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For two days, Brigadier General John Buford’s cavalrymen had been camped along a ridge northwest of the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, waiting for Lee’s army to arrive. Two days just sitting in the sun, hunched under the shade of the nearest tent, waving off flies, trying to ignore the maggots in his rations biting through hardtack that had gone as tough as rocks.
Some of the men had devised ways to amuse themselves – baseball games that lasted the afternoon and often ended in fistfights; letters written to wives and mothers and children who would likely never see the writer’s face again; long discussions about what each man planned to do after the war was won – but Jorah ignored them all. He cared little for games, had no one to write who would read his letters and no place to go when the fighting ended, if it ever did.
It was July 1863, two years after the attack on Sumter and almost two years longer than anyone had expected the war to last. That didn’t matter to him anymore; Jorah had never meant to return from combat anyhow, so the fighting could go on as long as it took to kill him for all he cared.
Now, in the early hours of the morning, anticipating an attack that was said to come any minute, all he could do was sit against his tent with an oilcloth, wiping down his rifle. He’d cleaned and polished his Smithfield three times that week already, but the repetitive motion was about the only thing that made sense to him anymore, the only thing that centered his mind in the eternal hours before a battle began. From behind his tent, set several yards from the others, he kept an ear out for his fellow soldiers, for the signal that the enemy had arrived.
"Don't you mouth off to me, you brat!"
The crack of a slap rang through the air. Everyone in the camp must have heard it as clearly as Jorah had, but no one moved – what occurred between Viserys and his younger brother was no one’s business but theirs, even if any of them did see through the boy’s piss-poor disguise.
The younger Targaryen called himself “Danny”, and it was plain to see he was much too young to be a soldier. The two brothers had joined the ranks only a week ago, and while Viserys looked at least twenty, Danny could not have been more than fourteen, four years below the minimum age to enlist with the Union army…but this late in the war, hardly anyone bothered to question a man’s claim if he volunteered to fight. Not with the ranks so thin, not with hundreds of boys dead and gone already, not when Jorah himself had shot down youths who’d barely lived a decade.
And Danny, he suspected, was lying about more than just his age.
The boy stormed toward him, away from his brother and the men averting their eyes, face red from impact and anger both.
“You’re not fooling anyone.”
Jorah had no idea why he’d said that aloud; maybe it was sheer boredom, or fear temporarily masquerading as madness, or maybe the fact that Danny’s furious gait reminded him of Lynesse in a rage. The young private stopped in his tracks, but did not turn to address him.
“What on earth are you talking about?” The voice was quiet, soft, and tinged with the same lilt as Viserys’.
“I think you know.”
Danny finally turned, his eyes – so dark a blue they seemed almost violet – coolly studying Jorah’s face.
“What do you want?” It was the change in pitch that did it; she’d given up the ruse. He’d only been referring to the child’s age, not the obvious fact that “Danny” was Viserys’ sister rather than his brother, but Jorah was almost pleased to have guessed correctly.
He shook his head slowly.
“So you’re not going to tell them?”
That took a bit more thought. “You’ll only get a discharge, and a slap on the wrist, and they’ll send you back to whatever Georgia farm you came from.” It would be better, wouldn’t it, for a pretty young girl like her to be at home, to marry some southern gentleman her daddy picked for her, than to die out here at the end of a soldier’s bayonet – or, more likely, waste away slowly from malaria or dysentery?
“I can’t–” Danny paused, and swallowed, before continuing.“I can’t go back. I don’t…there’s nowhere for me to go back to.”
Jorah set the rifle down, leaning it against his tent, folding his arms across his chest. That was certainly a statement he could empathize with – his staunchly abolitionist aunt and cousins had made it very clear that he was no longer welcome in their home after he’d sold a fugitive slave back to his master and spent the ransom on his increasingly miserable wife, and Lynesse had fled West after the secessions began and was now, he’d heard, married some Californian entrepreneur. The desperation in Danny’s eyes had made the decision for him, but still, he needed to know more. He eyed the boy – girl – up and down, slowly.
“So you chose the Union army,” he replied,“But you’re not from the Union. You’re a Southern girl or I’ll eat my hat.” The flush of her cheeks – angry again? ashamed? – confirmed it. “So why not pretend to be a Confederate soldier? I hear they care even less how old you are on the other side.”
She was silent a long time, chewing prettily on her lip until she chose her answer.
“I know what it is to be a slave.”
“So you’re an abolitionist?”
“Something like that.” Danny shuffled on her feet, like a nervous filly.“Do you have any more prying questions, Mormont? Can I go?”
“Just one.” He tried to smile at her, but from the look she gave him in return, he guessed it had come off more like a grimace.“What’s your real name?”
Again she hesitated, but this time only a moment. “Daenerys.”
An odd name…it sounded Welsh…but then, Viserys wasn’t a name he’d heard before a fortnight ago, either.
Jorah had little time to contemplate the Targaryens’ origins; from the north, the distant sound of drumbeats rose from the mist, hailing the approach of Lee’s troops. His rifle was in his hands before he knew it, but Danny only froze, her eyes wide as saucers.
He grabbed her arm and shook, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“We’ll find you a gun, and a horse. Can you ride?”
The girl nodded.
“Good. Stay low, stay to the back, and whatever you do, stay with me.”
She nodded again. There was no time to mount the horses, that was clear now, but Jorah did manage to grab the girl a rifle and shout a cursory explanation about aiming at targets before they were down the ridge, shots sounding in the air, blue coats melting into gray.
It didn’t occur to him until the bullets started flying that this was the first battle – the first time in years, really – that he’d been afraid he would not survive.