"Ask that loud-mouthed whore," Kraznys sneered after recovering himself. "My accountants inspected her fleet. Even if she sells all her cargo, she can only afford about a thousand Unsullied. Add all her gold, silver, and antiques, and she might buy another three thousand slaves. Astapor has at least eight thousand fully trained Unsullied. What does she think she can pay with?"
"Your Grace," the young translator explained, "Astapor has more than eight thousand Unsullied. Your wealth is only enough to buy about half of them."
Daenerys raised an eyebrow.
Earlier that morning, the appraiser had estimated the merchant goods at fifteen thousand gold dragons, while the treasure aboard Euron's ship exceeded fifty thousand. She had assumed that would be enough to buy out Astapor's entire stock.
Apparently not.
An Unsullied cost roughly 165 gold dragons each?
"Is there some mistake?" Jorah demanded angrily. "In Westeros, hiring a knight costs only a few dozen silver stags. Even the ransom for a properly anointed knight or landed lord is often only a hundred gold dragons."
When Brienne of Tarth had been captured, her father had offered three hundred gold dragons to ransom his only daughter.
Even Jaime Lannister had considered that a fortune.
Sansa Stark, accused of helping murder King Joffrey and heir to Winterfell, carried a bounty of only one hundred gold dragons.
And after Bran Stark's fall, the assassin hired to kill him had been paid a mere ninety silver stags—less than half a gold dragon.
"Far too expensive," Daenerys said, shaking her head.
The translator relayed her words.
Kraznys slammed the armrest of his chair.
"Ask them this!" he shouted. "Can three thousand barbarian knights withstand the charge of twenty thousand screaming Dothraki warriors?"
Jorah answered immediately.
"Of course they can."
Kraznys burst out laughing.
"You should visit Qohor! Their smiths are the finest in the world. Their heavy cavalry wear armor so magnificent that your Westerosi tin cans look like beggars by comparison!"
Even Daenerys couldn't entirely deny it.
She knew how heavily armored the Qohorik cavalry were, which made it all the more confusing that they could be defeated by lightly armored infantry.
"Qohor's knights may have excellent armor," Daenerys countered, "but they lack the skill and spirit of Westerosi knights."
Unlike Jorah and the Whitebeard, she had grown up in the information age and could always find an argument—even a questionable one.
"A knight's greatest quality is knightly virtue: humility, honor, sacrifice, courage, mercy, honesty, justice, and piety.
"The Unsullied are fearless in sacrifice, but in Westeros that is merely the minimum requirement to become a knight.
"If the tale of three thousand Unsullied defending Qohor had happened in Westeros, the entire knightly order would have dissolved in shame. Yet Qohor's cavalry still strut around without embarrassment."
"Your Highness, that was magnificent!"
The Whitebeard's eyes glistened with emotion.
For the first time, he felt someone had perfectly captured the essence of knighthood.
Surely Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, would have understood such ideals too.
"Then why are you here buying Unsullied?" Kraznys demanded.
The translator repeated the question.
Daenerys smiled.
"Because I know exactly how powerful Westerosi knights are. That's why I'm prepared to spend everything I own to buy every Unsullied you have.
"If one sausage fills your stomach, why buy another? Better to spend the money on milk.
"Honestly, I worry eight thousand Unsullied won't be enough to defeat the Usurper's armies.
"Tell me, Good Master. Are there really only eight thousand? For safety's sake, I'd prefer as many as possible."
As the translator spoke, Kraznys clutched his head and tugged furiously at his stiff black-and-red hair.
He was going insane.
After several deep breaths, he pointed at Jorah.
"Ask that woman this: if a knight is worth only one hundred gold dragons, then I'll buy him for three hundred gold honors!"
In Astapor, three gold honors were worth roughly one gold dragon.
Jorah immediately drew his sword.
"You fat pig! Buy your own mother!"
Oddly, Kraznys seemed pleased.
"See how angry he is? That proves my point. He feels insulted because he knows he's worth far more than one hundred gold dragons.
