A leader cannot show doubt. A leader must be a rock of confidence for her people. It was a lesson Daenerys had learned not in a throne room, but in an operating theater: a surgeon must never, ever show fear to a patient before the first incision is made.
"The horses will not drink from the pools?" she asked Avanti, though she knew the answer.
"No, Khaleesi," the old man said, trembling slightly. "That is poison water. Water that the beasts will not drink is water cursed by demons. Everyone knows."
"Everyone knows," a voice echoed from behind her. It was Aggo, his bare chest gleaming with sweat. The Dothraki might be ignorant of science, but their ancient wisdom for survival was sharp.
"Then," Dany said with a wry smile, "let me show you a little trick to break a demon's curse."
Soon, the small camp was a flurry of activity. At her direction, they brought out Drogo's massive copper basin—a tub large enough for a two-meter-tall Khal, weighing more than fifty kilograms. They dug a ditch beside a stagnant pool and settled the great tub into it. A thick sheepskin was stretched over the top to prevent evaporation, with a bowl-sized hole cut in its center.
Over this hole, they constructed a two-meter-high, four-tiered wooden frame. From each tier, Dany hung a heavy cotton bag. The top bag she filled with coarse sand, the second with fine sand, the third with cotton wool, and the bottom bag, the final filter, with charcoal from their fires. To shield the device from the oppressive sun, she had them erect a small tent over the entire contraption.
"Now," she commanded, "bring water from the pool. Pour it slowly into the top bag. Do not spill a drop."
After a few moments, the water, having permeated the layers, began to drip. Tick… tick… At first, it was just a drop, but as the filters became saturated, the drops quickened, coalescing into a thin, steady thread of silver running from the bottom bag into the tub.
Aggo, lying on the ground to get a better look, gasped in amazement. "The water… it is clean! Cleaner than the water from the river of the sheep-men!"
Ser Jorah, a man who had seen much of the world, was equally stunned. He had never seen such a simple, yet ingenious, method. He looked at his princess, this young girl, and wondered again if she was some kind of savant. He knew this brilliant idea had been sparked by a simple complaint from a handmaiden. If this filtration device could truly remove the "demon's curse" from the water, they might actually be able to cross this wasteland.
Excitement seized him. "Your Grace," he said, his mind racing, "we should melt down our other copper and bronze goods to make more, smaller kettles! The pools are scattered and far apart; we can't drag this whole device to each one. It would be better to send out riders in teams, each with a kettle and empty waterskins. They could gather water while they scout!"
Dany looked at the burly, middle-aged man with newfound respect. For the first time, she saw the sharp, tactical mind beneath the loyal protector. "An excellent idea, Ser Jorah," she said, nodding. "Do it."
"Khaleesi! The water has stopped!" It was Rakharo, who was on pouring duty.
Dany went to the frame and carefully opened a corner of the top bag. A foul stench hit her, and she recoiled. The filter was clogged with a thick, messy sludge. "The filters must be changed regularly," she explained. "The cotton is limited. When it runs out, we can use devil-grass instead." She thought of the tough, wiry plant. "Knead it first, mash it into a pulp. Or," she added, a wicked glint in her eye, "let the horses chew it for a while, then take it out of their mouths." She looked at Avanti. "Can you manage that?"
The old herdsman's face was a mixture of horror and grudging respect. "A docile mare, perhaps, Khaleesi. But some of the stallions… they would sooner bite off a man's hand."
"Then you will have to be clever about it," she said, leaving him to the problem.
Even after filtering, she had the water boiled. This time, remembering Dorea's heat stroke, she added a pinch of salt and a few dried figs to the skins, to replace the minerals lost to sweat. The resulting drink was faintly sweet, faintly salty, and wonderfully cool.
On the evening of the second day, they traveled only twenty kilometers, stopping around midnight near a larger pool of stagnant water. Dany was trying to conserve the horses' energy. With a mount for every person, the pace wasn't too strenuous, but a horse could not march indefinitely without proper food and water.
This time, she made another adjustment. In the dead of night, she commanded the warriors to build a low, curved wall of rock and mud. It was flimsy, but when the sun rose the next day, it cast a large, deep shadow, providing the entire camp with relief from the direct sun.
On the third day, she turned her attention to the Dothraki's hair.
The heat was suffocating, and the smell of nearly two hundred unwashed bodies in close quarters was becoming unbearable. It was the hair—long, thick, and oiled—that was the worst of it. But she knew a Dothraki's braid was his honor. To cut it was to admit defeat.
"Aggo, let me shave your head," she suggested.
He shook his head so hard his braid swung. "No, Khaleesi! Everyone would look down on me!"
"We would be seen as defeated slaves!" Jhogo added, just as vehemently.
"The long braid is a greater symbol of a Dothraki than his arakh," Jorah advised her quietly.
Dany struggled for a moment, then a compromise came to her. "Then leave the braid!" she declared. "Shave everything else!"
The result was a strange, but effective, new hairstyle. As Jorah carefully scraped the hair from a warrior's scalp with a dagger, a thick layer of hardened filth—a product of months of sweat, oil, dust, and grime—came away with it.
"How does it feel?" Rakharo asked Aggo curiously, who was the first to receive the cut.
A look of blissful, almost spiritual relief spread across Aggo's face. "It feels," he whispered, "like I have taken off a heavy, sweat-soaked sheepskin blanket in the middle of summer. I feel… lighter."
"It's not an illusion," Dany quipped. "You've lost at least a kilogram of dirt from your head."
"The braid is preserved!" Quilo exclaimed, examining the back of Aggo's head. "Its length is not affected! This hairstyle is a gift from the Horse God, delivered by our Khaleesi! It should be promoted throughout the Great Grass Sea!"
In the end, all the men and boys adopted the new cut. The women, after seeing the chic, ear-length style Dany gave to Dorea, chose to cut their own hair short.
Dany herself did not. She had no need. First, the heat did not bother her. And second, her method of cleaning her hair was far more efficient. She simply went into the fire and let it burn away the grime. The dandruff, the oil, the lice, the bacteria—none of it could resist the purifying flame.
Every time she took her "fire bath," her three young dragons would follow her, flapping their clumsy wings and tumbling into the flames beside her. And every time, her maids would watch with an expression of profound, religious awe, as if they were witnessing a god at play.
It was in the fire, with her children, that she had finally learned what they ate.
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