dead and he's not coming back! You can't go home either! I'm so sorry we couldn't help you.*
At the thought, her quiet sobs grew louder.
"Your Grace," Ian's voice came again, softer this time. "My queen."
*Queen?* Daenerys opened her eyes in confusion. Choking back her sobs, she raised her head and looked at Ian with her violet eyes.
Only then did she realize she was clinging to him like an octopus, that he was the solid thing she had been holding onto in her haze of grief.
A blush spread across her face, turning her cheeks the color of ripe apples. But she did not let go. Instead, she tightened her grip, like a drowning woman clinging to a piece of driftwood.
"King Viserys is dead," Ian explained, ignoring her embarrassment. "You are our queen now."
"Queen?" Daenerys whispered the word again, as if it belonged to a foreign language.
"King Viserys is gone. You are the last of the Targaryen line, the last true dragon. You must lead us to reclaim the Iron Throne and win back our lost kingdom. All of this is your responsibility now." Ian's tone grew firmer, more insistent.
"My responsibility?" Daenerys shook her head, the motion automatic. "But I… I'm to marry the horse king soon…"
"You will not marry him. We are leaving Pentos."
"Why?" Her mind was still reeling, unable to keep up.
"Because a Khal's wife must live in his temple, but you must lead us back to Westeros. You must be our queen. You heard your brother speak of his duties. Now, they all fall upon your shoulders."
"Me?" Dany shook her head again, more vehemently this time. "I can't. I don't know anything."
"I can teach you," Ian said, a gentle smile touching his lips.
This was one of the core reasons he had decided to take her with him. It was true that the girl often seemed overly kind, idealistic, even childishly stubborn. But those were traits she had developed over time, traits that could have been avoided had she been surrounded by more qualified mentors.
The tragedy of Daenerys was that she had never been taught how to be a ruler, not in the way a true crown prince would be, yet she had been thrust into the role of Queen of Meereen before she was even sixteen. She had been forced to rule without a single reliable advisor.
And they were truly unreliable. Grey Worm was an officer of the Unsullied; his world contained only obedience. As for Jorah and Barristan, nearly every piece of advice they offered her during her entire reign was a bad idea. Jorah had suggested she sell her dragon eggs and travel east with him; in the end, she defied him and hatched the dragons herself. Barristan had suggested she treat the slave masters with fairness, even as they abolished slavery in Slaver's Bay. That attempt to reconcile with her sworn enemies led only to endless rebellion that mired her in chaos.
Time and again, her advisors offered terrible counsel, and time and again, her own stubborn persistence against all odds proved to be the right choice. After listening to their advice and reaping only failure, how could she not become stubborn and conceited?
Daenerys couldn't trust the people under her command, and was sometimes so lost that she had to turn to her young translator, Missandei, for guidance. But what counsel could Missandei, a slave trained only as an interpreter, truly offer? All Missandei could say was, "Do what you wish to do," to bolster her queen's confidence in her own flawed instincts.
Faced with any problem, Daenerys could only find a solution on her own. It had driven her to the foolish idea of marrying a Meereenese noble. Had she even considered what would happen if that plan succeeded? After stabilizing Meereen, how could she return to rule Westeros? How would the people of the Seven Kingdoms accept a queen with a foreign husband? And if the marriage failed to stabilize the city, and civil war broke out anyway, what was the point of it at all?
No one could give her the answers. She had no real advisors, and she was only sixteen years old.
But now, everything would be different.
She was still young. She had not yet suffered the lonely days as a Khaleesi, had not yet developed the hard habits of a ruler forged in fire and betrayal. She had never experienced the bitter betrayals to come, nor the triumphs she would win through sheer force of will.
Right now, Daenerys was malleable. As Varys was fond of saying, people could be shaped. And Ian was confident he could reshape this queen according to his own design. From this moment, the tale would change. It would no longer be the story of a Dragon Queen and her vengeful vassals, but of his own making: the forging of a young dragon, guided by his hand.
"And you must do it," Ian continued, his voice steady and sure. "Because you have the blood of the true dragon in you. You are the last Targaryen, and this is your birthright."
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