When Daenerys finally returned to her tent, the Dothraki healers had not yet left. A few of the so-called "hairless ones"—barren women who served as the khalasar's doctors—were in the midst of a ritual. They were hideous, with faces like wrinkled parchment and legs as gnarled and dry as old roots. Their gray, disheveled hair flew about as they danced a rattling, uneven dance of sacrifice.
Their toothless mouths were open wide, singing an ancient Dothraki ballad in voices so shrill they pierced the eardrums.
They circled the feverish man on the bed, and as they did, the flames in the nearby firepit seemed to pulse in time with their song. One moment, the fire would erupt into a two-meter-high pillar of orange flame; the next, it would die down to a dim, flickering bed of coals.
Dany's scalp prickled. She stood frozen at the entrance, her legs feeling as heavy as pillars of reinforced concrete, unable to take a single step.
It's just a witch-doctor dance, she told herself, her heart hammering against her ribs. The fire is just the wind. It's nothing. You are the Mother of Dragons, for god's sake.
"ROOOAR!"
A howl, utterly inhuman, ripped from Drogo's throat on the fur bed. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated agony.
Dany flinched. She had seen this man, a warrior of legendary toughness, face wounds ten times as severe with a grin. A slice across the chest was nothing more than a scratch to him! Even with the wound now festering, even with the infection running deep, he should have been delirious, unconscious, barely aware of the world. Her medical training, though she had only just graduated, was built on dozens of clinical internships. She knew that inflammation and infection simply did not stimulate pain-sensing nerves like this.
Her mind flashed back to the witch, Mirri Maz Duur, and her promises to heal him. Drogo had been in this state ever since. Drowsy during the day, but at night, the pain would become so unbearable he would punch and kick at the air, his powerful limbs tearing through the thick sheepskin blankets.
Dany was absolutely certain: the witch had done this on purpose. This was her revenge, executed in the cruelest way imaginable. What could be more satisfying than watching the great Khal die in endless, excruciating torment?
No, that isn't enough for her, Dany thought, her hand instinctively going to her swollen belly. The witch's revenge would not end with Drogo. She would sacrifice his son to her dark gods and condemn his Khaleesi to a lifetime of suffering.
As if on cue, several of the healers descended on the writhing Khal, forcing two large bowls of a murky liquid down his throat. Poppy wine. A milky extract from the poppy flower, it was the most common anesthetic in Westeros and the Free Cities, miraculous in its ability to dull pain. The Dothraki healers didn't know the maesters' tricks for purifying it into Milk of the Poppy, but soaking the flowers in wine produced a similar, if cruder, effect.
They were charlatans, the lot of them. They had no formal training, only taking up the role of healer because they were barren. On most days, they cooked, herded sheep, and did other menial tasks. Their medicine was pathetic, their witchcraft nonexistent. They couldn't cure a serious injury, let alone dispel the potent blood magic the witch had woven into Drogo's flesh. Dany was sure they didn't even realize he had been cursed.
After the healers bowed to her and shuffled out, Daenerys entered the tent, letting her maids help her to the bedside.
"Jhiqui, bring me a dagger. A sharp one," she said.
When she had married Drogo, Viserys had gifted her three handmaidens. Two were Dothraki girls, Jhiqui and Irri, both fourteen, who had been enslaved when Drogo destroyed their father's khalasar. The third was Dorea, a twenty-year-old Lyseni with blonde hair and blue eyes, who had been trained in one of Lys's famed pleasure houses. They were more than simple servants. Irri was a fine rider and taught Dany the ways of the horse. Jhiqui was fluent in multiple languages and taught her Dothraki. And Dorea… Dorea had taught the innocent young Dany the arts of love.
Jhiqui moved swiftly to a tall chest of purpleheart wood and red copper and returned with a dagger, thirty centimeters long. It had a tawny, carved bone hilt and a curved blade sheathed in brown cowhide, shaped much like a miniature arakh.
"It is the Khal's dragonbone dagger, Khaleesi," Jhiqui said.
Shing.
The blade slid from its sheath, catching the dark red torchlight with a flash of brilliant white. The edge, as thin as a cicada's wing, was flawless. A flicker of satisfaction lit Dany's smoky purple eyes. What a blade.
Seeing her lean over a candlestick held by Dorea, preparing to work on Drogo's chest, Ser Jorah hurried over. "Khaleesi," he said softly, "you are with child and unsteady. Let me do it."
Unsteady? Do you think my master's degree is a worthless piece of paper? Dany gave the big bear a sidelong glance, then passed the blade through the candle flame. With nimble, practiced movements, she began to cut away the filthy silk cloth stuck to Drogo's skin. Underneath was a foul poultice—a layer of blue mud and hardened fig leaves. Then another, and another. In the past week, the healers had plastered ten layers of their "Dothraki holy medicine" on the wound. Mud. It was an insult to competent doctors everywhere.
Jorah watched, his eyes wide with surprise and doubt. The way she cut and picked at the dressing, so lightly and deftly, was impossible to reconcile with the pregnant girl he thought he knew.
