Daenerys Targaryen paid attention to her own men as well as Jon’s. They had all introduced themselves before the long chat. Wyman Manderly, Brandon Tallhart, Barbrey Dustin, in her mind she recited. The half-burned man in bed, yet insistent he was of perfect health, Ser Davos Seaworth, completed the northern side of the dialogue. With Daenerys was Varys, Missandei, Grey Worm (having returned from Goldgrass), Qhono and Paxter Redwyne.
Words had a way of being a war, Daenerys noticed, and were it not for Varys, she would certainly have lost this one. There were a lot of narrow, twisting topics to confront, from the deaths of Tyrion and Arya Stark to the Battle at Barrowton, and he expertly kept the peace during such discussions. Daenerys had lost thirty-thousand men, most of them Dothraki, but Jon had been shorn of men too, Robett Glover being incinerated and Cley Cerwyn succumbing to his wounds.
It was during this parlay that she learned of Theon’s beheading. Daenerys had no opinion of the man, but he was a part of her Council, and her initial inclination was to seek punishment. But then she looked at Davos, charred and close to death, and thought it best to let the treaty stand. None of them, at the end of their discussion, looked furious enough to break the truce. Striking an alliance must not be difficult.
“I am sorry that so many lives had to be shed before an agreement was reached,” she said, “but now that differences are settled, and that we know you are not interested in the Iron Throne, perhaps it is time to unite against the common evil. If there is nothing more to discuss-”
“There is.”
Jon’s interruption had such a savage undercurrent to it that Daenerys wondered if he considered breaking the peace. “Speak,” she said, attempting to show her own steel in a word.
What followed seemed like one of the most ludicrous speeches she had heard. Daenerys listened with the straightest face imaginable as she heard Jon talk about dead men walking and an army of ice monsters beyond the Wall. As his ramblings continued, Daenerys looked to the other northmen, but none of them flinched. If he is japing, why is no one else laughing? Despite Jon’s reiterations that what he said may sound unbelievable, his tales did little to convince Daenerys that they were in any way close to reason. Did I misjudge him after all?
His monologue ended. He looked at her, waiting for her to speak, but she had no words.
“So,” she began, trying to get the facts in her head straight, “there are over a hundred thousand walking corpses in the Lands of Always Winter, there are White Walkers who can turn dead bodies into their followers by touching them, and in any time from now, all of them will try to breach the Wall?”
“Yes.”
“They are impossible to kill, save by fire or dragonglass?”
“Yes.” Forget flinching, now all the northmen were looking at Daenerys in sheer urgency, as if trying to make her believe them by sight alone. She tried to review the situation, to wonder if Jon was trying to manipulate her, but none of them seemed to fit. One man may have lost his wits, she thought, looking at Jon, but surely not the entire north?
“Your Grace,” said Jon Snow, “you have only known me for the length of a day, but in your first impressions, do you think I am a liar, a madman?”
She thought of flames touching her skin, but her never feeling it, the day the night was alive with the music of dragons. She thought of rumors surrounding his resurrections, and the marks Jon’s abdomen bore. She thought of magic and maegis. She thought of Jon’s ignorance of politics and diplomacy, and the Stark’s repute for honesty. And she did not know what came over her, especially in the wake of what he had just said, but instead of a simple negation, her words were, “I think you may be one of the most honest men in Westeros.”
Jon seemed taken aback by her strong words, but he gathered himself soon. “Then help me defeat them,” he said. “With three dragons, you can fly beyond the Wall and kill all of them. They will be powerless to stop you. Do the realm this service, and I will bend to you the knee and give you all the men you need to rid the world of Cersei Lannister.”
Daenerys was yet uncertain. She decided to voice that. “You can understand my reluctance to trust you.”
Ser Davos, silent all this time, finally spoke. “I understand, Your Grace. Ice monsters and walking corpses? It sounds like nonsense. Sometimes, I wish it were nonsense. But the world is what it is, and it is up to us to fix it. You are skeptical? Fine. If you go beyond and find no one, your dragons are free to burn me to death.”
The readiness with which Davos offered himself as lamb for slaughter was slightly curtailed by how close to death he already was. Yet, she found it staggering how formidable a loyalty the King in the North held. Daenerys decided to test his resolve. “Do not think I will not, Ser Davos.”
“Go ahead,” he said, relentless. He paused, taking stock of his cavalier approach, and opted for a more measured one. “My apologies for my candor, Your Grace, but I am afraid I must do everything I can to make you believe. For if we do not put aside our enmities and band together, we will die. And then, it will not matter whose skeleton sits on the Iron Throne.”
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