Chapitre 5: THE QUEENSROAD
"The Dothraki sea," Ser Jorah Mormont said as he reined to a halt beside her on the top of the ridge. Beneath them, the plain stretched out immense and empty, a vast flat expanse that reached the distant horizon and beyond. It was a sea, Dany thought. Past here, there were no hills, no mountains, no trees nor cities nor roads, only the endless grasses, the tall blades rippling like waves when the winds blew. "It's so green," she said.
"Here and now," Ser Jorah agreed. "You ought to see it when it blooms, all dark red flowers from horizon to horizon, like a sea of blood. Come the dry season, and the world turns the color of old bronze. And this is only hranna, child. There are a hundred kinds of grass out there, grasses as yellow as lemon and as dark as indigo, blue grasses and orange grasses, and grasses like rainbows. Down in the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, they say there are oceans of ghost grass, taller than a man on horseback with stalks as pale as milkglass. It murders all other grass and glows in the dark with the spirits of the damned. The Dothraki claim that someday ghost grass will cover the entire world, and then all life will end."
That thought gave Dany the shivers. "I don't want to talk about that now," she said. "It's so beautiful here, I don't want to think about everything dying."
"As you will, Khaleesi," Ser Jorah said respectfully.
She heard the sound of voices and turned to look behind her. She and Mormont had outdistanced the rest of their party, and now the others were climbing the ridge below them. Her handmaid Irri and the young archers of her khas were fluid as centaurs, but Viserys still struggled with the short stirrups and the flat saddle. Her brother was miserable out here. He ought never to have come. Magister Illyrio had urged him to wait in Pentos, and had offered him the hospitality of his manse, but Viserys would have none of it. He would stay with Hela until the debt had been paid, until he had the crown he had been promised. "And if she tries to cheat me, she will learn to her sorrow what it means to wake the dragon," Viserys had vowed, laying a hand on his borrowed sword. Illyrio had blinked at that and wished him good fortune.
Dany realized that she did not want to listen to any of her brother's complaints right now. The day was too perfect. The sky was a deep blue, and high above them a hunting hawk circled. The grass sea swayed and sighed with each breath of wind, the air was warm on her face, and Dany felt at peace. She would not let Viserys spoil it.
"Wait here," Dany told Ser Jorah. "Tell them all to stay. Tell them I command it."
The knight smiled. Ser Jorah was not a handsome man. He had a neck and shoulders like a bull, and coarse black hair covered his arms and chest so thickly that there was none left for his head. Yet his smiles gave Dany comfort. "You are learning to talk like a queen, Daenerys."
"Not a queen," said Dany her mind going back to the night of her marriage to Khal Hela. "A khaleesi. " She wheeled her horse about and galloped down the ridge alone.
The descent was steep and rocky, but Dany rode fearlessly, and the joy and the danger of it were a song in her heart. All her life Viserys had told her she was a princess, but not until she rode her silver had Daenerys Targaryen ever felt like one.
At first, it had not come easy. The khalasar had broken camp the morning after her wedding, moving east toward Vaes Dothrak, and by the third day, Dany thought she was going to die. Saddle sores opened on her bottom, hideous and bloody. Her thighs were chafed raw, her hands blistered from the reins, and the muscles of her legs and back so wracked with pain that she could scarcely sit. By the time dusk fell, her handmaids would need to help her down from her mount.
At least the nights brought relief. Hela had kept her word and they have not laid a finger on her but that did not stop them from going at it with each other mostly doing it when they thought she was asleep. If she was being honest she was beginning to get a little jealous and left out so she decided when they make camp next time she would join them.
Her mind suddenly went back to the dream she had last night. She dreamt of the two dragons again. Viserys was not in it this time. There was only her and the dragons. The big one had black scales that protruded from all over its body like spikes, the other one was a bit smaller with dark brown scale, multiple horns growing from the side of its head, and a red stripe that goes down its neck to its chest where a blood red rube rested. Both their eyes were like pools of molten magma and when they opened their mouths, the flames came roaring out in a hot jet. She opened her arms to the fire, embraced it, let it swallow her whole, let it cleanse her and temper her and scour her clean. She could feel her flesh sear and blacken and slough away, could feel her blood boil and turn to steam, and yet there was no pain. She felt strong and new and fierce. When she opened her eyes the dragons were not there but in their place stood Hela and Astrid.
This morning when she woke up she felt different, a little more confident in herself. Even her handmaids noticed the change. "Khaleesi," Jhiqui said, "What's wrong? Are you sick?"