"My Unsullied are trained from the age of five. Their combat skills and physical conditioning surpass those of ordinary knights.
"Do knights undergo such deadly training?
"The only valuable thing about a knight is the social status attached to him.
"Do you want warriors—or noble titles?"
He laughed.
"Astapor sells soldiers. Qarth sells whores. Meereen sells skilled slaves.
"Noble birth is merely another commodity. If you want nobles, go to Meereen. You might even buy a king there!"
To be fair, Kraznys wasn't entirely wrong.
Ordinary slaves were cheap. Daenerys could purchase four Dothraki slaves with a single silver coin.
But training an Unsullied was extraordinarily expensive.
For every Unsullied who earned his spiked helmet, five trainees had died during training and ten children had failed the tests.
The costs of those dead slaves were all built into the price.
One hundred sixty gold dragons was expensive—but not outrageously so.
After a moment's thought, Daenerys asked:
"If I buy a large quantity, can you lower the price?"
The translator relayed the question.
"The Good Master says that all your goods and jewelry will buy four thousand Unsullied. He will also give you one hundred extra for free."
Not even a ten-percent discount.
How stingy.
The translator then asked:
"Do you possess any other valuables?"
Daenerys considered.
"On the voyage from Qarth to Astapor, I captured a pirate ship.
"Has the Good Master heard of the 'Red Devil' who has caused such chaos across the Summer Sea?"
Kraznys immediately sat upright.
"Wait—did she capture that pirate?"
"The red-hulled longship in the harbor is the Red Devil's vessel," Daenerys replied. "Its captain is Euron Greyjoy of the Iron Islands. He is currently locked in my ship's hold."
The slave master drummed his fingers thoughtfully.
"Interesting. The cities of New Ghis, Qarth, and the Jade Sea alliance have all placed bounties on that one-eyed devil.
"Combined, they total over one hundred thousand gold honors.
"Tell her I will exchange one thousand Unsullied for the pirate king and his ship."
Ser Barristan immediately objected.
"Your Highness, Euron is a lord. If you sell him as a slave, House Greyjoy—and indeed all the nobles of the Seven Kingdoms—will regard it as a grave insult."
The translator clarified.
"It would not be slavery. He is wanted throughout the Jade Sea. Besides, the Good Master says that even a king would not be worth ten Unsullied here."
"That may be true elsewhere," Barristan insisted, "but this is Slaver's Bay. You would be handing him to a notorious slave trader."
A thousand Unsullied.
Euron was worth an incredible amount.
In reality, Euron himself was worth perhaps five hundred. The rest came from the value of the Silence, which many cities wanted to study because of its remarkable speed.
Daenerys waved Barristan down.
"I promised Euron his freedom if he told me how to safely enter the ruins of Valyria.
"A queen's honor is worth three dragons. Not even ten thousand Unsullied could buy it."
"Wise and noble, Your Highness," Barristan said with relief.
"Ancient Valyria?" Kraznys exclaimed.
His three chins trembled.
"Ask her immediately! Did the Red Devil truly sail into the Smoking Sea?"
Daenerys tapped the dark armor covering Jorah's arm.
"Observe this armor. Elegant, understated, and inscribed with Valyrian magical runes.
"Who but a Dragonlord could possess such a suit of Valyrian steel armor?"
Kraznys stared so hard his eyes nearly bulged from their sockets.
"By the Harpy..."
He groaned.
"Yesterday I thought that barbarian knight was merely pretending to be a Dragonlord."
Six thousand years earlier, the armies of the Great Empire of Ghis had conquered much of the world under the banner of the Harpy. The Unsullied were modeled after those ancient legions.
The modern Ghiscari were no longer the warriors their ancestors had been. After five thousand years under Valyrian domination, pure Ghiscari blood barely remained.
Yet the masters of Astapor still gloried in their heritage.
They lived in pyramids, wore tokar robes, and dyed their hair black and red.
Young men dressed themselves in imitation Dragonlord armor and strutted through the fighting pits, pretending to be ancient generals and Valyrian conquerors while directing eunuch slaves to kill one another.
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