Chapter 231: Script Instructions
Duncan had been waiting outside Daenerys's door since he'd finished the interrogations, standing quietly in the corridor until Ian finally emerged that evening.
"My lord." Duncan drew Ian aside to a corner where no one could overhear. "We found the talkative handmaid."
"Don't tell me which one." Ian shook his head before Duncan could continue.
Duncan paused. "Should we remove her?"
"No." Ian shook his head again.
He'd been thinking about this while he waited. There was a useful lesson in the history of power — one that most rulers learned too late. When a leader discovers that a subordinate has been passing information they shouldn't have, the instinct is to punish immediately. But immediate punishment creates its own problems.
If the handmaid was suddenly killed or disappeared the day after Daenerys had asked uncomfortable questions, Daenerys would understand exactly what had happened. She'd know Ian had found her source. She'd know he'd removed it. And she'd know, in a way that couldn't be walked back, that the people around her were being managed.
That was a much bigger problem than one gossipy handmaid.
"Killing her doesn't solve anything," Ian said. "Daenerys will always have someone she talks to, someone who tells her things. If we remove this one, we lose the ability to track who the next one is — and the next one might be harder to find." He paused. "We already know who this is. That's an advantage. Let's use it."
"Turn her?"
"Exactly. She confessed everything when you interrogated her, you said?"
"Immediately. She's not particularly brave."
"Good. That makes it easier. Apply whatever combination of pressure and incentive it takes to bring her around. From now on, she tells Daenerys exactly what we want Daenerys to hear. She likes getting news about the outside world through that channel? Then give her news. Tell her how well our slaves are treated compared to those in Yunkai. Tell her what conditions look like under the Great Masters of Meereen. Make the comparison obvious." Ian considered for a moment. "That shouldn't be a complicated ask."
"No trouble at all," Duncan confirmed.
"Good." Ian clapped him on the shoulder. "One more thing — have dinner prepared. For two."
Duncan raised an eyebrow. "You're staying?"
"For the next several days, yes. There's a delegation coming from the Ghiscari city-states, and I need to run a performance for them. It's not as involved as what we put together in Pentos, but Daenerys is carrying more of the weight this time and she hasn't done this before. I need to be here to walk her through it." Ian turned back toward the door. "She needs proper preparation before she's in front of an audience."
When he returned to the room, Daenerys was sitting at the table, now dressed, her silver hair still slightly damp from the bath.
"That took a while just to have dinner prepared," she said.
"Someone caught me in the corridor with a work matter. I dealt with it." Ian pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.
Daenerys looked at him with something between guilt and consideration. "You've been very busy since we arrived in Astapor. If you genuinely have other things that need your attention tonight—"
"I gave you my word I'd stay for the next few days," Ian said, cutting her off. "I'll keep it."
Daenerys smiled. She looked pleased in a way she was trying not to show.
Hypocrite, Ian thought to himself, with some amusement. She knows exactly what she's doing.
"So." Daenerys set aside whatever she'd been thinking and moved deliberately to what she clearly considered more pressing. "Where were we?"
"Our wedding," Ian said, without evasion this time.
"Yes." Daenerys nodded, and then shot him a look from under her lashes that suggested she was very aware she'd won that particular exchange.
"There are no septons in Slaver's Bay," Ian added pleasantly.
Daenerys blinked. Then her expression fell as she worked out what he meant.
"A marriage without a septon officiating isn't recognized under the laws of the Seven Kingdoms," Ian continued, with the composure of a man who had absolutely thought this through in advance.
"But you converted to the Lord of Light," Daenerys said, remembering his title. "Servant of the Lord of Light."
"That's true. But Your Grace, you are a follower of the Seven."
"I'm not, particularly," Daenerys said quietly.
"You need to be, if you intend to sit the Iron Throne." Ian shifted into the patient tone he used when he was teaching her something he expected to stick. "Your ancestor Aegon the Conqueror had three dragons and the most powerful army the world had seen in generations. He could have ruled Westeros however he chose. Instead he abandoned the old Valyrian gods and converted to the Faith of the Seven. Because he understood that you cannot govern a people while standing apart from what they believe. You rule with them, not over them."
Daenerys absorbed this, then said: "Is that why you wear the Ghiscari tokar?"
Ian paused for just a fraction of a second. Her political instincts really were extraordinary. Every time he taught her a principle, she turned it over and found the application faster than he expected. It was why he'd made a deliberate decision to keep teaching her only broad, structural ideas — the kind of thinking that made her a better ruler. The specific mechanics of political manipulation, the detailed frameworks he'd developed from studying centuries of power and governance — those he kept to himself. If he made her too sharp in the wrong ways, she'd eventually turn those tools around on him.
"Yes," he said. "If we want to build something lasting here, we have to show genuine respect for what exists here. That's not weakness. It's how you build a foundation."
"So." Daenerys's eyes narrowed with the particular focus of someone who has just spotted an opening. A slow, satisfied smile spread across her face. "We could hold a traditional Ghiscari ceremony here in Astapor first. And then hold a proper ceremony with a septon once we reach Westeros." She tilted her head. "I am your queen. My relationship with Ghiscari culture matters to our position here as much as yours does. Doesn't it?"
Ian stared at her.
She was waiting for that. The entire question about the tokar was leading here.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. He had, he reflected, possibly done too good a job.
"Consider what that would look like to our neighbors," he said, recovering quickly. "We have over ten thousand Unsullied, nearly three thousand Dothraki cavalry, and ten thousand Ghiscari Legion soldiers in training with more being added. If you were sitting in Yunkai or Meereen looking across at that force — would you be concerned?"
"They know we're going to Westeros," Daenerys said, thinking it through. "That we're leaving."
"That we're leaving is exactly what they need to believe. And right now they're deciding whether to believe it." Ian leaned forward slightly. "Now tell me — if the queen of that army holds a Ghiscari wedding ceremony in Astapor, what does that tell the city-states about whether she intends to leave?"
Daenerys opened her mouth. Then closed it.
"A Ghiscari wedding says we're staying," she said finally.
"It says you're invested in this place. That you see yourself as part of it. And an army that size, led by a queen who's put down roots — that's not a passing threat. That's a permanent one." Ian held her gaze. "So not only can you not perform that wedding here, you need to do the opposite. There's a delegation arriving from the Ghiscari city-states shortly. I need you to help me perform for them. The right kind of performance."
Daenerys was quiet for a moment. Then: "What are we performing?"
"A queen who is very much focused on going home." Ian paused. "I promise you — we get married after we take Meereen."
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