The King of Winters

Chapter-22

DAENERYS 

She was breaking her fast on a bowl of cold shrimp-and-persimmon soup when her seamstress brought her a ornate gown, an airy confection of ivory samite patterned with seed pearls. "Take it away," Dany said. "The dining table is no place for lady's finery." 

The dress was made for the upcoming marriage of her nephew to Arianne Martell and Dany would do her part as a royal princess. When she went to the stables, she wore faded sandsilk pants and soft leather sandals. Her small breasts moved freely beneath a smooth linen gown dyed blue, and  her vest was secured by her ruby studded belt. Her handmaidens had braided her hair in an intricate fashion with three separate braids overlapping from the sides to join into a single one in the back of her head. Her kingly brother would disagree her choice of dress though. "You're a princess of House Targaryen, the blood of Aegon the Dragon and you should look like one," her brother would say whenever he finds her as such and Dany didn't wanted to make any scene in her nephew's wedding.

With all that was going on with her nephew's marriage, Dany could only imagine how her own marriage would be. Willas Tyrell seemed to be a sweet guy for a cripple. He courted her gently, always being sweet with her with only a merest brush of his lips on the back of her hand or her cheek. He had an unrequited love for animals, horses, dogs, cats and other birds which followed to her dragons as well. He always seemed happy to see Drogon as well. Dany thought that he would not be so bad a husband to have. Moreover the Tyrells had the largest army and are the richest house in Westeros second only to the Lannisters. Dany was only a little girl but even she knew that an alliance with the Reach would mean much for them if another rebellion was to occur. After all you could only burn the castles and cities with dragons but an army is needed to take and hold them. 

Dany mounted her silver mare with Ser Jorah and the bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters beside her. The newly made Master of Ships had offered her to show her the newly made ships in replacement for the ones drowned in the recent storm after Viserys death. The storm had been the worse, worser even than the one during her birth. It had claimed a good part of the royal Targaryen fleet along with Vhagar and Meraxes, the huge war galleys which formed the central piece of the Targaryen arsenal in the sea along with their sister, Balerion. Only Balerion remained now and the storm had really left them in a bad way.

They left the high red walls of the Red Keep behind and made their way through a poorer part of the city where modest brick houses turned blind walls to the street. There were fewer horses and nobles to be seen, and a dearth of palanquins, but the streets teemed with children, beggars, and rats the color of dusk. Pale skinny men in dusty linen tunic stood beneath arched doorways to watch them pass. They know who I am, and they do not love me. Dany could tell from the way they looked at her. 

Ser Jorah would sooner have tucked her inside her palanquin, safely hidden behind silken curtains, but she refused him. She had reclined too long on satin cushions, letting horses bear her hither and yon. At least when she rode she felt as though she was getting somewhere. Though eventually Ser Jorah agreed with her, it was only half-heartedly. Dany had took him into her service when she'd turned fourteen. He had come back from his exile in Essos after hearing Eddard Stark's demise in the hands of her brother. The Usurper had wanted his head after some trifling affront. He had sold some poachers to a Tyroshi slaver instead of giving them to the Night's Watch. Absurd law, Dany thought. A man should be able to do as he likes with his own chattel. If her brother had ruled the north then, he would never have troubled Ser Jorah for it. When Ser Jorah came to her last year he was an older man, past forty and balding, but still strong and fit. He was different in the southern court. Instead of silks and cottons like the southron lords, he wore wool and leather. She had asked him to accompany her to the harbor today. Despite the heat of the day, Ser Jorah wore his green wool surcoat over chainmail, the black bear of Mormont sewn on his chest.