A Year from Now (11/?)
Title: A Year from Now (11/?)
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters & Pairings: Daenerys Targaryen/Jorah Mormont
Ratings & Warnings: R for nudity and sexuality in this chapter
Format & Word Count: WIP, 3719 words in this chapter
Summary: "Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We do not have time for grief. We must go, and quickly, before he dies.” Dany takes Ser Jorah's advice, setting her unborn child, her unhatched dragons, her quest for the Iron Throne, and her relationship with her faithful knight on a very different, but no less adventurous path.
Chapter Summary: Even as Jorah's suspicions of their Qartheen host are raised, Dany encourages him to lower his inhibitions in regard to her.
Author's Note: Thanks to my beta, just_a_dram, especially for inspiring the swoony bits of this chapter by making reference to a particularly charming Westerosi marriage custom before I'd read that part of ASOAS. And of course love to all who are reading this fic and making it such a pleasure to share!
Previous Chapters |
11. Sparks
Never in his life had Jorah been so relieved not to receive a dinner invitation from a man of wealth and power. He'd worried, when Xaro Xhoan Daxos, merchant prince of Qarth, had given them a suite of rooms in his palace finer than any Jorah had stayed in, and provided them with clothing of a quality above what even many of the nobility of their homeland enjoyed, that their host somehow knew more of their true identities than they'd let on. After these initial attentions, however, Daxos seemed to forget about the ragged pair of refugees he'd rescued from the desert; a serving boy brought supper to their room, which they ate upon cushions on the terrace overlooking a narrow city street, indicating that this was not, after all, one of the rooms reserved for notable guests.
And, as they watched the citizens of the city go to and fro about their evening errands, Jorah also observed that the wealth of this city surpassed any he'd seen in his travels through two continents. In comparison to the Qartheen, Dany's silken gown and jeweled belt were modest garb--not in the sense that her breasts were chastely hidden from men's lustful gazes. But since he was the only lustfully gazing man at present, he didn't quibble with custom. Indeed, he reclined upon the cushions as they sipped wine and shared a bowl of herbed tomatoes and cheese between them, and allowed himself to enjoy their food and the sea breeze wafting around them and the distant throng of civilization--and, of course, the view of Dany's breast that was afforded to him when he looked up at her as she spoke.
At the moment, she was speaking to the boy who'd just come out to clear away their supper things. "I presume your master has ravens or other birds to carry messages?"
"Yes, m'lady," the boy replied, "Xaro Xhoan Daxos requests me to say that you are most welcome to make use of anything in his household that you have need of."
"So he told us." Jorah sat up and touched Dany's knee as a subtle warning not to say anything further.
But the wine, and perhaps his own apparent relaxed attitude, had already caused Dany to lower her guard, and she missed his signal. Before the boy was even out of earshot--indeed, Jorah observed the subtle slowing of his step, the telltale forward tilt of his head to listen, which only one who had himself been a spy would notice--she spoke.
"I thought I would write to Illyrio in Pentos and tell him where I am. He may have heard about Drogo..." She faltered, for just a moment, but bravely went on. "I would not have him worry after me, when he has always been so kind to me."
She turned her head to smile down at Rhaego, who lay unswaddled on a soft rug, kicking his long, lean legs that reminded Jorah of a colt's and gurgling contentedly as his hands batted at an assortment of bells, reeds, and rattles that dangled from a wooden frame above him. Dany reached out and tinkled one of the bells, which made the babe go still as a statue and stare unblinkingly.
Laughing, she said, "And my old friend must know my joy at delivering a healthy son."
Jorah gritted his teeth together at how much information she'd revealed about herself in those few sentences--the door had only just clicked shut behind the boy--but he bit back the scolding words that leapt to his tongue, which would only reveal more if the boy were listening at the keyhole, as well as provoke Dany. And though slightly alarmed, Jorah was yet too comfortable to quarrel with her tonight.
Tracing a light pattern on her silk-covered knee with the tip of his forefinger, he said, "I thought I might go down to the quay tomorrow morning to look out some word from home. You could accompany me, and send your letter from there."
"Why would I pay for public ravens when Xaro's birds are right here, for my free use?"
Jorah raised his eyebrows.
Dany's face paled as she at once understood. Lowering her voice, she said, "You think Xaro might intercept any messages from us?"
"I think our host has treated us with untoward generosity, particularly in extending us the use of his servants."
She glanced back at the doorway through which the serving boy had vanished. "You think that boy was spying on us? Ser Jorah, that's too careful, even for you. He's a child."
