of dried leaves onto a brazier, filling the chamber with fragrant smoke. “Best if you wait outside,” she told the rest of them.
“We are blood of his blood,” Cohollo said. “Here we wait.”
Qotho stepped close to Mirri Maz Duur. “Know this, wife of the Lamb God. Harm the khal and you suffer the same.” He drew his skinning knife and showed her the blade.
“She will do no harm.” Dany felt she could trust this old, plain-faced woman with her flat nose; she had saved her from the hard hands of her rapers, after all.
“If you must stay, then help,” Mirri told the blood-riders. “The Great Rider is too strong for me. Hold him still while I draw the arrow from his flesh.” She let the rags of her gown fall to her waist as she opened a carved chest, and busied herself with bottles and boxes, knives and needles. When she was ready, she broke off the barbed arrowhead and pulled out the shaft, chanting in the sing-song tongue of the Lhazareen. She heated a flagon of wine to boiling on the brazier, and poured it over his wounds. Khal Drogo cursed her, but he did not move. She bound the arrow wound with a plaster of wet leaves and turned to the gash on his breast, smearing it with a pale-green paste before she pulled the flap of skin back in place. The khal ground his teeth together and swallowed a scream. The godswife took out a silver needle and a bobbin of silk thread and began to close the flesh. When she was done she painted the skin with red ointment, covered it with more leaves, and bound the breast in a ragged piece of lambskin. “You must say the prayers I give you and keep the lambskin in place for ten days and ten nights,” she said. “There will be fever, and itching, and a great scar when the healing is done.”
Khal Drogo sat, bells ringing. “I sing of my scars, sheep woman.” He flexed his arm and scowled.
“Drink neither wine nor the milk of the poppy,” she cautioned him. “Pain you will have, but you must keep your body strong to fight the poison spirits.”
“I am khal,” Drogo said. “I spit on pain and drink what I like. Cohollo, bring my vest.” The older man hastened off.
“Before,” Dany said to the ugly Lhazareen woman, “I heard you speak of birthing songs …”
“I know every secret of the bloody bed, Silver Lady, nor have I ever lost a babe,” Mirri Maz Duur replied.
“My time is near,” Dany said. “I would have you attend me when he comes, if you would.”
Khal Drogo laughed. “Moon of my life, you do not ask a slave, you tell her. She will do as you command.” He jumped down from the altar. “Come, my blood. The stallions call, this place is ashes. It is time to ride.”
Haggo followed the khal from the temple, but Qotho lingered long enough to favor Mirri Maz Duur with a stare. “Remember, maegi, as the khal fares, so shall you.”
“As you say, rider,” the woman answered him, gathering up her jars and bottles. “The Great Shepherd guards the flock.”
TYRION
On a hill overlooking the kingsroad, a long trestle table of rough-hewn pine had been erected beneath an elm tree and covered with a golden cloth. There, beside his pavilion, Lord Tywin took his evening meal with his chief knights and lords bannermen, his great crimson-and-gold standard waving overhead from a lofty pike.
Tyrion arrived late, saddlesore, and sour, all too vividly aware of how amusing he must look as he waddled up the slope to his father. The day’s march had been long and tiring. He thought he might get quite drunk tonight. It was twilight, and the air was alive with drifting fireflies.
The cooks were serving the meat course: five suckling pigs, skin seared and crackling, a different fruit in every mouth. The smell made his mouth water. “My pardons,” he began, taking his place on the bench beside his uncle.
“Perhaps I’d best charge you with burying our dead, Tyrion,” Lord Tywin said. “If you are as late to battle as you are to table, the fighting will all be done by the time you arrive.”
“Oh, surely you can save me a peasant or two, Father,” Tyrion replied. “Not too many, I wouldn’t want to be greedy.” He filled his wine cup and watched a serving man carve into the pig. The crisp skin crackled under his knife, and hot juice ran from the meat. It was the loveliest sight Tyrion had seen in ages.
“Ser Addam’s outriders say the Stark host has moved south from the Twins,” his father reported as his trencher was filled with slices of pork. “Lord Frey’s levies have joined them. They are likely no more than a day’s march north of us.”
“Please, Father,” Tyrion said. “I’m about to eat.”
“Does the thought of facing the Stark boy unman you, Tyrion? Your brother Jaime would be eager to come to grips with him.”
“I’d sooner come to grips with that pig. Robb Stark is not half so tender, and he never smelled as good.”
Lord Lefford, the sour bird who had charge of their stores and supplies, leaned forward. “I hope your savages do not share your reluctance, else we’ve wasted our good steel on them.”
“My savages will put your steel to excellent use, my lord,” Tyrion replied. When he had told Lefford he needed arms and armor to equip the three hundred men Ulf had fetched down out of the foothills, you would have thought he’d asked the man to turn his virgin daughters over to their pleasure.
Lord Lefford frowned. “I saw that great hairy one today, the one who insisted that he must have two battleaxes, the heavy black steel ones with twin crescent blades.”
“Shagga likes to kill with either hand,” Tyrion said as a trencher of steaming pork was laid in front of him.
“He still had that wood-axe of his strapped to his back.”
“Shagga is of the opinion that three axes are even better than two.” Tyrion reached a thumb and forefinger into the salt dish, and sprinkled a healthy pinch over his meat.
Ser Kevan leaned forward. “We had a thought to put you and your wildlings in the vanguard when we come to battle.”
Ser Kevan seldom “had a thought” that Lord Tywin had not had first. Tyrion had skewered a chunk of meat on the point of his dagger and brought it to his mouth. Now he lowered it. “The vanguard?” he repeated dubiously. Either his lord father had a new respect for Tyrion’s abilities, or he’d decided to rid himself of his embarrassing get for good. Tyrion had the gloomy feeling he knew which.
“They seem ferocious enough,” Ser Kevan said.
“Ferocious?” Tyrion realized he was echoing his uncle like a trained bird. His father watched, judging him, weighing every word. “Let me tell you how ferocious they are. Last night, a Moon Brother stabbed a Stone Crow over a sausage. So today, as we made camp, three Stone Crows seized the man and opened his throat for him. Perhaps they were hoping to get the sausage back, I couldn’t say. Bronn managed to keep Shagga from chopping off the dead man’s cock, which was fortunate, but even so Ulf is demanding blood money, which Conn and Shagga refuse to pay.”
“When soldiers lack discipline, the fault lies with their lord commander,” his father said.
His brother Jaime had always been able to make men follow him eagerly, and die for him if need be. Tyrion lacked that gift. He bought loyalty with gold, and compelled obedience with his name. “A bigger man would be able to put the fear in them, is that what you’re saying, my lord?”
Lord Tywin Lannister turned to his brother. “If my son’s men will not obey his commands, perhaps the vanguard is not the place for him. No doubt he would be more comfortable in the rear, guarding our baggage train.”
“Do me no kindnesses, Father,” he said angrily. “If you have no other command to offer me, I’ll lead your van.”
Lord Tywin studied his dwarf son. “I