10. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 255-279

The Iron Captain

Victarion Greyjoy arrives at the kingsmoot, ready to challenge his brother Euron. His other brother, Aeron Damphair, tells him that Euron "surrounds himself with godless men and monsters, worse than before. In him our father's blood went bad." Victarion sets himself to winning the support of other ironmen.

Then he sights Asha, who says, "I am pleased to see you at my queensmoot." He is not happy with the idea, but she presses the point: Euron is the elder brother but she is "the child of King Balon's body, so I come before you both." But a sudden hush falls over the assemblage as Euron enters with his supporters.

Victarion acknowledges his brother as "Crow's Eye," but Euron corrects him: "King Crow's eye, brother." Aeron insists that the kingsmoot will decide that matter, and reiterates his insistence that no "godless man" may sit in the Seastone Chair. Euron replies, "As it happens I have oft sat upon the Seastone Chair of late. It raises no objections." And he twits Aeron by saying that he has encountered all sorts of gods in his travels: "Why, Aeron, I am the godliest man ever to raise sail! You serve one god, Damphair, but I have served ten thousand. From Ib to Asshai, when men see my sails, they pray."

When Euron asks Asha about her mother, she suggests that he is the one who made her mother a widow: "Three years you were gone from us, and yet Silence returns within a day of my lord father's death." He asks his crew if he commands the winds, and they all agree that he doesn't. She exchanges insults with them, and brandishes her throwing axe until Victarion puts a stop to the quarrel.

Asha asks Victarion to take a walk with her, and asks him why Euron had gone away so suddenly. She had been away when he left. "When I came home, Euron was gone and your new wife was dead." He says he doesn't want to talk about this source of the bad blood between the brothers, and again tries to dissuade her from making a play for the crown. She admits that the odds are not good, but offers to support him if he will agree to share the throne: "Let me be your Hand, Nuncle." He asks why she would want to do that, and she says, "To end this war before this war ends us. We have won all that we are like to win ... and stand to lose all just as quick, unless we make a peace."

He is not ready to make peace, however, and implies that her wish to do so is feminine. She says that she can deliver House Harlaw to his support, but he reveals that Hotho Harlaw has already suggested that Victarion marry his daughter, and that Hotho will be Lord Rodrik's heir. He is convinced that he can defeat Euron at the kingsmoot. But she has been listening to what the others at the kingsmoot are saying, and says that the talk is all of Euron's victories.

Then she says that Euron "killed your wife ... did he not?" He admits that Euron "put a baby in her belly and made me do the killing. I would have killed him too, but Balon would have no kinslaying in his hall. He sent Euron into exile, never to return.... She gave me horns. I had no choice."

Had it been known, men would have laughed at me, as the Crow's Eye laughed when I confronted him. "She came to me wet and willing," he had boasted. "It seems Victarion is big everywhere but where it matters." But he could not tell her that.

Asha goes away to make her try for the throne anyway.

The Drowned Man

Aeron has his followers summon the people to the kingsmoot. Seeing Victarion standing tall in the crowd, Damphair is sure of it: "He shall be our king. What man could look on him and doubt it?" He opens the kingsmoot by asking "Who shall be king over us?" but gets no response at first. Finally, when he repeats the call, an eccentric named Gylbert Farwynd steps forth with his vision of traveling to some distant land where "every man shall be a king and every wife a queen," but he has the support only of his family. After him, another oddball candidate appears, and then another.

Finally, Aeron gives up and calls for Victarion to step forth. He does, and after a brief speech his men open chests full "of silver, gold, and gems, a wealth of plunder. Captains scrambled to seize the richest pieces," and shout out his name. Aeron keeps his eye on Euron, wondering when he will step forth, but it is Asha who does. She meets the taunts that she is a woman by baring her breasts and joking bawdily, and says,

"Nuncle says he'll give you more of what my father gave you. Well, what was that? Gold and glory, some will say. Freedom, ever sweet. Aye, it's so, he gave us that ... and widows too, as Lord Blacktyde will tell you. How man of you had your homes put to the torch when Robert came? How many had daughters raped and despoiled? Broken towns and broken castles, my father gave you that. Defeat was what he gave you. Nuncle here will give you more. Not me." 

She asks what they have to show for their recent victories, and her men bring out chests. "I give you the wealth of the Stony Shore," she says, and they open a chest full of pebbles. The "riches of Deepwood" are pine cones, and "the gold of Winterfell" is a trunk full of turnips. She proposes to give them peace instead, and an alliance with the northmen to protect them against the Iron Throne.

There are cheers for her, and Aeron is shocked by the strength of the support of men "for a woman!" But there are other shouts for Victarion, and the competing shouts turn into an uproar. "The Storm God is amongst us, the priest thought, sowing fury and discord." And then the sound of a horn draws everyone's attention. An enormous man is blowing a horn "taller than a man" and "bound about with bands of red gold and dark steel, incised with ancient Valyrian glyphs that seemed to glow redly as the sound swelled." The piercing sound makes Aeron cover his ears and he prays "for the Drowned God to raise a mighty wave and smash the horn to silence, yet still the shriek went on and on."

Finally the tattooed hornblower runs out of breath and staggers. "A thin wisp of smoke was rising from the horn, and the priest saw blood and blisters upon the lips of the man who'd sounded it." Euron Greyjoy climbs the hill and addresses the crowd. He says "that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days." He calls for conquest:

"I shall give you Lannisport, Highgarden, The Arbor, Oldtown. The riverlands and the Reach, the kingswood and the rainwood, Dorne and the Marches, the Mountains of the Moon and the Vale of Arryn, Tarth and the Stepstones. I say we take it all!  I say, we take Westeros." He glanced at the priest. "All for the greater glory of our Drowned God, to be sure."

For a moment even Aeron responds to the boldness of his brother's vision. But Asha asks, "If we cannot hold the north -- and we cannot -- how can we win the whole of the Seven Kingdoms?" And Euron promises to do it as Aegon Targaryen did it: "with dragons." Asha protests that there aren't any dragons anymore, but he says she's wrong: "There are three, and I know where to find them." With the horn, "a dragon horn, bound with bands of red gold and Valyrian steel graven with enchantments," he "can bind dragons to my will."

The crew of Euron's ship, the Silence, open his chests and spill out their treasures, and cries of "EURON!" begin to echo.   

1. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 1-29

Prologue

We are at the Quill and Tankard in Oldtown, where maesters are educated at the Citadel, and in the company of some young would-be maesters, all of them studying to acquire links in the chains they will eventually wear around their necks. The point-of-view character is Pate, who is lusting after Rosey, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Emma, one of the serving wenches in the tavern. "Emma had decreed that Rosey's maidenhead would cost a golden dragon," and Pate has not only been saving up for it, he has also arranged to meet an alchemist there who may be able to speed the process.

The others there are, like Pate, mostly novices: Mollander, Alleras the Sphinx, and Roone, the youngest of the group. They are also joined by Armen the Acolyte, who has earned the pewter, tin, lead, and copper links, which he strings on a leather thong around his neck. They are arguing about dragons, with Armen insisting that the last dragon to die in Westeros was the last in the line. Mollander, who has a clubfoot that has prevented him from becoming a knight like his father, is tossing apples into the air for Alleras, a skilled archer, to shoot down. The group is celebrating Alleras's earning his copper link.

Pate is mooning over Rosey, thinking how he would quit his studies and wander around Westeros with her. He "knew how to set a bone and leech a fever. The smallfolk would be grateful for his help. If he could learn to cut hair and shave beards, he might even be a barber." He had been chosen to assist Achmaester Walgrave with the ravens, thinking that this would earn him a black iron link, but Walgrave is aged, senile, and incontinent, and "remained an archmaester only by courtesy."

Pate had met the stranger who claimed to be an alchemist at the tavern three days earlier. The man had told him, "I can change iron into gold," and made a golden coin dance across his knuckles. He had told Pate he'd be there tonight, which is why Pate has joined the party, where Mollander is arguing that just because there are no more dragons in Westeros, the world is large enough for them to exist somewhere. Mollander's father was killed at the Battle of the Blackwater, and he has been drinking every night since he received word of his death. He says there have been new stories about dragons from sailors from four different ships.

Armen scoffs at "stories told by sailors," and says these stories all all different: "Dragons in Asshai, dragons in Qarth, dragons in Meereen, Dothraki dragons, dragons freeing slaves ... each telling differs from the last." But Mollander sticks to his belief in them, insisting that these are only incidental details: "All speak of dragons, and a beautiful young queen." He tosses another apple for Alleras to shoot down.

Alleras is handsome and an outstanding student: "He had only been at the Citadel for a year, yet already he had forged three links of his maester's chain." Pate, on the other hand, has been there for five years, and the two times he went up for examinations he failed. Alleras was dubbed "the Sphinx" by Leo Tyrell, a novice known as Lazy Leo, because the sphinx is part one thing, part another: Alleras's "father was a Dornishman, his mother a black-skinned Summer Islander. His own skin was dark as teak. And like the green marble sphinxes that flanked the Citadel's main gate, Alleras had eyes of onyx."

It is Alleras who brings up the name of Daenerys, the surviving Targaryen, and the drunken Mollander proposes a toast to her, calling out for Rosey: "Our rightful queen deserves another round of cider, wouldn't you say?" This bit of treason causes Armen to try to hush Mollander: "You should not even jape about such things. You never know who could be listening. The Spider has ears everywhere." But they have been overheard by Lazy Leo, who says to Mollander, "I always knew you were a traitor, Hopfrog" -- referring to Mollander's clubfoot.

Armen says he thought Leo had been confined to the Citadel, but Leo shrugs it off and takes a seat at their table. He tells Mollander that if he'll bring him a cup of wine he won't report his treason to his father, who is Lord Commander of the City Watch of Oldtown, and the uncle of Mace Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, who is currently in King's Landing. He proceeds to insult Alleras and Pate. The latter wants to knock Leo's teeth out, but it is Alleras who demands an apology. Leo, however, says, "The mongrel has the right of it. The Mad King's daughter is alive, and she's hatched herself three dragons." Moreover, "The Mage is inclined to believe" the stories reported by the sailors.

Armen retorts, "Marwyn is unsound. Archmaester Perestan would be the first to tell you that." And Roone adds that Archmaester Ryam agrees. Archmaester Marwyn is notorious for keeping company with various unsavory types, and after traveling abroad for eight years, "mapping distant lands, searching for lost books, and studying with warlocks and shadowbinders," Archmaester Valleyn called him "Marwyn the Mage." Armen insists that Marwyn "has no more proof of dragons than Mollander. Just more sailor's stories."

But Leo has a topper: "There is a glass candle burning in the Mage's chambers." Roone has never heard of glass candles, but Pate has: "It was said that they had been brought to Oldtown from Valyria a thousand years before the Doom. He had heard there were four; one was green and three were black, and all were tall and twisted." Armen explains to Roone that the night before an acolyte takes his vows to become a maester, he spends the night in the vault standing vigil. There are no sources of light there, though there is a candle made of obsidian. Some, especially those who have studied what Armen dismisses as "the so-called higher mysteries," try to light the candle, and because obsidian has sharp edges, they often cut their fingers on it.

"It is a lesson," Armen said, "the last lesson we must learn before we don our maester's chains. The glass candle is meant to represent truth and learning, rare and beautiful and fragile things. It is made in the shape of a candle to remind us that a maester must cast light wherever he serves, and it is sharp to remind us that knowledge can be dangerous."

Leo insists that he has seen Marwyn's candle burning, but Armen says it must have been a black candle. "Obsidian does not burn," and Pate observes that it is also called dragonglass by "the smallfolk." Alleras muses about the return of the dragons, and Leo comments, "Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes." Which he says calls for another round of drinks, but Armen decides it's time to go: "Archmaester Ebrose will be speaking on the properties of urine" that morning and it's something anyone who wants a silver link should hear.

As they are leaving, Leo says he'll stay and make a play for Rosey, which causes Pate a pang. Alleras notices Pate's dismay and reminds him that if Leo doesn't have the money for a drink he doesn't have a gold dragon for Rosey. But Pate decides to linger a while longer to see if the alchemist shows up. Leo teases and mocks Pate, but he puts up with it, aware of Leo's Tyrell kin. So when he realizes it is almost dawn he decides to go.

"Oldtown was a veritable labyrinth of a city, all wynds and crisscrossing alleys and narrow crookback streets," and as Pate makes his way back to the Citadel he hears the sounds of the city beginning to awake. He starts daydreaming about becoming a maester and having a horse to ride instead of making his way on foot, but then he trips over a cobblestone and realizes, "There would be no chain for him, no seat at a lord's high table, no tall white horse to ride. His days would be spent listening to ravens quork and scrubbing shit stains off Archmaester Walgrave's smallclothes."

But as he's wiping off the mud from his fall, he finds the alchemist standing over him. "Have you decided what you are?" the hooded figure asks, and Pate replies, "I suppose I am a thief." He had pulled Walgrave's strongbox out from under his bed and opened it -- Walgrave had broken the lock after losing the key to the box. In it he found a heavy old key made of iron, which was supposedly the key to every door in the Citadel. He took the key as well as some silver coins.

"Do you have my dragon?" Pate asks the alchemist, who bids him follow. They go into a narrow alley, where the alchemist makes the gold coin dance across his knuckles before Pate grabs it. He bites the coin as if to test it, but only because it's something he has seen done. The alchemist asks for the key, and Pate asks what he wants it for. "What I want is none of your concern," the man replies. Pate thinks he should just take the coin and run to Rosey with it, but something makes him ask, "Show me your face." The alchemist complies.

He was just a man, and his face was just a face. A young man's face, ordinary, with full cheeks and the shadow of a beard. A scar showed faintly on his right cheek. He had a hooked nose, and a mat of dense black hair that curled tightly around his ears. It was not a face Pate recognized.

He asks who the man is, and gets the reply, "A stranger. No one. Truly." Pate doesn't have anything else to say except "We're done, then," and he runs off. But halfway down the alley he feels the cobblestones moving under his feet and his heart is hammering. His legs give way under him, and he says, "I don't understand." A voice replies, "And never will." Pate tries to call out, but his voice fails him. "His last thought was of Rosey."

The Prophet

The prophet is Aeron Damphair Greyjoy, Theon's madly fanatical uncle, and we meet him as he is baptizing adherents to his faith. The baptism consists of drowning them and then (usually) resuscitating them with the kiss of life. The current drownee is a boy named Emmond, who puts up quite a struggle before Aeron succeeds in getting him to inhale underwater and then resuscitates him. "It was a sign of the Drowned God's favor, men said. Every other priest lost a man from time to time, even Tarle the Thrice-Drowned, who had once been thought so holy that he was picked to crown a king. But never Aeron Greyjoy."

His ceremony is interrupted by the arrival of three horsemen who bring the news of King Balon Greyjoy's death. Before they can tell him, Aeron asks, "Have you come to be drowned, my lords?" The oldest of them, Sparr, says that he "was drowned as a boy" and that his son, Steffarion, who is with him had also been drowned. But Aeron snorts because Steffarion was drowned in the newer manner: "a quick dip into a tub of seawater that scarce wet the infant's head." The third man is Gormond Goodbrother, whose father, Lord Gorold, had sent him to take Aeron to the keep. When Aeron is reluctant to leave his drowning, Sparr gives Gormond the go-ahead to break the news: "'The king is dead,' he said, as plain as that. Four small words, yet the sea itself trembled when he uttered them."

Prompted by Aeron, Gormond goes on to say that Balon fell from a bridge at Pyke "and was dashed upon the rocks below." There was a storm when it happened, and Aeron attributes his brother's death to "the Storm God's wrath." He demands Gormond's horse and sets off to ride the six leagues to speak with his father. "He was not fond of horses -- they were creatures from the green lands and helped to make men weak -- but necessity required that he ride."

Aeron was the youngest of the four sons of Quellon Greyjoy that lived to manhood. Balon, "the eldest and boldest," had always scorned Aeron. When he arrives at Lord Gorold's castle Aeron is told that his brother Euron Crow's Eye has seized the throne, the Seastone Chair. This won't do, in Aeron's view: "Only a godly man may sit the Seastone Chair. The Crow's Eye worships naught but his own pride." Gorold asks if Balon had spoken to him about the succession, and Aeron recalls the meeting in which he told Balon about the weakness of his son, Theon. Balon said he hoped Theon was dead, so that his daughter, Asha, could succeed to the throne, but Aeron opposed that idea: "No woman will ever rule the ironborn, not even a woman such as Asha."

Before Aeron can tell them about this conversation, Gorold's maester, Murenmure, speaks up to proclaim that Theon is the rightful heir, or Asha if Theon is dead. Aeron hates maesters, and he had tried to have Gorold send the maester away, and when Murenmure says, "That is the law," Aeron dismisses it as "Green land law.... What is that to us? We are ironborn, the sons of the sea, chosen of the Drowned God. No woman may rule over us, nor any godless man." Gorold mentions the fourth of the Greyjoy brothers, Victarion, and Aeron acknowledges that although Euron is the older brother, "Victarion is more godly."

The maester asks if Euron and Victarion will go to war over the throne, and Aeron says, "Ironborn must not spill the blood of ironborn." Gorold comments that Euron has already had a man "drowned for saying that the Seastone Chair by rights belonged to Theon," but Aeron has a response to that: "If he was drowned, no blood was shed." When Gorold asks whether he should proclaim "homage or defiance" to Euron, Aeron says he needs to pray on it. But the maester persists in claiming that the law says Theon or Asha rightfully inherit the throne.

"Silence!" Aeron roared. "Too long have the iron born listened to you chain-neck maesters prating of the green lands and their laws. It is time we listened to the sea again. It is time we listened to the voice of god." His own voice rang in that smoky hall, so full of power that neither Gorold Goodbrother nor his maester dared a reply. The Drowned God is with me, Aeron thought. He has shown me the way.

He declines the offer to spend the night in the castle because he doesn't want to be that far from the sea. He asks for a fresh horse and sets off, riding the night. Drowsing in the saddle, he recalls how, when he was fourteen, he had cut off half of his brother Urrigon's hand while "playing at the finger dance," and how a maester's attempt to sew back the fingers led to an infection that killed his brother. Aeron had become drunken and dissolute, and famous for his ability to "piss longer or farther" than any other man. He once won a bet that he could put out a hearthfire by urinating it, and named his "longship Golden Storm, though Balon threatened to hang him from her mast when he heard what sort of ram his brother proposed to mount upon her prow." But eventually "Aeron had drowned and been reborn from the sea, god's own prophet."

Along his journey to the sea, Aeron preaches wherever he can, and by the time he gets there he has a dozen new followers ready to be drowned. After he takes care of them, he strides naked into the sea at night. "And gaunt and pale and shivering, Aeron Damphair struggled back to the shore, a wise man than he had been when he stepped into the sea. For he had found the answer in his bones, and the way was plain before him." The next morning, Lord Merlyn comes to see him and brings news that Asha is on her way to make her claim on the throne.

Aeron seizes the moment to proclaim again that neither the godless Euron nor the woman Asha should claim the throne. "Point your prow toward Old Wyk, where stood the Grey King's Hall. In the name of the Drowned God I summon you. I summon all of you! Leave your halls and hovels, your castles and your keeps, and return to Nagga's hill to make a kingsmoot!" That's the way the ironborn used to choose their kings, "raising up the worthiest amongst them," Aeron proclaims. "It is time we returned to the Old Way, for only that shall make us great again."

10. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 404-430

Theon

In an attack on a village, Theon's men have captured a former ally of his, Benfred Tallhart, who spits in Theon's face and denounces him as a traitor to Robb. Theon's Uncle Aeron insists that this is a mortal insult and that Tallhart must die. But when Theon orders Tallhart beheaded, Aeron insists it must be done in accordance with the worship of the Drowned God: Tallhart must be drowned in salt water. So Theon acquiesces and Tallhart is hauled off to the shore.

The village has been destroyed, the men killed, the young women claimed as "salt wives" -- i.e., concubines -- and the old and ugly women raped and killed, unless they have useful skills as servants.

His thrice-damned sister was sailing her Black Wind north even now, sure to win a castle of her own. Lord Balon had let no word of the hosting escape the Iron Islands, and Theon's bloody work along the Stony Shore would be put down to sea raiders out for plunder. The northmen would not realize their true peril, not until the hammers fell on Deepwood Motte and Moat Cailin. 

But Theon is determined not to let Asha, his sister, get all the glory. So he takes Dagmer Cleftjaw aside and tries to win him over. He calls these raids on villages "child's business" and "no work for Lord Balon's best man." He knows that his father's men are suspicious of him because he has been away for ten years with the Starks, but he insists to Dagmer, "I am a Greyjoy, and I mean to be my father's heir. How can I do that unless I prove myself with some great deed." But, he tells Dagmer, he needs his help "to do a deed that the harpers will sing of for a thousand years."

He wants Dagmer to take his men and march to Torrhen's Square, the seat of the Tallharts, which will be defended by a small garrison because most of the men have gone to fight for Robb. There, they will mount a siege. Dagmer protests, "That is not the Old Way. Have you forgotten? Ironmen fight with swords and axes, not by flinging rocks. There is no glory in starving out a foeman." But Theon explains this is only a distraction: When they see the siege towers being built, the Tallharts will send a raven to Winterfell. Theon assumes that Ser Rodrik Cassel will withdraw some of his men from Winterfell "and ride to Tallhart's aid. It is his duty. Ser Rodrik is nothing if not dutiful."

But Dagmer protests, "Any force he summons will be larger than mine.... You set us a battle we cannot hope to win, Theon. This Torrhen's Square will never fall." Theon replies, "It's not Torrhen's Square I mean to take." Which sounds like he plans to bring the sea to Winterfell.


Arya

Tywin Lannister is on the move, and Harrenhal is bustling with activity. Weese has Arya on the move too, running errands, carrying messages, and sometimes even letting her outside the walls of the castle. She thinks of making a break for it somehow, but Weese has threatened to cut off the feet of anyone who dares attempt to escape. He doesn't know she can read, so she often reads the messages she is given, though they are usually nothing but orders to send carts to this place or another.

She looks for Jaqen H'ghar, since he has promised to kill two more people for her, but he is hard to find in all the confusion. One of the guards tells her that he will be staying at Harrenhal with Ser Amory, who has been named castellan, charged with holding the castle in Tywin's absence. The creepy Bloody Mummers will also be staying. Gregor Clegane will be going with Tywin, however, which means that he and others of the men on her list will be out of her reach "unless she could find Jaqen and have him kill one of them before they left."

Weese sends her to the armory to tell one of the armorers that Ser Lyonel needs a new sword, and she sees Gendry there. He pulls her aside and tells her that Hot Pie had overheard her cry out "Winterfell," during the fighting back at the holdfast. He says he covered up for her by telling Hot Pie that he heard her yell "Go to hell!" and that she should say the same if he asks her. She says she will, though she thinks for a moment that she ought to tell Jaqen to kill Hot Pie.

As she returns with the sword, she feels its weight and it reminds her of how she felt when she was practicing with Syrio Forel. She thinks of telling the stablehands that she was sent to fetch a horse for Ser Lyonel, then of riding out with horse and sword, but she remembers Weese's threat. When she returns to him with the sword he complains about how long she had taken and slaps her with the back of his hand. Then he sends her off on another errand, threatening to beat her if she's too slow this time.

On her way, she encounters the noseless Rorge, who makes obscene jokes about her. She tells him she's looking for Jaqen, and his reaction makes her realize that Rorge is afraid of Jaqen. He tells her Jaqen is in the bathhouse. She finds him there and whispers "Weese" in his ear.

That evening at dinner, Weese calls her over, grabs her throat, and slaps her twice, backhanded, just for looking at him. When she trips and tears her dress, he tells her to mend it before she goes to sleep. As she sews up the tear, she recites the names on her list with every stitch, and wonders how much longer Weese will be on the list. But it is Weese who kicks her awake in the morning, and at breakfast he threatens that they will only have to work harder while Lord Tywin is away.

As Tywin and his men leave that morning, Arya watches from a window in the Wailing Tower. The procession concludes with Gregor Clegane with Polliver riding beside him, wearing Gendry's helmet. Arya thinks that she has ordered the wrong men killed. It should be those two instead of Chiswyck and Weese. And she should have told him to kill Lord Tywin. She decides to find Jaqen and change her order, but as she hears the portcullis being lowered there is "a shriek of pain and fear."

Weese was sprawled across the cobbles, his throat a red ruin, eyes gaping sightlessly up at a bank of grey cloud. His ugly spotted dog stood on his chest, lapping at the blood pulsing from his neck, and every so often ripping a mouthful of flesh out of the dead man's face.

Someone brings a crossbow and kills the dog. Arya sees Jaqen leaning against the tower; "he lifted a hand to his face and laid two fingers casually against his cheek."

Catelyn

When they reach Riverrun, Catelyn hears of Robb's victory, but also that Lord Tywin is on his way and will reach them in three or four days. Brienne asks Catelyn to let her leave -- she means to return to Storm's End and kill Stannis. Catelyn argues that she would be riding into certain death, and that to do so would serve on purpose. Brienne says that she doesn't understand how she feels about Renly's death.

"You're wrong," Catelyn said sharply. "Every morning, when I wake, I remember that Ned is gone. I have no skill with swords, but that does not mean that I do not dream of riding to King's Landing and wrapping my hands around Cersei Lannister's white throat and squeezing until her face turns black."

Brienne asks if Catelyn would ever make peace with Stannis, knowing that he killed Renly, and Catelyn admits that she doesn't know. But she urges Brienne to "fight ... but for the living, not the dead. Renly's enemies are Robb's enemies as well."


To Catelyn's surprise, Brienne asks to serve her, saying that Catelyn has "a kind of woman's courage." She asks only that, if the opportunity comes, Catelyn will not hold her back from killing Stannis. Catelyn remembers Stannis's threat against Robb and says, "When the time comes, I will not hold you back." Brienne kneels, unsheathing the longsword she took from Renly's body and laying it at Catelyn's feet, then vows, "I am yours, my lady." And Catelyn vows "that you shall always have a place by my hearth and meat and mead at my table, and pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonor."


Catelyn's brother, Edmure, is at the castle, and he tells her that ravens have come from Storm's End with word that Ser Cortnay Penrose still holds the castle, though "Stannis has him surrounded by land and sea. He offers his allegiance to whatsoever king will break the siege." Penrose also says that he is afraid for "the boy," whom Brienne identifies as Robert Baratheon's bastard, Edric Storm. Catelyn wonders why Penrose would risk so much "for a baseborn boy whose blood is not even his own." Edmure says he hasn't sent an answer to Penrose because they have nothing to offer him.


Edmure and the others at Riverrun are eager to hear an account of Renly's death, but Catelyn prefers not to talk about it in the open, so she changes the subject to the bodies they found hanging from the battlements of the castle. Edmure says that they came with Ser Cleos when he delivered Cersei's response to Robb's peace offer. Catelyn is shocked that they should kill envoys, but Edmure explains that they were assassins posing as envoys -- the ones Tyrion had sought out and included in the guard. They had tried to free Jaime Lannister. One of them killed two guards, another picked the lock to Jaime's cell, and the mummer imitated Edmure's voice to command the guards to open the gate.

This was the Imp's work, Catelyn suspected; it stank of the same sort of cunning he had displayed at the Eyrie. Once, she would have named Tyrion the least dangerous of the Lannisters. Now she was not so certain.

They plot was foiled only by accident. Edmure had been returning to the castle just before dawn and the mummer's deception was revealed. Jaime had a sword, and killed two men and seriously wounded a third. After he was recaptured, he was put in the dungeon and chained to the wall. Cleos Frey is still under suspicion for his part in the escape attempt, and is in the cell Jaime formerly occupied in the tower.


Robb has told them to send Catelyn to the Twins, the castles of Lord Walder Frey, to help him choose a bride from the Frey daughters, but Catelyn "had no intention of leaving Riverrun and her dying father to pick Robb's wife for him." Edmure wants to fight Tywin, but Catelyn argues that he has only half as many men as Lannister does. He outlines his plan to get reinforcements from the Tallharts and Roose Bolton's army at the Twins. He has told Bolton to take Harrenhal. Catelyn is deeply skeptical about her brother's plan, and wishes that Robb hadn't taken her uncle Brynden, who "was the veteran of half a hundred battles; Edmure was the veteran of one, and that one lost." But she swallows her misgivings and goes to see her father.


Lord Hoster Tully doesn't know who she is: He thinks she is Lysa. He mutters to her about "That stripling ... wretched boy" and about Lysa's marriage to Jon Arryn. When the maester gives her father a sleeping potion, he tells her that he won't live much longer and that they should send for Brynden and for her sister. Catelyn knows that Lysa won't come, but agrees to write to her. "She wondered who Lysa's 'wretched stripling' had been," and why her father had been so opposed to him.


When she goes to her chambers, she finds "two women clad in grey, their faces cowled save for their eyes," and she realizes that they are there with Ned's body. She is told that Cleos Frey had brought his bones from King's Landing, and she asks to see them. But when she views the skeleton, she is surprised to see that the sword he has with him is not Ice. It was not returned with him, she is told.


After ordering that the bones be taken to Winterfell, she spends the night sitting up with them.

3. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 93-141

Tyrion

Tyrion is entertaining Janos Slynt, plying the butcher's son-turned-knight with food and wine -- especially wine. And when Slynt addresses him as "Lord Tyrion," he reminds him, "I'm not a lord, as you are. A simple Tyrion will suffice for me, Lord Janos." He is ostensibly discussing whom to name as Slynt's successor as Commander of the City Watch. Slynt's candidate is Allar Deem, his "right arm." Tyrion says that he had been leaning more toward Ser Jacelyn Bywater, who isn't on Slynt's list of recommended candidates. Slynt objects that Bywater "thinks overmuch of himself and his honor." Tyrion observes, however, that Deem is unpopular because of an incident that took place in a brothel, in which he not only killed a baby but also the mother who has trying to protect the child. Slynt thinks this shows Deem's loyalty: "Doing for a babe, and her still on the tit, that takes a certain sort. Not every man'd do it. Even if it was only some whore and her whelp."

The phrase "only some whore" sticks with Tyrion, who thinks of Shae and of the woman he married years ago. But when he asks who commissioned the killing of the infant, Slynt gets wise to what Tyrion is trying to find out. "Never a question, and never a word afterward, not with me," Slynt replies. So Tyrion shifts tactics. Slynt will be a hard man to replace, he says to him, just as Jeor Mormont is going to have a hard time grooming a replacement for his job as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. "He'd sleep easier if he had a man like you, I imagine. Or the valiant Allar Deem."

Slynt doesn't quite follow, but he allows that there's a small chance that he would ever take a job like Mormont's. Tyrion persists: You never know what turns you'll take in life, just as Eddard Stark surely never imagined he'd wind up being beheaded "on the steps of Baelor's Sept." This amuses Slynt, especially when Tyrion adds, "A pity I wasn't here to see it. They say even Varys was surprised." It especially amuses Slynt to have outwitted Varys, the master of covert intelligence. Tyrion continues that Varys thought he had persuaded Cersei to grant a pardon on the condition that Eddard be allowed to join the Night's Watch.

Well, Slynt says, the decision was the king's.  Who is thirteen years old, Tyrion observes. But he's still the king, Slynt persists, "The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms." Tyrion replies, "Well, one or two of them, at least," and then asks to see the miniature spear, tipped in red, that fastens Slynt's cloak. When Slynt hands it over, Tyrion observes that the workmanship is inferior, and then asks, "Tell me, my lord, did you drive the spear into the man's back yourself, or did you only give the command."

Slynt objects: Eddard Stark was a traitor who had tried to buy his services in a revolt against King Joffrey. "Little dreaming that you had already been sold," Tyrion retorts. Slynt protests at having his honor questioned. Tyrion scoffs at the idea of Slynt's honor, and tosses the ornamental spear back at him. It falls to the floor as Slynt rises in protest, calling Tyrion "Imp" and then "dwarf."

"I am Tyrion of House Lannister, and someday, if you have the sense the gods gave a sea slug, you will drop to your knees in thanks that it was me you had to deal with, and not my lord father. Now, how many sons do you have?"

Slynt grows frightened. He has three sons and a daughter, and he begins to beg. Tyrion reassures him that no harm will come to his children, but that he won't be inheriting the castle at Harrenhal. He will sail in the morning to join the Night's Watch. Slynt recovers from his fear when he finds out he isn't going to be executed. "We shall hear what Joffrey has to say about this. And Littlefinger and the queen, oh, yes, Janos Slynt has a good many friends." He turns to leave, but when he opens the door he is met by Ser Jacelyn Bywater, whom Tyrion introduces as "our new Commander of the City Watch."

Ser Jacelyn tells Slynt that a litter is waiting to take him to the ship. As the guards take Slynt away, Tyrion hands Ser Jacelyn a list of six others who will accompany Slynt on the journey, and tells him that one of them is Allar Deem. "Tell the captain it would not be taken amiss if that one should happen to be swept overboard before they reach Eastwatch."

Before long, Varys appears and congratulates Tyrion on his coup. Tyrion is in no mood to enjoy what he has done. "I told them to throw Allar Deem into the sea. I am sorely tempted to do the same with you." It was Varys who had informed on Slynt, though he hadn't mentioned what Tyrion hs deduced: "It was my sister. That was what the oh-so-loyal Lord Janos refused to say. Cersei sent the gold cloaks to that brothel." The baby who was killed was Robert Baratheon's illegitimate daughter, and hence another bit of evidence that Robert is not Joffrey's father.  Varys claims that it was "a hard thing to tell a man, my lord. I was fearful how you might take it." But Tyrion regrets that he is unable to punish Cersei the way he has dealt with Slynt and Deem. Varys also tells him, "There was another bastard, a boy, older. I took steps to see him removed from harm's way ... but I confess, I never dreamed the babe would be at risk. A baseborn girl, less than a year old, with a whore for a mother. What threat could she pose?" (Thus Varys lays claim to Gendry's escape.)

Tyrion is preoccupied with the thought of the fate of the infant's mother, who reminds him of Shae, now housed in opulence. But he comments that at least Cersei seems not to have been responsible for Eddard Stark's death. "We have my nephew to thank for that madness." Yes, Varys says, Joffrey gave the command and Slynt and Ser Ilyn Payne carried it out. "...almost as if they had expected it," Tyrion concludes.

Then Varys brings up his riddle. Tyrion admits he has thought about it: "The king, the priest, the rich man -- who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey?" It is a question of power, and Varys presents the solution: "Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less." So it depends on whether the swordsman believes the power resides in the law (the king), the gods (the priest) or wealth (the rich man).  Power is "'A shadow on the wall,' Varys murmured, 'yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.'" Tyrion says he is "growing strangely fond" of Varys. "I may kill you yet, but I think I'd feel sad about it." Then he asks the eunuch, "Who cut you, Varys? When and why? Who are you, truly?" But Varys postpones the answer for another time.

They discuss a variety of other matters of treason and misconduct before Varys takes his leave. On the way out he meets Bronn, and tells him of Slynt's fate. "Varys would have me believe that I have replaced one of Joffrey's men with one of my own. More likely, I have replaced Littlefinger's man with one belonging to Varys, but so be it." Then he asks Bronn if he commanded him to kill and infant at her mother's breast, would he do it. "'Without question? No.' The sellsword rubbed thumb and forefinger together. 'I'd ask how much.'" Tyrion "wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep; most of all, he wanted Shae."

Arya

Yoren and the recruits have been forced to take back roads to avoid not only the gold coats pursuing Gendry but also the crowds streaming southward. Their pace has consequently slowed. As a consequence of the revelation that the queen wants Gendry's head, he has become a celebrity among the boys, and one night Lommy says, "I bet he's that traitor's bastard," which incenses Arya, who has to leave the group to keep from saying too much.

Yoren tells them that they are nearing Gods Eye, which means they're getting close to the Trident. Until then, they will have to continue to avoid the kingsroad. Unfortunately, the slow pace means that they have consumed most of the food they brought with them, and now have to forage. Arya manages to kill a rabbit with her wooden sword, which goes into a stew.

They detour around a camp of armed men, and they encounter farmers who have taken to patrolling their fields to prevent raiders and scavengers. One evening the sun seems to set in the north, but they realize that it's the light from a burning village. The next day they find its ruins and the bodies of people who have been impaled on stakes and burned alive. Gendry has taken to wearing the helmet he made when he was apprenticed to the armorer.

Because of the lack of food, Arya begins drinking water to fill her stomach, and one night she wakes needing to urinate urgently. She slips away from the camp into the forest, but as she's urinating she sees a pair of glowing eyes. A wolf comes out from the trees and bares his teeth at her, but then he turns and runs back into the forest. She returns to the camp and tells Yoren there are wolves in the woods. He tells her to go back to sleep, but as she lies there she hears the wolves howling, "and another sound, fainter, no more than a whisper on the wind, that might have been screams."

Davos

Melisandre has ordered the burning of the seven gods: the Maid, the Mother, the Warrior, the Smith, the Crone, the Father, and the Stranger. Davos watches as the figures burn, and hushes his sons Allard and Dale when they quietly voice their protest. "Dragonstone's sept had been were Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night before he sailed," but Queen Selyse has supported Melisandre in her desire to destroy the building and smash its stained-glass windows. Davos has never been religious, "though like most men he had been known to make offerings to the Warrior before battle, to the Smith when he launched a ship, and to the Mother whenever his wife grew great with child. He felt ill as he watched them burn, and not only from the smoke." He had seen Maester Cressen slip something into the cup he drank from with Melisandre, so he knows about the attempt to poison her that ended in Cressen's death. He thinks that Cressen would have opposed the burning.

