(Note: The scene where he meets Daenerys follows the original books, not the TV series.)
On the bay coast just outside Pentos stood a grand palace, nine towers rising from the earth, their tall brick walls crawling with pale ivy.
A gift from the magisters of Pentos, presented jointly to Khal Drogo.
Drogo stood at the palace gate, glanced up at the exquisitely carved stone pillars, and strode inside.
The servants lined up in two rows, welcoming the master of the palace.
“Greetings to the Khal.
May your horse’s hooves trample all enemies.”
A young maidservant stared openly at Drogo.
The older woman beside her hissed under her breath:
“Lower your head.
Don’t stare at him.”
Drogo didn’t slow down.
He passed between them without a glance.
The steward kept three paces back, speaking in fluent Dothraki.
“Khal, for this evening’s meal we’ve prepared roast whole lamb, honey-glazed meats, the sweet wine of Pentos, and also—”
“Hot water first.
I want to bathe.” Drogo had no patience for the rest of the list.
His bedchamber was on the third floor.
Woven rugs covered the floor, soft underfoot.
Four bronze pillars held up a gauze canopy above a bed wide enough to fit seven or eight people with room left over.
Through the window, the bay glittered in the distance.
The bath was in the next room, a marble pool large enough for three or four to lie in, the hot water already drawn.
He stripped and stepped in.
The water rose past his chest.
Half his bones went loose.
Servants moved around him in quiet orbit.
One maidservant climbed in behind him, pressing against his back to scrub him down.
He leaned into the softness and let them work through his hair and beard.
When the hot water poured over him, he closed his eyes.
His mind drifted to what came after the wedding, everything he remembered from the story.
Riding across the grasslands with Daenerys at his side.
Making camp in the open wilderness, deepening their bond under open sky.
Flying into a rage for her sake and declaring war on the Iron Throne.
Getting wounded in battle.
The further along he followed the thread, the more his jaw tightened.
Because after all that came the witch.
Poison.
A wasting illness that hollowed him out from the inside.
And Daenerys, desperate to save him, paying the price in blood magic and their son’s life.
And then the end: a breathing husk, smothered by the woman he’d married.
Less than a year.
That was all he had.
“…Fuck.” The word slipped out before he could stop it, in his real mother tongue.
None of the servants caught a syllable.
They assumed they’d hurt him.
Two of them dropped to their knees in a panic.
Drogo waved a hand.
Nothing.
Continue.
Since I’ve been dropped into the Horse Lord’s body, there’s no way I’m letting any of that happen.
His fist tightened under the water, and when he opened his eyes, the softness was gone from them.
But fate doesn’t telegraph its moves.
Dodge the witch, and there’s still something else waiting around the corner.
I have to be careful.
More careful than I’ve ever been.
After dressing, the servants combed out his long hair and tied the last bronze bell into his beard.
They worked fragrant oil through from root to tip until it gleamed, tending him the way grooms prep a prize stallion before a show.
The maidservant who’d been in the pool with him spoke up, bolder now.
“The steward says you seem different this time.
From before.”
Drogo searched his borrowed memories.
“I come two or three times a year, stay a few days, then leave.
How well does he actually know me?”
“He said your eyes don’t carry that killing look anymore.”
“Because I come from a peaceful time.”
The maidservant blinked.
“That’s strange.
I heard the Dothraki Sea is anything but peaceful.”
Drogo didn’t answer.
The corner of his mouth shifted.
Whether it counted as a smile was hard to say.
“It really is different,” she added.
“Before, you never would have spoken this many words to us.”
He walked to the window.
The bells woven into his beard clinked with each step.
The Dothraki believed that sound carried weight, authority, a warning, the rumble of something dangerous approaching.
Drogo just found it annoying.
Outside, the Pentoshi bay spread below him.
At the docks in the distance, merchant ships were unloading cargo.
Slaves moved like ants across the waterfront, hauling sacks under the afternoon sun.
Farther out, the Dothraki camp had already gone up, thin threads of cook-fire smoke rising lazily into the sky.