The top layer of the poultice was still damp, but the layers beneath were as dry and hard as the mud-brick of a Lhazareen wall. With a series of rhythmic taps from the dagger's hilt, Dany cracked the hardened mass into several pieces.
As she peeled away the fragments and the purple-black fig leaves stuck to the flesh beneath, a rancid smell, horribly sweet, began to permeate the spacious yurt. The stench was so overpowering it was hard to breathe. Dorea covered her mouth, her face turning green, the thick tallow candle in her other hand shaking violently. Jorah quickly took it from her, and Dorea scrambled back, ducking out of the tent to vomit.
The wooden tray held by Irri was now piled high with fallen mud and leaves, all stained with pus, blood, and tiny flecks of rotted meat.
Drogo's injury was fully exposed. His left chest was a ruin of dark, rotting flesh that glistened wetly in the candlelight. With each of his rapid, difficult breaths, his chest heaved, and bubbling purple-black pus oozed from the wound, soaking the white lambskin blanket beneath him. The sweet smell intensified until even a tough man like Jorah began to look queasy.
"Khaleesi… Khaleesi…" Ser Jorah looked at Dany, who stood frozen, her face pale as bone, and then at Irri and Jhiqui, who had turned their heads, their hands clamped over their noses. He opened and closed his mouth several times, unable to form a complete sentence.
When Dany finally came back to herself and asked Irri to prepare hot water and spirits, Jorah grabbed her arm. "Khaleesi, did you see?" he said anxiously. "Your husband is dying."
I know, she thought silently. I can guess his chest cavity is filled with that foul pus, that his heart is soaking in it. Even if the curse were lifted, a wound like this would be a death sentence even in the most advanced modern hospital. In truth, he was already dead. The witch was just using her dark magic to keep his body alive so his mind could suffer.
"What do you mean, Ser?" she asked, her voice hollow.
"Your son, Khaleesi! We must go, before he breathes his last!" Jorah urged.
"Go? Go where?" she asked blankly, her eyes still fixed on Drogo's ruined chest.
"To Asshai, by the Shadow Lands. It is at the far end of the known world, a great port. From there, we might find a ship back to Pentos." He hesitated. "Is your khas trustworthy? Or should it be just the two of us?"
A bitter, humorless sound escaped her lips. "Heh. You think too much, Ser. We cannot leave. A few of us would be defenseless. Bring the whole khas, and a group that large is too conspicuous. Do you think forty thousand Dothraki warriors are blind?" To Asshai? The journey was thousands of miles. Even a grown man would be broken by it. For a pregnant fourteen-year-old girl, she might as well take the dagger to her own throat.
Ser Jorah looked at her belly, his brow furrowed in pain. "Your Grace, for the sake of the child, you must try. The Dothraki follow Khal Drogo's strength, nothing more. They will not follow a babe at the breast, not like we do in Westeros. When Drogo dies, Jhogo, Pono, and a dozen other kos will fight for his place. This khalasar will tear itself apart until only one winner remains."
"And then?" Dany asked sullenly.
Jorah couldn't bear to look at her. He hesitated, then whispered, "The new Khal will not suffer a rival to live. Your child… they will take him as soon as he is born, and they will feed him to the dogs. Just as Drogo did to Ogo's son."
He looked at her, expecting hysterics, but she was stronger than he imagined. Her face was deathly pale, but her eyes were clear.
"If I have a week, seven days, before the baby comes," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "If Drogo dies before then, and my child is not yet born, will they let me go?" She was clinging to a last, desperate hope. "I am a Khaleesi. By Dothraki tradition, no one can harm a widowed Khaleesi. At most…" she gritted her teeth, forcing the words out, "at most, they will send me back to Vaes Dothrak to join the dosh khaleen."
Jorah's expression was one of pure shock. "You would be willing to waste away your life in that city of hags?" Then, he shook his head sadly. "It's useless. Did you not notice? The dosh khaleen have no children. In all the years, has any Khaleesi ever lost her Khal while pregnant, as you are about to?"
"It is just a baby," she whispered, fear flickering in her purple eyes. "A baby who has lost his khalasar."
Ser Jorah's face was grim. "Do you remember your brother, Rhaegar?" he asked softly.
Fourteen years ago, her father, the Mad King, had his throat cut by the very Kingsguard knight sworn to defend him. On that same day, her niece, Princess Rhaenys, was dragged from under her father's bed and stabbed to death. Her nephew, the infant Prince Aegon, was pulled from his mother's arms and his head was smashed against a stone wall. Of the entire Targaryen dynasty, only she and Viserys had survived. And now, only she remained. She was more alone than any character in any story she'd ever read.
"Westeros, for all its talk of chivalry, did that," Jorah said, his voice heavy. "Do you expect more mercy from the barbaric Dothraki? And there is one more thing. In the holy city, the dosh khaleen prophesied that your son will become the Stallion Who Mounts the World. A conqueror whose deeds will strike fear into the hearts of all men. No one, Jorah, Bono, no one, will risk letting that child grow up to seek his vengeance."
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