"I was," She answered, standing over the dragon's eggs that Illyrio had given her when she wed. She touched one, the largest of the three, running her hand lightly over the shelf. The stone felt strangely warm beneath her fingers . . . She pulled her hand back nervously.
At the bottom of the ridge, the grasses rose around her, tall and supple. Dany slowed to a trot and rode out onto the plain, losing herself in the green, blessedly alone. In the khalasar, she was never alone. Hela and Astrid came to check on her when they settle down, her handmaids fed her and bathed her and slept by the door of her tent, Hela's bloodriders and the men of her khas were never far, and her brother was an unwelcome shadow, day and night. Dany could hear him on the top of the ridge, his voice shrill with anger as he shouted at Ser Jorah. She rode on, submerging herself deeper in the Dothraki sea.
The green swallowed her up. The air was rich with the scents of earth and grass, mixed with the smell of horseflesh and Dany's sweat and the oil in her hair. Dothraki smells. They seemed to belong here. Dany breathed it all in, laughing. She had a sudden urge to feel the ground beneath her, to curl her toes in that thick black soil. Swinging down from her saddle, she let the silver graze while she pulled off her high boots.
Viserys came upon her as sudden as a summer storm, his horse rearing beneath him as he reined up too hard. "You dare!" he screamed at her. "You give commands to me? To me?" He vaulted off the horse, stumbling as he landed. His face was flushed as he struggled back to his feet. He grabbed her and shook her. "Have you forgotten who you are? Look at you. Look at you!"
Dany did not need to look. She was barefoot, with oiled hair, wearing Dothraki riding leathers and a painted vest given her as a bride gift. She looked as though she belonged here. Viserys was soiled and stained in city silks and ringmail.
He was still screaming. "You do not command the dragon. Do you understand? I am the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, I will not hear orders from some horselord's slut, do you hear me?" His hand went under her vest, his fingers digging painfully into her breast. "Do you hear me?"
Dany shoved him away, hard.
Viserys stared at her, his lilac eyes incredulous. She had never defied him. Never fought back. Rage twisted his features. He would hurt her now, and badly, she knew that.
Viserys is suddenly yanked backward by Astrid. He went sprawling in the grass, stunned and choked when Astrid put her foot on his neck. The Dothraki riders hooted at him as he struggled to free himself. "You shouldn't have done that," She tells him as she takes her axe from her back.
"No," Dany said, "Wait,"
Astrid turned to her her face softening. One of the others barked out a comment and the Dothraki laughed. Irri told her, "Quaro thinks you should take an ear to teach him respect."
Her brother was on the floor, crying incoherently, struggling for breath.
"I do not wish for him to be harmed," Dany says her eyes meeting Astrid's, "Please,"
Astrid nods and takes her foot off of his neck and goes over to Dany hugging her.
"I warned him what would happen, my lady," Ser Jorah Mormont said. "I told him to stay on the ridge, as you commanded."
"I know you did," Dany replied, watching Viserys. He lay on the ground, sucking in air noisily, red-faced and sobbing. He was a pitiful thing. He had always been a pitiful thing. Why had she never seen that before? There was a hollow place inside her where her fear had been. The next thing she says makes Astrid smile.
"Take his horse," Dany commanded Ser Jorah. Viserys gaped at her. He could not believe what he was hearing; nor could Dany quite believe what she was saying. Dany felt Astrid give her hand an encouraging squeeze. "Let my brother walk behind us back to the khalasar." Among the Dothraki, the man who does not ride was no man at all, the lowest of the low, without honor or pride. "Let everyone see him as he is."
"No!" Viserys screamed. He turned to Ser Jorah, pleading in the Common Tongue with words the horsemen would not understand forgetting that a moment ago Astrid spoke the Common Tongue. "Hit her, Mormont. Hurt her. Your king commands it. Kill these Dothraki dogs and teach her."
The exile knight looked from Dany to her brother; she barefoot, with dirt between her toes and oil in her hair, he with his silks and steel. His eyes then met Astrid's daring him to even take a step towards her. "He shall walk, Khaleesi," he said. He took her brother's horse in hand while Astrid helped Dany remount her silver before going back to hers.
Viserys gaped at him and sat down in the dirt. He kept his silence, but he would not move, and his eyes were full of poison as they rode away. Soon he was lost in the tall grass. When they could not see him anymore, Dany grew afraid. "Will he find his way back?" she asked Ser Jorah as they rode.
