A noisy commotion came from outside the tent.
Daenerys, sitting cross-legged in the roaring fire with her black dragon egg, opened her eyes in frustration.
She was in the middle of sterilizing herself!
Temperatures over a thousand degrees were far more efficient than any antibiotics or penicillin—and cleaner, too, with absolutely no side effects.
Clenching her fists, Dany actually felt her body was lighter and stronger than before.
Stepping out of the fire, she washed the grime from her body with boiling water, then picked up the down-filled bundle she had prepared earlier—fashioned from a duck feather pillow.
Soon, looking exactly as she had before, Daenerys pushed her heavily pregnant belly forward and struggled to lift the heavy cowhide flap, stepping outside.
The scorching sun was sinking in the west, casting long shadows behind the hills.
The air was blisteringly hot and still.
A group of Dothraki warriors was hiding from the sun in the shade of the hills.
Guards stood straight as javelins in a ring outside Drogo’s woven grass palace.
Ser Jorah stood like a tin can about three meters from the entrance.
He was trading insults with a Dothraki man.
The man pointed his *arakh* at him and cursed, “Coward!
The weak Andal is hiding in his iron skin again!” “Andal” was what the horse lords called Jorah Mormont.
The story of *A Song of Ice and Fire* ran along three threads: the Wall in the far North of Westeros—the biting cold, and the threat the Others posed to all of humankind; King’s Landing, the capital of Westeros—the game of thrones; and the continent of Essos, the Nine Free Cities, and Daenerys’s road to freeing the slaves.
Which was to say, the heart of the story lay in Westeros.
And the continent of Westeros was made up of four peoples: 1.
The natives—the children of the forest, the giants, and other fantastical races.
They had a history stretching back a million years, understood magic, and used tools of stone.
Complete primitives, they now dwelt mostly beyond the Wall.
2.
The First Men—natives who had migrated across from Essos twelve thousand years ago, at a bronze-age level of civilization.
They were the first generation of invaders, and the people of the North and the lands beyond the Wall were largely descended from them.
3.
The Andals—invaders who came over from Essos eight thousand years ago, bringing with them iron and the faith of the Seven.
4.
The Rhoynar—who crossed the sea a thousand years ago seeking refuge, fleeing the dragons and the magical civilization of Valyria (a super-civilization, something like Atlantis).
They possessed no higher level of civilization and could not conquer a Westeros that had already developed a culture of knighthood, so they had no choice but to assimilate—and in relatively desolate Dorne at that, the southernmost tip of Westeros, all desert and stony waste.
Which was why the title of the king of Westeros ran: ‘King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men.’ Jorah Mormont was Lord of Bear Island in the North, which made him one of the First Men, not an Andal.
It was only that knighthood had been created by the Andals, and a knight was more or less what every other people pictured when they thought of a warrior from the Sunset Lands—and Jorah went about dressed head to toe as one…
Well.
Jorah might not even be a knight.
Knighthood sprang from a faith: a septon of the Seven anointed a man with holy oils, and another proper knight ‘swore’ him in.
Jorah Mormont—a lord of the North, a First Man, a worshipper of the old gods rather than the Seven.
He had received the full training of a knight, and he owned a suit of knightly armor and a warhorse, but that did not necessarily make him a knight.
Take House Stark of Winterfell: from Lord Eddard on down, not a single one of them was a proper knight.
The “primitive” tribes on horseback—the Dothraki—believed that men who wore steel armor were cowards.
Wearing iron armor equaled a fear of death, which equaled cowardice.
That was roughly their chain of logic.
Catching sight of Dany emerging from the tent, the Dothraki man didn’t dial back his behavior; instead, his mockery grew even more vigorous.
Jorah rested his left hand on his sword and jabbed his right finger at the Dothraki warrior, mercilessly cursing back, “You primitive piece of trash, you horse-fucking bastard, you don’t know anything.
This suit of plate armor of mine is worth a hundred of your dog heads!” He alternated between cursing in Dothraki—targeting the warrior personally—and cursing in the Common Tongue of Westeros with a Northern accent, venting his resentment toward the entire Dothraki people.
He spewed all sorts of foul insults without holding back, most of which the others couldn’t even understand.
Because he had been keeping a vigilant eye on his opponent, Jorah immediately noticed the shift in the warrior’s gaze.
Glancing back at Daenerys, he likely guessed that his guard duty for the day was over.
With a sharp *shing*, he drew his knight’s greatsword and charged at the Dothraki.
The Dothraki warrior had been waiting for this.
He hadn’t attacked earlier only because they were at the *khal*’s tent; anyone who dared to trespass would instantly be shot full of arrows by the guards and turned into a hedgehog.
The horseman, whom Dany had assumed was just a random grunt, moved so fast her eyes couldn’t keep up.
His *arakh* practically danced, weaving a curtain of silver light.
Jorah was clad in full plate armor forged from dark grey steel.
His greathelm was pulled down, leaving only two narrow slits in the visor for his eyes.
Below that were his gorget, poleyns, gauntlets, and long boots—all gleaming with a metallic sheen.
Despite wearing such heavy armor, his movements were not slow in the slightest.
He swung his greatsword like a spinning fan.
*Clang!
Crash!* The two traded blows, the sound of their clashing blades as dense as a torrential downpour—a symphony of raindrops hammering against banana leaves outside a window.
Yellow sparks flared and faded between their weapons and against Ser Jorah’s armor, looking like fireflies dancing around the knight.
It took time to describe, but in reality, the fight was over in a flash.