His thoughts drifted to the dragon eggs.
Daenerys had once tried to hatch them in a furnace, it hadn’t worked.
Did it really take a human sacrifice?
Did someone truly have to burn alive to wake the dragons?
No.
I want the dragons.
But I’m not dying for them.
The steward appeared at the doorway, bent at the waist.
“Khal.
Magister Illyrio sends word — the princess of House Targaryen arrives tomorrow.”
Drogo didn’t turn around.
“Understood.”
Tomorrow.
He’d see Daenerys tomorrow.
The thought stirred something in him, part anticipation, part nerves he didn’t quite know what to do with.
The evening banquet came quickly.
Drogo had invited many of Pentos’s high-ranking nobles alongside several Khals from other khalasars.
The courtyard blazed with lantern light.
The long tables were heaped with suckling pigs roasted to a dark crisp, whole fish stuffed with nuts, figs soaking in honey.
The air was thick with it all, the sharp bite of fire pepper, the warm sweetness of cinnamon, the bright fragrance of sweet lemon.
The courtyard was packed.
Pentoshi nobles crowded one side.
A cluster of Khals stood opposite, their bloodriders ranged behind them.
Drogo waited for Illyrio to bring the woman.
A eunuch’s voice cut through the noise, reeling off a chain of titles: “Viserys of House Targaryen, the Third of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms…”
He kept going.
Title after title.
Beside Drogo, Khal Moro snorted and elbowed his bloodrider.
“A king,” Moro said.
“Just the one man?”
Several Dothraki laughed.
Drogo found Daenerys immediately, she was the only woman in the courtyard.
But seeing her in person, the excitement from yesterday went flat.
The princess before him was 13 years old.
Pale silver hair.
A flat chest beneath a deep purple silk gown that made her violet eyes stand out.
She had the bones of a beauty.
The rest hadn’t caught up yet.
She stood at her brother’s side.
Viserys had his chin up, wearing the expression of a man convinced everyone in the room should already be kneeling.
After the three of them entered, Illyrio moved between them, making introductions — this is Khal Moro, that is his son Rhogoro, that is Ser Jorah Mormont, while his damp hand patted Daenerys’s bare shoulder.
“And this,” he announced with some ceremony, “is Khal Drogo himself.”
Drogo looked at her.
The corner of his mouth twitched, meant to seem friendly.
It startled her badly enough that she stepped behind Illyrio’s wide body to hide.
A moment later she caught the fury in Viserys’s eyes and forced herself back out.
Chin up.
Eyes on Drogo.
Holding the expression together by sheer will.
Illyrio said something to Viserys and moved toward Drogo, fat as he was stepping lighter and more graceful than he had any right to.
He stopped in front of Drogo, his golden beard parting to reveal a wide yellow-toothed smile.
“Khal.” He gestured toward Daenerys.
“The princess of House Targaryen.”
Drogo looked over.
Viserys had her hand, gripping it hard enough to leave marks.
“A beauty,” Drogo said.
“But young.”
“She has had her moon’s blood.
By any reckoning, she is a woman grown.”
Drogo nodded and followed Illyrio toward her.
Daenerys pressed the back of her hand quickly to her cheek, catching the tears before they could fall.
Under whatever Viserys had whispered in her ear, she pulled her shoulders back, lifted her chin, and managed a smile.
She was crying and pretending she wasn’t.
Drogo had no particular interest in that.
He gave her one glance, long enough to confirm what he’d seen, then moved on.
Viserys’s face went rigid.
He caught Illyrio’s arm.
“He didn’t want her?”
“If he didn’t want her, you would know it by now.”
Qotho, walking at Drogo’s side, spoke up.
“She’s an unfinished lamb.
The Khal truly means to marry that?”
Drogo turned and looked at him.
“My mind is made,” he said.
“You’re my bloodriders.
From this day forward, not one of you says another word against her.”
Qotho lowered his head.
➤ Next: The Customs of the Dothraki
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