"Even a man as blind as your brother should be able to follow our trail," he replied.
"He is proud. He may be too shamed to come back."
Jorah laughed. "Where else should he go? If he cannot find the khalasar, the khalasar will most surely find him. It is hard to drown in the Dothraki sea, child."
Dany saw the truth of that. The Khalasar was like a city on the march, but it did not march blindly. Always scouts ranged far ahead of the main column, alert for any sign of game or prey or enemies, while outriders guarded their flanks. They missed nothing, not here, in this land, the place where they had come from. These plains were a part of them . . . and of her, now.
"I hit him," she said, wonder in her voice. Now that it was over, it seemed like some strange dream that she had dreamed. "Ser Jorah, do you think . . . he'll be so angry when he gets back She shivered. "I woke the dragon, didn't I'"
Ser Jorah snorted. "Can you wake the dead, girl? Your brother Rhaegar was the last dragon, and he died on the Trident. Viserys is less than the shadow of a snake."
His blunt words startled her. It seemed as though all the things she had always believed were suddenly called into question. "You . . . you swore him your sword . . ."
"That I did, girl," Ser Jorah said. "And if your brother is the shadow of a snake, what does that make his servants?" His voice was bitter.
"He is still the true king. He is . . ."
Jorah pulled up his horse and looked at her. "Truth now. Would you want to see Viserys sit a throne?"
Dany thought about that. "He would not be a very good king, would he?"
"There have been worse . . . but not many." The knight gave his heels to his mount and started again.
Dany rode close beside him. "Still," she said, "the common people are waiting for him. Magister Illyrio says they are sewing dragon banners and praying for Viserys to return from across the narrow sea to free them."
"The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are."
Dany rode along quietly for a time, working his words like a puzzle box. It went against everything that Viserys had ever told her to think that the people could care so little whether a true king or a usurper reigned over them. Yet the more she thought on Jorah's words, the more they rang of truth.
"What do you pray for, Ser Jorah?" she asked him.
"Home," he said. His voice was thick with longing.
"I pray for home too," she told him, believing it.
Ser Jorah laughed. "Look around you then, Khaleesi."
But it was not the plains Dany saw then. It was King's Landing and the great Red Keep that Aegon the Conqueror had built. It was Dragonstone where she had been born. In her mind's eye, they burned with a thousand lights, a fire blazing in every window. In her mind's eye, all the doors were red.
"My brother will never take back the Seven Kingdoms," Dany said. She had known that for a long time, she realized. She had known it all her life. Only she had never let herself say the words, even in a whisper, but now she said them for Jorah Mormont and all the world to hear.
Ser Jorah gave her a measuring look. "You think not."
"He could not lead an army even if my lady wife gave him one," Dany said. "He has no coin and the only knight who follows him reviles him as less than a snake. The Dothraki make a mock of his weakness. He will never take us home."
"Wise child." The knight smiled.
"I am no child," she told him fiercely. Her heels pressed into the sides of her mount, rousing the silver to a gallop. Faster and faster she raced, leaving Jorah and Irri, and the others far behind, the warm wind in her hair and the setting sun red on her face. By the time she reached the khalasar, it was dusk.
The slaves had erected her tent by the shore of a spring-fed pool. She could hear rough voices from the woven grass palace on the hill. Soon there would be laughter when the men of her khas told the story of what had happened in the grasses today. By the time Viserys came limping back among them, every man, woman, and child in the camp would know him for a walker. There were no secrets in the Khalasar.
Dany gave the silver over to the slaves for grooming and entered her tent. It was cool and dim beneath the silk. As she let the door flap close behind her, Dany saw a finger of dusty red light reach out to touch her dragon's eggs across the tent. For an instant, a thousand droplets of scarlet flame swam before her eyes. She blinked, and they were gone.
She heard a loud commotion and laughter followed by her brother's horrified scream. When she came out to investigate she saw a crowd forming and walked over to see what was going on. She pushed her way to the front and saw her brother on the ground again but this time it wasn't Astrid standing in front of him but a massive black wolf.
"A direwolf," Ser Jorah exclaimed from next to her.
She's only heard of Direwolves before, "But I thought Direwolves only lived in the north?"
"They do," Ser Jorah says as unsheathes his sword but a hand stops him. That person being Hela followed by Astrid.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," She tells him, "Fenrir doesn't do well with being threatened,"
"Fenrir?" Dany asks confused.