Jorah stumbled three steps back, leaning heavily on his sword.
The sound of his thick, ragged breathing echoed from beneath his visor and reached Dany’s ears.
The Dothraki warrior collapsed onto the red, sandy earth, his limbs flailing as he wailed in agony.
Dark red blood poured from his chest, instantly swallowed by the parched, cracked ground like a gluttonous demon.
Dany estimated that in the four or five seconds the battle lasted, Jorah had taken at least three hits, yet he was completely unharmed—though his steel breastplate likely bore a few fresh dents.
The Dothraki warrior had held the upper hand the entire time.
It was only at the very last moment, likely slowing down for a fraction of a second to catch his breath, that he took a sword to the chest.
“*Khaleesi*!” Jorah and the guards of her *khas* greeted her one by one.
The Dothraki in the shadows pointed at Dany’s group, their expressions relaxed.
They had also been mocking the “Andal” for his cowardice just moments ago.
Now, with their comrade thrashing on the ground and bleeding to death, they seemed to think he deserved it, showing absolutely no concern or sympathy for his plight.
“*Khaleesi*, you left the *maegi* alone in the *khal*’s palace?” Cohollo rode over, angrily accusing her.
“She isn’t with the *khal*.
She’s helping Lilith give birth.
Didn’t you hear her birthing song?” Dany said, instructing Aggo to lift the woven grass curtain outside the delivery room.
The scene inside was instantly revealed to everyone.
Mirri Maz Duur was singing a melodic tune from the Shadow Lands while massaging Lilith’s swollen, glistening belly, seemingly helping to correct the baby’s position.
On the crude bed of rushes, the pregnant woman’s square face was waxen, the hair at her temples soaked with sweat.
She bit her teeth together so hard that the veins in her jaw bulged.
Faint, agonized groans and the subtle scent of blood drifted past the curtain, washing over the onlookers.
A cesarean section took barely half an hour, but a natural birth—especially a difficult one—could easily take four or five hours.
The *maegi* had been singing for over an hour, and her voice was growing hoarse.
Seeing the grass curtain lifted and everyone staring, she shook her head at Dany, who stood a dozen yards away.
Without stopping her birthing song, she hurriedly reached out and pulled the curtain shut again.
Having seen with their own eyes that the *maegi* wasn’t performing dark magic, everyone quickly looked away and went back to their own business.
“Water…
water…” the Dothraki warrior lying on the ground waiting to die begged for a drink.
Dany walked over and tossed a skin of mare’s milk onto the ground, then ordered her handmaid Irri to untie his painted vest.
She kept in mind that she was supposed to be a heavily pregnant woman with limited mobility; she couldn’t bend down to feed him water, let alone crouch to examine his wounds.
“His breastbone stopped the sword; it didn’t hit any vital organs,” Daenerys observed, then ordered, “Irri, go get a strip of cotton cloth and press it against the wound to stop the bleeding first.
Kovarro, go fetch the hairless men to stitch up his wound.” Kovarro spoke in Dothraki, “*Khaleesi*, he failed in his challenge against the Andal and must accept his fate.
Do not move him, and do not heal him.
Whether he lives or dies is for the Horse God in the sky to decide…
it is known.” “It is known,” her handmaid Irri echoed.
“It is known,” Jhogo agreed.
Dany glared at Kovarro and snapped, “Do you want it to be known that you defied your *khaleesi*’s orders?” Kovarro’s almond-shaped eyes went wide.
Seeing the stubborn resolve in Dany’s eyes, he muttered something incomprehensible and rode off.
Like a wounded animal, the sun spilled a pool of blood-red light across the barren earth as it staggered below the horizon.
Mirri Maz Duur, who had “studied abroad” in many countries and earned multiple medical “diplomas,” truly impressed Daenerys.
Before nightfall, the first child was born with a loud cry.
A silver-haired boy with the copper skin of a Dothraki, almond-shaped eyes…
and pale purple irises.
Daenerys stepped past the carved wooden screen of a hundred beasts, sliced through the thick grass curtain with her dagger, and took the naked infant from the *maegi*’s hands through the gap.
“*Khaleesi*, they are twins.
There is another,” Mirri Maz Duur said, her voice hoarse.
“Keep going.” Dany dawdled for nearly two minutes before stepping back around the screen.
“Wash him with hot water.” Entering the main hall, she handed the infant, now wrapped in a woolen blanket, to Jhiqui.
By the time the second child was born, Ko Jhaqo had also arrived at Drogo’s grass palace.
“Hahaha!
A boy and a girl!
The boy is large, and the girl is petite, symbolizing the sun and the stars.
This is an auspicious blessing bestowed upon me by the Horse God in the sky!” Ko Jhaqo was ecstatic, holding up an infant in each hand.
He raised the baby boy in his left hand toward the sun rapidly vanishing below the western horizon, and the baby girl in his right hand toward the Horse God’s star adorning the dark purple canvas of the eastern sky.
The bells braided into his mustache jingled with ambitious clarity.
Watching the joyous backs of Jhaqo and his men as they left with the children and Lilith, the *maegi*, who had just finished washing herself in a small adjacent tent, muttered in confusion, “How could he tell the boy was bigger?
Aren’t they about the same size?” “These foolish horse lords are truly strange.” Shaking her head, Mirri turned and walked toward Drogo’s grass palace.
Having perfectly proven her capabilities, she had earned the right to become the *khaleesi*’s personal attendant.
Until the *khaleesi*’s child was born, she was to remain with the *khaleesi*’s small *khas* at all times and was absolutely forbidden to leave without permission.