"That's the point of spies, Your Grace." Jorah drained his wine, and pushed himself to his feet. "They are most effective if they're the people you least expect."
Dany held out her hand for him to help her up, but did not let go even when she was steady on her feet. "Then I shall accompany go to the quay with you on the morn."
"Of course you will," Jorah replied, giving her hand a little squeeze, and smiling. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone with Daxos in that gown."
More than anything, he wanted to kiss her wine-sweetened, laughing mouth, but he refrained. He felt a bit raw after he'd earlier laid his heart as bare to Dany as her breast was to him. At least she hadn't responded to his second declaration of love as she had the first, though he couldn't help but take it as a rebuff all the same when she gave no hint of her own affections.
Her behavior perplexed him. Why would she accept his kisses--why would she initiate them--if she didn't return his feelings in some small way? Perhaps that was it, that her feelings toward him were not in equal measure to his love for her. If that was so, Jorah would have to show her that however little she loved him at present, if she thought the flame of her affection might in time, it would be enough for him.
All he asked for was a spark. A spark from a dragon was enough to consume a man. Already he was afire from far less.
For now, he released her hand and offered to amuse Rhaego while she penned the letter to Illyrio. Although, when Jorah placed the child face-down on the woven rug, it was Rhaego who provided all the amusement. The babe kicked his gangly legs and dug his long fingers and toes like claws into the rug and rolled himself over onto his back, looking for all the world how Jorah imagined a baby dragon must--though his perceptions might have been influenced by of Rhaego's snorts and shrill blasts of frustrated sound, at which he half-expected the child to yawn and breathe fire. Jorah chuckled at Rhaego's momentary look of surprise at his accomplishment, the violet eyes going round as saucers before they scrunched with his wide toothless grin.
"Did you see that, Dany?" Jorah asked, but he looked up to find her occupied with arranging her dragon's eggs on a table in the corner of the room, as she had done in the temple in Vaes Tolorro. "My queen," he said, "do you think it wise to display your treasures? Our host might see them and demand payment for his hospitality--or penalty for our deceit."
"No one will find them, Jorah" she replied, her voice heavy with annoyance."And they are not treasures. They're much more than that."
Jorah had hoped that Dany's fixation with her dragon's eggs had grown out of boredom or anxiety during their sojourn in Vaes Tolorro. To his dismay, it appeared to have put down deeper roots than that. It wasn't that he begrudged her attachment to one of her few remaining ties to her husband which the wedding gift represented; or rather, he understood that it would be natural for her to feel some attachment to them for that reason. It wasn't even frustration that the value she placed upon them was for some lofty, nebulous purpose he couldn't understand, rather than on their monetary worth--although he did want to take her by the shoulders and shake her when she talked of asking Illyrio Mopatis or, worse, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, for a fleet and an army to take her to Westeros, when she had within her own reach the means to buy one.
No, what troubled him most about her behavior was how very Targaryen it was was. A gruesome image leapt to mind, of her father Aerys, the Mad King, the Scab King, covered head to toe with the open, infected wounds from the sharp points of the Iron Throne, which would not heal because he picked at them incessantly. It had been tragic to watch Dany's brother Viserys succumb to the folly of the madness he'd inherited from his family along with the throne, and Jorah had borne him neither love nor loyalty. Dany, on the other hand…Jorah counted it among his knightly duties to protect his queen not only from her enemies, but from her blood, as well.
The irony was not lost on him that the only person Daenerys Targaryen had to guard her sanity was a man who had himself been ruined by his own brand of madness.
Of course, as Dany had pointed out, he never would have fallen in with her if it had not been for his exile from Westeros. If she was right, and the gods had guided his steps to Essos for the purpose of bringing her to throne, then it followed that his own experience with obsession might have opened his eyes to hers. Though Jorah liked the idea of being the gods' puppet no better now than he had then.
And anyway, he thought, shaking his head, Dany wasn't mad. She was just a girl who'd survived a terrible ordeal and gotten carried away by the notion of signs in the stars and her family's mythology. The only experience he brought her was that which he'd gleaned from the world, and the time he'd walked in it.
"You will be very careful with them?" he asked, sounding as wearied by his own thoughts as he would have been by arguing with her.
And, indeed, Dany replied in a tone primed for argument. "I am no fool, ser."
"I beg forgiveness, Your Grace--if my words implied such."
In truth, he did think her a bit of a fool if a few creature comforts made her forget her initial wariness of Daxos, and dimmed the memory of King Robert's attempt on her life so that she would send news of herself, which could be so easily intercepted, into the very lands which were most likely to be crawling with Lord Varys' spies.
Jorah took a small measure of consolation from the knowledge that if Dany ever did discover his role as informant, she would be even more dismayed to learn that her old friend had initiated the liaison between him and the Spider. Jorah never had been sure of the purpose behind Illyrio's connection with Varys, or, indeed, whether Varys wanted the Targaryens dead at all--though he hadn't hesitated to pass along news to King Robert that would send assassins their way. But then, no one knew what Varys wanted. Even Jorah had to admit the unlikelihood that Illyrio would knowingly bring harm to Dany and her brother when he'd sheltered them as his esteemed guests and gone to the trouble of arranging her marriage to Khal Drogo. Not that any of that would matter to Dany in light of the simple fact that they had conspired with those in league with the Usurper.
She, of course, remained unaware of any of that--blissfully so, Jorah thought, given her expression as she filled a sheet of parchment with her news. By the time she finished her letter--which Jorah had already determined, regardless of its contents, would never wend its way to Illyrio--her vexation with him had vanished. She joined him on the rug to play with Rhaego for a short time, until the child began to fuss and root for her breast; when she took him into bed to suckle and she saw Jorah start to make up a bed for himself on the divan, she protested.
"That's a dainty couch for a knight of your size."
"It will suit," Jorah insisted. "If not, the floor will."
"But your hip has only lately ceased to discomfort you."
"I will sleep anywhere my queen commands--but I cannot imagine where you propose I should in this room, if not the couch."
"Don't be ridiculous, Jorah, this bed will easily accommodate both of us." She blushed prettily, and peered shyly up at him from beneath her lashes as she added, in a softer tone, "And I daresay we've slept in closer quarters than this."
Jorah let the blanket he'd been spreading out over the divan crumple to the floor, and he even approached the bed, but he demurred out of courtesy. "I only thought that in the privacy of this room, you would prefer not to continue our charade of marriage."
Dany's eyes darted to the table upon which her dragon's eggs stood, then back to him, her lips curving in a half-smile. "As you said, our privacy may be only an illusion."
"Did I say that?" Jorah seated himself at the edge of the bed on the side where she nursed Rhaego, near enough that he might touch her. Though he kept his hands to himself--for the moment.
"You meant it," she said, and the tip of her tongue darting out to moisten her lips was Jorah's undoing.
He cupped her delicate cheek in his hand."Then by all means, let's keep up appearances."
Dany took him quite at his word. When Rhaego finished suckling and gazed up at her with drowsy violet eyes and a milky smile, she slipped out of bed and laid him in his cradle, arranging the dragon's eggs to guard him while he slept as she'd done in Vaes Tolorro. Jorah sat at the edge of the bed, tugging off his boots, when the rustle of fabric behind him made him turn his head just in time to see Dany's gown slide down her body like a waterfall of silk and pool at her feet. He had just enough time to rake his eyes over her before she stepped out of the garment and slid beneath the sheets, and took note of her breasts, smaller and more supple now that she'd so recently nursed her babe, the slight bulge at her middle where her skin had stretched to accommodate her pregnancy, the roundness of her thighs and buttocks. A woman's body now, though her years scarcely numbered greater than when she'd gone to her marriage as a girl. And Jorah's body reacted to it very much as a man's.
Recalling her mortifying reaction when she'd awoken in his arms to his arousal, he turned his back to her and rose from the bed, the marble tiles cool on his bare feet as he worked the fastenings of his doublet.
"Would you prefer I remain clothed to sleep?" he asked, his voice pinched and taut in his throat as he felt within his breeches.
"Hmm? Oh, however you're most comfortable, ser."
That would be stark naked, as she was. However, much as Jorah desired to lie unclothed in bed with Dany, her distraction made him suspect that she was only open to the idea because she expected him to keep a chaste distance between them in the bed. The southern night being warm, he settled for stripping to the waist and climbing into bed with his trousers on for the sake of her modesty--not that the bulging laces hid much.
To his surprise, Dany rolled over to him, draping one arm across his waist and pillowing her head against the fleshy part of his shoulder; the wiry hairs on his chest shuddered with each soft exhalation of her breath against his skin. Slow. Long. Even. He thought she'd already fallen asleep, until he felt the flutter of her eyelashes.
"Dany?"
She pulled herself closer to him, her fingers fitting between his ribs on one side, her breasts spreading around the other, her thigh hooking over his legs. Dear gods, he wished he was naked, too--but he sensed that for all this openness with her body, she wasn't offering herself to him. Yet. He could endure tonight's inevitable frustration if he could hope for eventual satisfaction.
"Daenerys."
This time, she responded to his gruff tone and tilted her face up toward his.
"Are you just keeping up appearances?" he asked. "Or…?"
She lowered her head again, but her lips smiled against his skin as she answered, "During our journey, I grew accustomed to having you sleep at my side."
It was enough to make Jorah tighten his arms around her and bless her silken silver hair with a kiss. "You always have me at your side."
"I shall hold you to that, ser," Dany murmured as she drifted off to sleep.
She made good on her word the next morning, holding his arm as they made their way down to the quay. Though Jorah's hopes were further encouraged that Dany had not come to change her view of the previous night's thoughts and actions by the light of day, he found himself unable to fully appreciate their intimacy as his soldier's instincts dominated those of the lover; his eyes, which he wished to focus fully on the queen who might soon be his lady, instead swept the bustling streets of Qarth for any sign that they were being watched or followed. He did at least submit to the leisurely pace she set, and he tried not to hurry her from vendors' stalls whenever she paused to admire their wares, though once or twice he thought a stranger's eyes lingered too long upon them only to look too abruptly away, and he pulled Dany deeper into the crowd, his hand on the hilt of his sword. It was just as possible that Dany drew stares because of her beauty, or the size and foreign dress of her accompanying knight--for he had donned his chainmail for their excursion--but that likelihood made him no less protective of her, and perhaps even more so.
When they passed a jeweler's stall, however, it was Jorah's eye that was drawn by the gleaming trinkets. Dany's fingers curled in the crook of his elbow, and she looked up at him in question as he released his sword to take out his purse, which, though light, contained the remaining coin he'd earned by spying for Varys. An income to which he intended to formally put a stop today.
"How much for the sterling horse brooch?" He inquired of the owner of the booth. To Dany, he added, "You should have something to remember your brave little silver mare who carried you across the Red Waste."
Any other woman than Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah thought--or Lynesse, came a voice from a darker corner of his mind--would have protested, at least for the sake of politeness, that gifts weren't necessary to buy her favor. She, however, fairly bloomed at the prospect of being given a present, and Jorah was equally delighted to be able to please her in such a small way.
But as he began to haggle with the stallkeeper, Dany interrupted, "If you don't object, I'd prefer the onyx bear."
Jorah's eyes followed the line of her finger to a brooch carved in the likeness of a black bear, polished to a high gloss and prancing on its hind legs as the forepaws clawed at an unseen enemy--very like the sigil of House Mormont. Hardly daring to believe that Dany implied what he thought she must, Jorah met her gaze, which touched him as gently as a caress.
"To honor my brave knight," she added, softly.
"You will hear no objection from me to that," he replied, and, more deeply touched and dazed with joy than when Lynesse gave him her favor to wear in the tourney at Lannisport--for unlike Lynesse, Dany knew him and honored him not just as a knight, but as a man--he bought it, without bothering to dispute its price. He knew full well that he paid too much for the trinket, but Dany's favor was worth far more than gold.
Feeling bold as she allowed him to pin it at the shoulder of her gown and his hand brushed the bit of bared breast exposed above the baby's sling, he said, "Perhaps one day I may also give you a cloak to wear with your cloak pin."
His heart hammered in his chest as he gazed down at her and tried to decipher from her expression whether she caught his underlying meaning. But the half-shy manner in which she dropped her eyes to admire her new brooch, which his fingers still lightly held, might mean anything. Did she even know it was the custom in Westeros for a groom to place his cloak over his new bride's shoulders, signifying that he brought her into his house and under his protection? Would she, as a member of the estimable House Targaryen, not to mention heir of the Seven Kingdoms, deign to place herself under the mantle of a lowly knight exiled from a lesser house?
It had to be a good sign that she smiled and tucked her arm once more through his as they continued on their way through the wharf. If she hadn't understood him, then there was nothing lost, but if she had… Jorah all but chuckled to himself when he imagined Lord Varys reading the missive he'd composed about being Daenerys Targaryen's man, unaware of the full scope of that description.
Except that when they did, at last, reach the rookery, Jorah sent neither Dany's letter to Illyrio Mopatis nor his own to Varys.
For, when they inquired of the dark skinned keeper of the ravens whether he'd lately had any news from Westeros, the man replied, "King Robert Baratheon is dead."
A/N: If you're kind enough to comment on the chapter, Jorah promises to take you down to the quay and buy you trinkets from vendors--and he won't even use money he earned by spying on you and selling your secrets to assassins, either. ;)
Read Chapter 12
Author: MrsTater
Fandom: A Song of Ice and Fire
Characters & Pairings: Daenerys Targaryen/Jorah Mormont
Ratings & Warnings: R for nudity and sexuality in this chapter
Format & Word Count: WIP, 3719 words in this chapter
Summary: "Save your tears, child. Weep for him tomorrow, or a year from now. We do not have time for grief. We must go, and quickly, before he dies.” Dany takes Ser Jorah's advice, setting her unborn child, her unhatched dragons, her quest for the Iron Throne, and her relationship with her faithful knight on a very different, but no less adventurous path.
Chapter Summary: Even as Jorah's suspicions of their Qartheen host are raised, Dany encourages him to lower his inhibitions in regard to her.
Author's Note: Thanks to my beta, just_a_dram, especially for inspiring the swoony bits of this chapter by making reference to a particularly charming Westerosi marriage custom before I'd read that part of ASOAS. And of course love to all who are reading this fic and making it such a pleasure to share!
Previous Chapters |
11. Sparks
Never in his life had Jorah been so relieved not to receive a dinner invitation from a man of wealth and power. He'd worried, when Xaro Xhoan Daxos, merchant prince of Qarth, had given them a suite of rooms in his palace finer than any Jorah had stayed in, and provided them with clothing of a quality above what even many of the nobility of their homeland enjoyed, that their host somehow knew more of their true identities than they'd let on. After these initial attentions, however, Daxos seemed to forget about the ragged pair of refugees he'd rescued from the desert; a serving boy brought supper to their room, which they ate upon cushions on the terrace overlooking a narrow city street, indicating that this was not, after all, one of the rooms reserved for notable guests.
And, as they watched the citizens of the city go to and fro about their evening errands, Jorah also observed that the wealth of this city surpassed any he'd seen in his travels through two continents. In comparison to the Qartheen, Dany's silken gown and jeweled belt were modest garb--not in the sense that her breasts were chastely hidden from men's lustful gazes. But since he was the only lustfully gazing man at present, he didn't quibble with custom. Indeed, he reclined upon the cushions as they sipped wine and shared a bowl of herbed tomatoes and cheese between them, and allowed himself to enjoy their food and the sea breeze wafting around them and the distant throng of civilization--and, of course, the view of Dany's breast that was afforded to him when he looked up at her as she spoke.
At the moment, she was speaking to the boy who'd just come out to clear away their supper things. "I presume your master has ravens or other birds to carry messages?"
"Yes, m'lady," the boy replied, "Xaro Xhoan Daxos requests me to say that you are most welcome to make use of anything in his household that you have need of."
"So he told us." Jorah sat up and touched Dany's knee as a subtle warning not to say anything further.
But the wine, and perhaps his own apparent relaxed attitude, had already caused Dany to lower her guard, and she missed his signal. Before the boy was even out of earshot--indeed, Jorah observed the subtle slowing of his step, the telltale forward tilt of his head to listen, which only one who had himself been a spy would notice--she spoke.
"I thought I would write to Illyrio in Pentos and tell him where I am. He may have heard about Drogo..." She faltered, for just a moment, but bravely went on. "I would not have him worry after me, when he has always been so kind to me."
She turned her head to smile down at Rhaego, who lay unswaddled on a soft rug, kicking his long, lean legs that reminded Jorah of a colt's and gurgling contentedly as his hands batted at an assortment of bells, reeds, and rattles that dangled from a wooden frame above him. Dany reached out and tinkled one of the bells, which made the babe go still as a statue and stare unblinkingly.
Laughing, she said, "And my old friend must know my joy at delivering a healthy son."
Jorah gritted his teeth together at how much information she'd revealed about herself in those few sentences--the door had only just clicked shut behind the boy--but he bit back the scolding words that leapt to his tongue, which would only reveal more if the boy were listening at the keyhole, as well as provoke Dany. And though slightly alarmed, Jorah was yet too comfortable to quarrel with her tonight.
Tracing a light pattern on her silk-covered knee with the tip of his forefinger, he said, "I thought I might go down to the quay tomorrow morning to look out some word from home. You could accompany me, and send your letter from there."
"Why would I pay for public ravens when Xaro's birds are right here, for my free use?"
Jorah raised his eyebrows.
Dany's face paled as she at once understood. Lowering her voice, she said, "You think Xaro might intercept any messages from us?"
"I think our host has treated us with untoward generosity, particularly in extending us the use of his servants."
She glanced back at the doorway through which the serving boy had vanished. "You think that boy was spying on us? Ser Jorah, that's too careful, even for you. He's a child."
"That's the point of spies, Your Grace." Jorah drained his wine, and pushed himself to his feet. "They are most effective if they're the people you least expect."
Dany held out her hand for him to help her up, but did not let go even when she was steady on her feet. "Then I shall accompany go to the quay with you on the morn."
"Of course you will," Jorah replied, giving her hand a little squeeze, and smiling. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you alone with Daxos in that gown."
More than anything, he wanted to kiss her wine-sweetened, laughing mouth, but he refrained. He felt a bit raw after he'd earlier laid his heart as bare to Dany as her breast was to him. At least she hadn't responded to his second declaration of love as she had the first, though he couldn't help but take it as a rebuff all the same when she gave no hint of her own affections.
Her behavior perplexed him. Why would she accept his kisses--why would she initiate them--if she didn't return his feelings in some small way? Perhaps that was it, that her feelings toward him were not in equal measure to his love for her. If that was so, Jorah would have to show her that however little she loved him at present, if she thought the flame of her affection might in time, it would be enough for him.
All he asked for was a spark. A spark from a dragon was enough to consume a man. Already he was afire from far less.
For now, he released her hand and offered to amuse Rhaego while she penned the letter to Illyrio. Although, when Jorah placed the child face-down on the woven rug, it was Rhaego who provided all the amusement. The babe kicked his gangly legs and dug his long fingers and toes like claws into the rug and rolled himself over onto his back, looking for all the world how Jorah imagined a baby dragon must--though his perceptions might have been influenced by of Rhaego's snorts and shrill blasts of frustrated sound, at which he half-expected the child to yawn and breathe fire. Jorah chuckled at Rhaego's momentary look of surprise at his accomplishment, the violet eyes going round as saucers before they scrunched with his wide toothless grin.
"Did you see that, Dany?" Jorah asked, but he looked up to find her occupied with arranging her dragon's eggs on a table in the corner of the room, as she had done in the temple in Vaes Tolorro. "My queen," he said, "do you think it wise to display your treasures? Our host might see them and demand payment for his hospitality--or penalty for our deceit."
"No one will find them, Jorah" she replied, her voice heavy with annoyance."And they are not treasures. They're much more than that."
Jorah had hoped that Dany's fixation with her dragon's eggs had grown out of boredom or anxiety during their sojourn in Vaes Tolorro. To his dismay, it appeared to have put down deeper roots than that. It wasn't that he begrudged her attachment to one of her few remaining ties to her husband which the wedding gift represented; or rather, he understood that it would be natural for her to feel some attachment to them for that reason. It wasn't even frustration that the value she placed upon them was for some lofty, nebulous purpose he couldn't understand, rather than on their monetary worth--although he did want to take her by the shoulders and shake her when she talked of asking Illyrio Mopatis or, worse, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, for a fleet and an army to take her to Westeros, when she had within her own reach the means to buy one.
No, what troubled him most about her behavior was how very Targaryen it was was. A gruesome image leapt to mind, of her father Aerys, the Mad King, the Scab King, covered head to toe with the open, infected wounds from the sharp points of the Iron Throne, which would not heal because he picked at them incessantly. It had been tragic to watch Dany's brother Viserys succumb to the folly of the madness he'd inherited from his family along with the throne, and Jorah had borne him neither love nor loyalty. Dany, on the other hand…Jorah counted it among his knightly duties to protect his queen not only from her enemies, but from her blood, as well.
The irony was not lost on him that the only person Daenerys Targaryen had to guard her sanity was a man who had himself been ruined by his own brand of madness.
Of course, as Dany had pointed out, he never would have fallen in with her if it had not been for his exile from Westeros. If she was right, and the gods had guided his steps to Essos for the purpose of bringing her to throne, then it followed that his own experience with obsession might have opened his eyes to hers. Though Jorah liked the idea of being the gods' puppet no better now than he had then.
And anyway, he thought, shaking his head, Dany wasn't mad. She was just a girl who'd survived a terrible ordeal and gotten carried away by the notion of signs in the stars and her family's mythology. The only experience he brought her was that which he'd gleaned from the world, and the time he'd walked in it.
"You will be very careful with them?" he asked, sounding as wearied by his own thoughts as he would have been by arguing with her.
And, indeed, Dany replied in a tone primed for argument. "I am no fool, ser."
"I beg forgiveness, Your Grace--if my words implied such."
In truth, he did think her a bit of a fool if a few creature comforts made her forget her initial wariness of Daxos, and dimmed the memory of King Robert's attempt on her life so that she would send news of herself, which could be so easily intercepted, into the very lands which were most likely to be crawling with Lord Varys' spies.
Jorah took a small measure of consolation from the knowledge that if Dany ever did discover his role as informant, she would be even more dismayed to learn that her old friend had initiated the liaison between him and the Spider. Jorah never had been sure of the purpose behind Illyrio's connection with Varys, or, indeed, whether Varys wanted the Targaryens dead at all--though he hadn't hesitated to pass along news to King Robert that would send assassins their way. But then, no one knew what Varys wanted. Even Jorah had to admit the unlikelihood that Illyrio would knowingly bring harm to Dany and her brother when he'd sheltered them as his esteemed guests and gone to the trouble of arranging her marriage to Khal Drogo. Not that any of that would matter to Dany in light of the simple fact that they had conspired with those in league with the Usurper.
She, of course, remained unaware of any of that--blissfully so, Jorah thought, given her expression as she filled a sheet of parchment with her news. By the time she finished her letter--which Jorah had already determined, regardless of its contents, would never wend its way to Illyrio--her vexation with him had vanished. She joined him on the rug to play with Rhaego for a short time, until the child began to fuss and root for her breast; when she took him into bed to suckle and she saw Jorah start to make up a bed for himself on the divan, she protested.
"That's a dainty couch for a knight of your size."
"It will suit," Jorah insisted. "If not, the floor will."
"But your hip has only lately ceased to discomfort you."
"I will sleep anywhere my queen commands--but I cannot imagine where you propose I should in this room, if not the couch."
"Don't be ridiculous, Jorah, this bed will easily accommodate both of us." She blushed prettily, and peered shyly up at him from beneath her lashes as she added, in a softer tone, "And I daresay we've slept in closer quarters than this."
Jorah let the blanket he'd been spreading out over the divan crumple to the floor, and he even approached the bed, but he demurred out of courtesy. "I only thought that in the privacy of this room, you would prefer not to continue our charade of marriage."
Dany's eyes darted to the table upon which her dragon's eggs stood, then back to him, her lips curving in a half-smile. "As you said, our privacy may be only an illusion."
"Did I say that?" Jorah seated himself at the edge of the bed on the side where she nursed Rhaego, near enough that he might touch her. Though he kept his hands to himself--for the moment.
"You meant it," she said, and the tip of her tongue darting out to moisten her lips was Jorah's undoing.
He cupped her delicate cheek in his hand."Then by all means, let's keep up appearances."
Dany took him quite at his word. When Rhaego finished suckling and gazed up at her with drowsy violet eyes and a milky smile, she slipped out of bed and laid him in his cradle, arranging the dragon's eggs to guard him while he slept as she'd done in Vaes Tolorro. Jorah sat at the edge of the bed, tugging off his boots, when the rustle of fabric behind him made him turn his head just in time to see Dany's gown slide down her body like a waterfall of silk and pool at her feet. He had just enough time to rake his eyes over her before she stepped out of the garment and slid beneath the sheets, and took note of her breasts, smaller and more supple now that she'd so recently nursed her babe, the slight bulge at her middle where her skin had stretched to accommodate her pregnancy, the roundness of her thighs and buttocks. A woman's body now, though her years scarcely numbered greater than when she'd gone to her marriage as a girl. And Jorah's body reacted to it very much as a man's.
Recalling her mortifying reaction when she'd awoken in his arms to his arousal, he turned his back to her and rose from the bed, the marble tiles cool on his bare feet as he worked the fastenings of his doublet.
"Would you prefer I remain clothed to sleep?" he asked, his voice pinched and taut in his throat as he felt within his breeches.
"Hmm? Oh, however you're most comfortable, ser."
That would be stark naked, as she was. However, much as Jorah desired to lie unclothed in bed with Dany, her distraction made him suspect that she was only open to the idea because she expected him to keep a chaste distance between them in the bed. The southern night being warm, he settled for stripping to the waist and climbing into bed with his trousers on for the sake of her modesty--not that the bulging laces hid much.
To his surprise, Dany rolled over to him, draping one arm across his waist and pillowing her head against the fleshy part of his shoulder; the wiry hairs on his chest shuddered with each soft exhalation of her breath against his skin. Slow. Long. Even. He thought she'd already fallen asleep, until he felt the flutter of her eyelashes.
"Dany?"
She pulled herself closer to him, her fingers fitting between his ribs on one side, her breasts spreading around the other, her thigh hooking over his legs. Dear gods, he wished he was naked, too--but he sensed that for all this openness with her body, she wasn't offering herself to him. Yet. He could endure tonight's inevitable frustration if he could hope for eventual satisfaction.
"Daenerys."
This time, she responded to his gruff tone and tilted her face up toward his.
"Are you just keeping up appearances?" he asked. "Or…?"
She lowered her head again, but her lips smiled against his skin as she answered, "During our journey, I grew accustomed to having you sleep at my side."
It was enough to make Jorah tighten his arms around her and bless her silken silver hair with a kiss. "You always have me at your side."
"I shall hold you to that, ser," Dany murmured as she drifted off to sleep.
She made good on her word the next morning, holding his arm as they made their way down to the quay. Though Jorah's hopes were further encouraged that Dany had not come to change her view of the previous night's thoughts and actions by the light of day, he found himself unable to fully appreciate their intimacy as his soldier's instincts dominated those of the lover; his eyes, which he wished to focus fully on the queen who might soon be his lady, instead swept the bustling streets of Qarth for any sign that they were being watched or followed. He did at least submit to the leisurely pace she set, and he tried not to hurry her from vendors' stalls whenever she paused to admire their wares, though once or twice he thought a stranger's eyes lingered too long upon them only to look too abruptly away, and he pulled Dany deeper into the crowd, his hand on the hilt of his sword. It was just as possible that Dany drew stares because of her beauty, or the size and foreign dress of her accompanying knight--for he had donned his chainmail for their excursion--but that likelihood made him no less protective of her, and perhaps even more so.
When they passed a jeweler's stall, however, it was Jorah's eye that was drawn by the gleaming trinkets. Dany's fingers curled in the crook of his elbow, and she looked up at him in question as he released his sword to take out his purse, which, though light, contained the remaining coin he'd earned by spying for Varys. An income to which he intended to formally put a stop today.
"How much for the sterling horse brooch?" He inquired of the owner of the booth. To Dany, he added, "You should have something to remember your brave little silver mare who carried you across the Red Waste."
Any other woman than Daenerys Targaryen, Jorah thought--or Lynesse, came a voice from a darker corner of his mind--would have protested, at least for the sake of politeness, that gifts weren't necessary to buy her favor. She, however, fairly bloomed at the prospect of being given a present, and Jorah was equally delighted to be able to please her in such a small way.
But as he began to haggle with the stallkeeper, Dany interrupted, "If you don't object, I'd prefer the onyx bear."
Jorah's eyes followed the line of her finger to a brooch carved in the likeness of a black bear, polished to a high gloss and prancing on its hind legs as the forepaws clawed at an unseen enemy--very like the sigil of House Mormont. Hardly daring to believe that Dany implied what he thought she must, Jorah met her gaze, which touched him as gently as a caress.
"To honor my brave knight," she added, softly.
"You will hear no objection from me to that," he replied, and, more deeply touched and dazed with joy than when Lynesse gave him her favor to wear in the tourney at Lannisport--for unlike Lynesse, Dany knew him and honored him not just as a knight, but as a man--he bought it, without bothering to dispute its price. He knew full well that he paid too much for the trinket, but Dany's favor was worth far more than gold.
Feeling bold as she allowed him to pin it at the shoulder of her gown and his hand brushed the bit of bared breast exposed above the baby's sling, he said, "Perhaps one day I may also give you a cloak to wear with your cloak pin."
His heart hammered in his chest as he gazed down at her and tried to decipher from her expression whether she caught his underlying meaning. But the half-shy manner in which she dropped her eyes to admire her new brooch, which his fingers still lightly held, might mean anything. Did she even know it was the custom in Westeros for a groom to place his cloak over his new bride's shoulders, signifying that he brought her into his house and under his protection? Would she, as a member of the estimable House Targaryen, not to mention heir of the Seven Kingdoms, deign to place herself under the mantle of a lowly knight exiled from a lesser house?
It had to be a good sign that she smiled and tucked her arm once more through his as they continued on their way through the wharf. If she hadn't understood him, then there was nothing lost, but if she had… Jorah all but chuckled to himself when he imagined Lord Varys reading the missive he'd composed about being Daenerys Targaryen's man, unaware of the full scope of that description.
Except that when they did, at last, reach the rookery, Jorah sent neither Dany's letter to Illyrio Mopatis nor his own to Varys.
For, when they inquired of the dark skinned keeper of the ravens whether he'd lately had any news from Westeros, the man replied, "King Robert Baratheon is dead."
A/N: If you're kind enough to comment on the chapter, Jorah promises to take you down to the quay and buy you trinkets from vendors--and he won't even use money he earned by spying on you and selling your secrets to assassins, either. ;)
Read Chapter 12