Hearing his name being called he jumps over the weilling man child and walks over. Jorah and Dany take a step back intimidated by the beast making Hela chuckle. Fenrir gives Hela a wet kiss before sitting down as she pets his head Astrid joining in.
Hela turns to Dany and stretches out her hand, "He won't hurt you I promise,"
Dany walks over and takes it. Fenrir tilts his head as he looks at her.
"Fenrir this is Daenerys, my new wife," Hela introduces her.
Fenrir turns to look at Astrid at the word wife making her chuckle, "Yes, like me,"
He stands up and sniffs Dany taking in her scent before giving her a lick making her laugh.
"He likes you," Astrid tells her.
"I like him too," Dany says with a smile as she pets Fenrir's head. Hela smiles warmly at the interaction.
After things calmed down Dany went back to her tent and commanded her handmaids to prepare her a bath. Doreah built a fire outside the tent, while Irri and Jhiqui fetched the big copper tub-another bride gift from the packhorses and carried water from the pool. When the bath was steaming, Irri helped her into it and climbed in after her.
"Have you ever seen a dragon?" she asked as Irri scrubbed her back and Jhiqui sluiced sand from her hair. She had heard that the first dragons had come from the east, from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai and the islands of the Jade Sea. Perhaps some were still living there, in realms strange and wild.
"Dragons are gone, Khaleesi," Irri said.
"Dead," agreed Jhiqui. "Long and long ago."
Viserys had told her that the last Targaryen dragons had died no more than a century and a half ago, during the reign of Aegon 111, who was called the Dragonbane. That did not seem so long ago to Dany.
"Everywhere?" she said, disappointed. "Even in the east?" Magic had died in the west when the Doom fell on Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, and neither spell-forged steel nor stormsingers nor dragons could hold it back, but Dany had always heard that the east was different. It was said that manticores prowled the islands of the Jade Sea, that basilisks infested the jungles of Yi Ti, that spellsingers, warlocks, and aeromancers practiced their arts openly in Asshai, while shadowbinders and bloodmages worked terrible sorceries in the black of night. Why shouldn't there be dragons too?
"No dragon," Irri said. "Brave men kill them, for dragon terrible evil beasts. It is known."
"It is known," agreed Jhiqui.
"A trader from Qarth once told me that dragons came from the moon," blond Doreah said as she warmed a towel over the fire.
Silvery-wet hair tumbled across her eyes as Dany turned her head, curious. "The moon?"
"He told me the moon was an egg, Khaleesi," the Lysene girl said. "Once there were two moons in the sky, but one wandered too close to the sun and cracked from the heat. A thousand thousand dragons poured forth, and drank the fire of the sun. That is why dragons breathe flame. One day the other moon will kiss the sun too, and then it will crack and the dragons will return."
The two Dothraki girls giggled and laughed. "You are foolish strawhead slave," Irri said. "Moon is no egg. Moon is god, woman wife of sun. It is known."
"It is known," Jhiqui agreed.
Dany's skin was flushed and pink when she climbed from the tub. Jhiqui laid her down to oil her body and scrape the dirt from her pores. Afterward, Irri sprinkled her with spice-flower and cinnamon. While Doreah brushed her hair until it shone like spun silver, she thought about the moon, eggs, and dragons.
Her supper was a simple meal of fruit and cheese and fry bread, with a jug of honeyed wine to wash it down. "Doreah, stay and eat with me," Dany commanded when she sent her other handmaids away. The Lysene girl had hair the color of honey, and eyes like the summer sky.
She lowered those eyes when they were alone. "You honor me, Khaleesi, " she said, but it was no honor, only service. Long after the moon had risen, they sat together, talking.
That night, when Hela and Astrid came, Dany was waiting for them. "Tonight I do not want to be left out,"
Hela and Astrid looked at each other knowing what she meant. They walk over to her. "Are you sure you are ok with this? We don't want you to feel pressured into joining us" Hela asked.
"Yes I'm sure," Dany replied firmly.
"Sigh, alright, tell us if you feel uncomfortable and we'll stop," Astrid tells her and Dany nodded. Hela drew her in for a kiss and as the night went on the soft moans of their lovemaking were heard by all.
A few months later they were on the far side of the Dothraki sea when Jhiqui brushed the soft swell of Dany's stomach with her fingers and said, "Khaleesi, you are with child."
"I know," Dany told her with a smile but she wasn't the only one with a child as outside Astrid smiled as she rubs the soft bump on her stomach lovingly.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone