The Eminence in GOT-Chapter 19: Notes of the Captain of the Beast King, Part 4 - Special Encounters
Chapter 19 - Notes of the Captain of the Beast King, Part 4 - Special Encounters
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15.07.275
Skahazadhan River spillway, Khalasar Khal Bharbo site
The Dothraki.
A people of the steppes who rose to prominence after the fall of ancient Valyria and have terrorized the entire population of Western Essos for years. This nomadic people, with no permanent settlements other than the famous Vejes Dothrak and roaming the vast fertile steppes of the so-called Dothraki Sea, have brought much grief to other people. The destruction of the Sarnor Kingdom, constant raids on their distant relatives - the Lhazarians, the devastation of all land colonies of Qarth and constant raids on the lands of the Free Cities... This is an aggressive nation, not accustomed to cultivating its own bread and preferring to plunder its neighbors in endless horse raids. Only two powers derive any aid or benefit from the existence of these barbarians.
The cities of the Slaver's Bay and the remnants of the Hyrkun Fiefdom.
And while the former receive slaves from them from all lands bordering the Dothraki Sea, helping the latter has a much older and more convoluted history. Four hundred years ago, when the Dothraki had first emerged as a nation and united under Khal Mengo, his mother Dosha, Queen of Witches, instructed him to impose an iron rule on the warriors of the steppes that those who broke it would be outcasts and condemned to death. It stated that no Dothraki would ever, under any circumstances, plunder the lands of Kayakayanai, Samiriana, and Bayazabad. On the contrary, all Khals, in the future, would be expected to help the Hyrkun's Domain and its defenders with all their might, especially in times of war. For if any of the three fortress cities fall, the Dothraki will have a new strong and numerous enemy, the Jogos-nhai. And this rule is still followed to this day.
The very culture of the Dothraki depends entirely on horses, and they call themselves "horse lords". Even the self-name of their people means simply "horsemen", "those who ride".
So when the destination of my little journey became visible from the Black Panther (the King of Beasts would not pass through here - it was too shallow), I expected to see a bunch of shouting, rough-clothed, shameless barbarians.
Expectations were fully justified.
The gigantic camp, consisting of sparse ornate tents and thousands of primitive huts or shelters of spun grass that could at most protect against the occasional rain, was home to eighty thousand people dressed in painted leather vests over bare bodies, woven horsehair pants, and heavy belts of bronze or gold roundels. They cooked food, tended horses, ate, drank, urinated, defecated, and had intercourse with women, boys, mares, or sheep right outside, uninhibited.
I, and the whole crew, were shocked. Especially the Northerners, one of the most reserved peoples in all of Westerosse. To them, such behavior seemed a violation of all the laws they hold sacred. Some Highlanders even grabbed their axes.
We had to leave everyone on the ship under Edward's care, and go only in the company of Oberyn, who, on the contrary, liked it here.
I swear I heard him say, "And why wasn't I born a Dothraki?"
The Dothraki's skin was a red-brown color, reminiscent of freshly cooled bronze. Combined with their narrow slanted eyes, they reminded me of replicas of nomads from Earth-central Asia that I had once seen in a museum. Their men wore long, lopsided mustaches signifying their age and experience, which they intercepted with metal rings, and long, narrow braids into which they wove small bells, symbols of their victories, while the women wore thin wrist bracelets showing her husband's strength and wealth.
Our arrival at the camp has not created much of a sensation. The messengers of the families of the Great, Good, and Wise Lords had been wandering around for days, picking out goods to match. Before my eyes, a man dressed in the characteristic garb of Astapor (thanks to Grazdan for teaching me how to distinguish the locals) was walking away from one of the ornate tents in the company of a slave interpreter and several dozen bound and crying boys, five or four years old at most. Among them, besides the Lhazarians and the Dothraki themselves, I could discern a few Ibbenians, mestizos of Valyrian appearance captured somewhere in the Free Cities, Quartians, and even Itians. In the future all of these boys would be trained by the Unsullied and it was good if even a quarter of them survived.
Originally this whole trip was planned for one purpose only - to see how and what these people live without getting into trouble. But even so, I found trouble on my ass very quickly. Oberyn and I went into camp fully equipped - the Prince of Dorne took his favorite leaf-blade spear and wore thick red leather armor with threaded yellow suns. And I wore my "standard" clothes - chain mail, cuirass, shoulder pads, armguards and simple canvas pants, protected by a thick leather skirt. I didn't forget about my sword and helmet hanging on a sling. I didn't want to carry my axe all over the camp.
It was only natural that my outfit caused a wave of amusement and ridicule among the surrounding Dothraki, who thought it was necessary to fight only with an arakh and a bare ass. It's times like this when you wish you were a native speaker and understood all the ridicule these assholes were throwing at you. Oberyn, for example, thought these barbarians were laughing at something of their own, not paying attention to us. Though knowing this walking problem, he was probably constantly staring at the slave girls and Dothraki passing by.
I am a patient man. It's very hard to get me angry over nothing. But when you spend almost an hour listening to incessant ridicule, and then some unintimidated jerk comes up to you and starts calling you achra ador (p.a. translates to stinking turtle), pointing his stinking finger in your face, your patience quickly runs out.
The result was predictable - a gauntlet in the face and teeth flying in the air.
The uproar did not last long. At first they wanted to slaughter us without any conversation, but my knowledge of the language (though it turned out to be very clumsy) and my explanation of why the victim is now in the caring hands of the local eunuch-dentist gave us a chance to survive.
And in ten minutes I, wearing a helmet and fully prepared for battle, stood in the very center of the settlement, opposite the father of that moron, who was already bragging about what he would do with my corpse when he won.
The fight was quick. Catch an arakh blade on a specially reinforced wristband, redirect it downward, and while my opponent was regaining his balance, give him a good slash with his sword, shattering his collarbone, a few ribs, and a lung. A few seconds of combat and a lightning fast victory.
The silence that followed was followed by a renewed clamor. While the locals were deciding what to do and how to kill me, I approached the defeated enemy and unbuckled from his braid (which turned out to be quite short) a bell more sympathetic and attached it to my hair, which I had long ago let go and it reached me to the middle of my back. I liked the custom with bells very much and wanted some for myself.
Ten minutes later everything was repeated - the cousin of the murdered man was found and decided to avenge the blood of his kinsman. As a result, another bell was added to my scythe, for it came as a surprise to the locals that swords can and should be used to stab, not only to chop.
The next three hours were very monotonous - I was challenged, the battle was held (which after the first five before the first blood and in general became not revenge for fallen comrades, but a kind of competition who will defeat the stranger), won mainly by the presence of my armor, better weapons and a huge number of sneaky tricks, such as grabs, intercepting weapons, stepping, throwing sand in the eyes and knee in the groin.
But everything has an end, including my winning streak. As another Dothraki settled to the ground, clutching his injured balls and with his scythe cut short, Khal Bharbo himself and his Khalakka decided to drop in on the party.
The Khal himself, if I may say so, was the ideal Dothraki - tall, as tall as me, lean, with muscles as dry and curly as steel ropes, a gorgeous black mustache, and a long, intricately woven braid that reached to his knees. And judging by the presence of his little copy, who looked to be only seven or eight years old, but already had "adult" bells in her braid, he had a worthy heir.
There was no special politeness - Bharbo said at once that he had come to fight me, and I did not refuse. Though I never neglected training, practicing every day on the ship and ports of our arrival, even learning to fight mounted on the stern (Bucephalus was happy), but standing opponents were rare and to go against one of the strongest fighters of the steppes... It stirred the blood, made me shake with impatience.
The fight was almost over before it began. Khal hadn't seen all the possibilities of my sword and armor, so he almost fell for a simple trick of switching from a chopping to a stabbing blow. He dodged the blow, which was supposed to pierce his shoulder, only on reflex and incredible flexibility for his physique. Then he tried to get closer to me and take advantage of the advantage of knives over long blades, but as my father had said, "A blow with a gauntlet on the face is sometimes more effective than any sword. Bharbo dodged a steel fist flying into my ankles and bounced away from me like a panther, realizing that he had nothing to catch at close and long distances, he switched to the standard variant of combat.
The real dance began. Sword and arakh fluttered between us, trying to bypass the built-up defenses and break through to the soft and inviting flesh. And if I had any defense to guarantee my survival, the Khal was constantly walking on the tip of his blade. Like a flowing brook, he dodged all my attacks, constantly counterattacking, trying to cut off the extra muscle. I was saved only by the presence of armor, timely put under the blows of the enemy's blade, and the presence of a good school of combat, allowing to save strength and not yield to this beast in the guise of a man.
Our danza went on for a long time - almost two minutes. My armor and youth balanced the Khal's experience and incredible agility. But in the end, the winner was decided. The khal took advantage of my hiccup and fatigue due to the heat (despite the river running nearby, it was 30-35 degrees Celsius, doubly intensified by the armor) and deflecting my sword, in the process losing the arakh, he rushed towards me with lightning speed, putting his knife to the gap between my helmet and kirasa.
The razor-sharp blade sliced into my caddy. The winner was decided. Khal took one of the bells from my braid and hung it up, and my long hair was cut off and given to the winner, as Dothraki tradition dictated. Here Bharbo surprised everyone by wrapping my hair around the haft of his arakh, tying it in a thick but small knot that did not interfere with his fighting. As I had learned in the Citadel libraries, the Dothraki had developed this gesture after the siege of Norvos, nearly four hundred years ago.
When Khal Temmo, before the Dothraki were united into one nation under the hand of Khal Mengo, marched to conquer the free city of Quokhor at the head of a Khalasar of 50,000 men, the army of that free city stood in his way.
The Kvokhorians, knowing about the approach of the nomads, tried to strengthen the city and gather an army of local militia and mercenaries. Plus "just in case" three thousand Unsullied were bought in Astapor, which no one perceived as a serious military force because of their recent appearance on the slave market and their lack of reputation.
The Unsullied approached the city when the Quokhoran cavalry army had already been defeated and the mercenaries had fled the battlefield, abandoning their employers. Thus, the Free Cities could become eight rather than nine. As the Dothraki prepared to storm Quokhor one last time, they found a dense formation of slave pikemen in front of the main gate. In Dothraki terms, the cavalry were supposed to trample the infantry mercilessly, so they simply rushed to the attack. The Unsullied closed their shields, lowered their spears, and stood their ground. Temmo repeated the futile attempt to crush the infantry line 18 more times, and three times he used archers against the Unsullied, showering the enemy with a hail of arrows, but the Astaporian eunuchs raised their shields above their heads, forming a sort of turtle to protect them from the arrows.
In the end, the Dothraki declared themselves the losers: although only 600 of the three thousand Unsullied survived, over 12,000 riders died, including Khal Temmo himself, his sons and blood riders. In recognition of the defeat, the new Khal, Temmo's successor, ordered his warriors to cut off their braids and throw them at the feet of the Unsullied. Since then, the city guards of Quokhor have been recruited only from the Unsullied, and they wear braids of human hair on the shafts of their spears, but for the Dothraki to accept and wind an enemy's braid around their weapons is considered a recognition of the enemy's military prowess and shows their respect for him.
Oberyn wasted no time, either - he had a good fight, too, cutting the hair off thirteen Dothraki, but he got his ass kicked by one of Bharbo's blood riders, and so did I, getting a new haircut. Still, the Dornish fighting style is more like the Dothraki, differing only in the presence of light leather armor and the preference for the spear.
Eventually, the Dornish prince and I were recognized as "blood friends" of the Khalasar, and invited to an evening feast. And if I mostly communicated with Khal and his blood riders, asking about their wanderings and peculiarities of life of the people born in the saddle, drinking local analog of koumiss, then Oberyn behaved like a real horse-born - he got drunk, overturned all met Dothraki, because of which he fought eight times with the locals. In the morning he was found in a horse stall with two black eyes, covered in horse shit and completely bald.
I laughed a long time looking at that picture. I'm sure if Oberyn hadn't been Oberyn, I'd have been challenged to a duel or sent to the mercenaries for insulting the lord's honor, but that womanizer didn't give a shit. He himself, when he saw himself from the outside, could not contain his laughter and took my word that I would not let him drink in the Dothraki camp again.
The parting was not long - Bharbo gave me a beautiful arakh decorated with precious stones and white gold, receiving in return from me five barrels of expensive golden Arborian wine. Plus his son, a Khalakka named Drogo (who I didn't expect to see as the future husband of Daenerys Targaryen (n.a. GG watched only the first three episodes of the game and all the other knowledge he got as word of mouth))), received from me the very sword that was used to slaughter more than a dozen of his tribesmen a day ago, and a small prediction.
"In the future, when you are the strongest and most invincible of all the Khals of the Dothraki seas, you will have a wife. With hair the color of the full moon, eyes the color of sparkling amethyst, beauty worthy of conquering countries and peoples, and the destiny of a true dragon. Take care of her, for you will be the only one she can lean on."
I knew then that this would come back to haunt me, but I didn't care-I knew only the basic fate of the world, and I would change it as I wished.
12.08.275
Lands Beyond the Wall
My second visit to the lands beyond the wall went even better - the tribes of the Enchanted Forest, having learned about the worshipers exchanging a lot of food and quality weapons for bones, skins and live animals, gladly agreed to trade.
Of course, there were idiots who decided to simply take away our cargo, but the presence of lake dwellers and foresters among the crews, who were excellent archers, and one special compound bought on the marshes, which was used to lubricate the arrows, easily made our reputation. When, after the first attack, all the wounded died in horrible agony, literally rotting before our eyes (of which there were many, due to the lack of wildling armor), most of the tribes quickly lost their desire for easy profit. And those idiots who still risked another attack repeated the fate of the first.
29.08.275
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Volantis
Oberyn turned out to be a very good and responsible father - he spent the three days we were in Volantis with Nymeria, constantly playing with her and making out with her. He's the perfect daddy, except for all his other habits (which have progressed over the years - this bisexual managed to get into bed with one of the ironborn sailors... The ones who would get their dicks cut off in their homeland, and then tied to the mast in a chain mail to wait out the storm).
I spent all my time at Atrakes' place, or rather in his brothel. I liked that young Cortigiana very much. There was something special about her. I just wish I knew what it was.
26.09.275
Summer Sea, near Port of Ichos
For the first time in my memory, we met pirates. The reason was simple - Volkan and Sigrid had eaten a lot of fruit ice in New Guice and came down with a cold. We lost both the ship's sensors.
But all was well - the crews and their captains proved that I don't pay them in vain, and we approached Quart with 3 ships that turned out to be "former" members of the Tourmaline Brotherhood and were gladly bought by the Thirteen and the Spice Guild. However, we had to give a large purse of gold to one of the Sanguinarian council to guarantee ourselves a "roof" from the offended members of the brotherhood.
12.10.275
The Golden Empire of I-Ti, Yin.
The Golden Lands greeted us as they did last time - not cordially. I quickly sold and bought the goods I needed and applied for the search and purchase of the necessary thing in one of the many shareholder houses of Yin, I took off into the sunset, flying at full speed in the direction of Lannisport.
I missed my homeland too much.
05.1.276
Staromest
Oberyn never ceased to amaze me. While we were staying in Staromest for repairs and orders to build new schooners, he decided to visit the whore he'd slept with before we met. And it turns out he had another daughter.
Obara Sand might well have started making a living as her mother, but as I wrote recently, the Dornish prince was very fond of his children. According to the Northerners who accompanied him, when Oberyn came for his daughter, her mother protested. She loved her child too much.
The prince did the smart thing. He threw his spear at the girl's feet and told her to choose between the life of a whore or that of a warrior. As her father's daughter, Obara raised her weapon.
And so I had a third small child on my ship, who was already beginning to bully poor Volkan, who was too shy for her years.
Her mother was inconsolable and had gone into a deep bender. I asked Piper to keep an eye on her, while staying in Staromest to oversee the construction of new ships. And a few of my errands.
09.01.276
Westlands, Lannisport
Lannisport welcomed us like relatives. I don't know if it was my own joy at arriving at home, or if the locals liked the sails of my shebeks, which were painted purple, the symbol of the lion house, by fate's whim (or rather a discount on that dye in Quarth).
But all that paled in comparison to the furor when the first shoppers were allowed onto the ships temporarily serving as trading posts.
Fine silks of all available colors, velvets of purple and burgundy hues, with all kinds of gold and silver embroidery, dozens of exquisite ornaments of ivory, moon silver and Lengov gold, the quality and beauty of which gave even the products of local craftsmen a run for their money. Dozens of spices, combining the most incredible combinations of taste and smell, were piled up on the lower dry decks, completely saturating the holds. And small mercury mirrors, of the same quality as Myrian mirrors, made most of the women squeal in awe. And let's not forget the dozens of rare and exotic blades bought in the craft quarters of Yin, and a whole shelf of rare I-thian manuscripts, much prized by maesters and rare enlightened lords.
Still, Westeros is not the most supply-rich region and most goods do not reach it from the east. At most, they settle in King's Landing in the treasuries of the royal family, as gifts to the highest ranks of the Church of the Seven, and in the collections of wealthy merchants.
So it was no surprise that on the third day of the auction, the main family of lions arrived on my ships from Casterly Rock itself.
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