But Davos still owes his loyalty to Stannis, who made him a lord "for the price of a few finger joints," the bones of which he wears in a little pouch around his neck. He watches as Melisandre invokes her god R'hallor, and as Stannis, wearing a protective leather cloak, enters the flames to take the sword away from the effigy of the Mother. Melisandre proclaims it "Lightbringer," and treats it as a sign. Stannis sticks the sword into the ground and beats out the flames that have caught onto his clothing. "The Red Sword of Heroes looks a proper mess, thought Davos."

The port of Dragonstone is full of ships and sailors, and after the fire has died down and the crowd disperses, Davos heads for an inn for a drink. For luck, he pats the weathered head of a gargoyle that sits outside the inn and enters, where he meets Salladhor Saan. "The Lyseni was a smuggler himself, as well as a trader, a banker, a notorious pirate, and the self-styled Prince of the Narrow Sea." Davos had recruited him to serve in Stannis's navy. Saan says he didn't go to watch the burning of the gods because the red priests are always burning things in Lys and he's bored with their fires.

Saan has heard the news from King's Landing that Tyrion has replaced Janos Slynt as head of the gold cloaks. He thinks the city is poorly defended. "A swift strike, like a hawk plummeting at a hare, and the great city will be ours. Grand us wind to fill our sails, and your king could sit upon his Iron Throne by evenfall on the morrow." Davos assures Saan that Stannis will make good his promises to pay him and the other hired seamen handsomely when that occurs.

Saan has also heard that Stannis's brother, Renly, is marching toward the city "with his fair young queen, his flowered lords and shining knights, and a mighty host of foot." Davos is surprised to hear that Renly is taking his wife with him. Saan tells Davos that he has already informed Stannis of that fact. But Saan scoffs at the notion that the sword Stannis pulled from the fire was Lightbringer, the burning sword of prophesy, and tells Davos the legend of the forging of Lightbringer, in which it was tempered in the blood of the hero Azor Ahai's wife. "Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes."

After Saan leaves, Davos remembers being in King's Landing with Stannis a year ago when Thoros of Myr, the red priest, waved a burning sword about in the melee, but "in the end his fire had guttered out and Bronze Yohn Royce had brained him with a common mace." And he thinks of his wife Marya and tries to imagine stabbing her with a sword to forge it. "If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay." On the way out of the inn he pats the gargoyle again for luck.

Davos is summoned to meet with Stannis, and on the way he talks with Ser Axell Florent, who is the leader of the queen's men. He tells Davos that when he watched the "false gods" burning he saw in the flames "a dozen beautiful dancers, maidens garbed in yellow silk spinning and swirling before a great king." He takes it as a prophecy of "the glory that awaits His Grace after we take King's Landing." Davos, knowing that dancing girls are not to the dour and puritanical Stannis's taste, tells him he saw only fire.

Davos finds Stannis in conference with Maester Pylos, who has been drafting a letter asserting his claim to the Iron Throne on the grounds that Joffrey is not Robert's son but the product of the incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime. Stannis suggests a few corrections and then tells Davos that he plans to send one hundred seventeen ravens, each with a copy of the letter, throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and that he wants Davos to sail north, and his son Dale to sail south, carrying copies "to every port and holdfast and fishing village. Nail them to the doors of septs and inns for every man to read who can." Pylos points out that that won't be very man, and suggests they be read aloud. So Stannis says he can spare a hundred knights to read them. He also wants Allard to sail "across the narrow sea, to Braavos and the other Free Cities" and deliver the letters there. "The world will know of my claim, and of Cersei's infamy."

After Pylos leaves, Davos points out that Stannis has no proof of Cersei's incest with Jaime. But Stannis says that Robert left a bastard, Edric Storm, at Storm's End. "He is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder, I would think." Davos points out that he's at Storm's End, not at Dragonstone or King's Landing, and Stannis admits that's "a difficulty. One of many."

Davos points out another difficulty: The letter has a phrase at the end that refers to Melisandre's new god. He thinks it might be revised to "the gods old and new.... Your people will not love you if you take from them the gods they have always worshiped, and give them one whose very name sounds queer on their tongues." Stannis says he stopped believing in gods when his mother and father died. "I know little and care less of gods, but the red priestess has power."

Theon

Theon is returning to Pyke, his home, after ten years as Eddard Stark's ward, a hostage after the defeat of his father by Robert Baratheon. He is carrying a letter from Robb Stark to his father. On the way, Theon has seduced the daughter of the captain of the ship, the Myraham. Theon is full of high expectations for the plan he has hatched.

He is met when the ship lands by his Uncle Aeron, who is a priest with a grim and chilly manner. This surprises Theon, who remembers Aeron Greyjoy as "the most amiable of his uncles, feckless and quick to laugh, fond of songs, ale, and women." Instead, Aeron makes him bow and then anoints him with seawater. He asks Aeron if his sister and mother will be at Pyke, and Aeron tells him his mother lives on Harlaw, another island, with her sister, and that his sister, Asha, has gone to Great Wyk to deliver messages from their father.

Other than describing his conversion -- "the sea washed my follies and my vanities away" -- Aeron is close-mouthed. When Aeron won't answer his questions, Theon reminds him that he is "heir to Pyke and the Iron Islands," but Aeron responds, "As to that, ... we shall see." Theon angrily protests that his brothers are dead. "Your sister lives," Aeron says. Asha is three years older than Theon, who is twenty. He protests that a woman can't inherit unless there is no male heir and warns Aeron that he won't be cheated out of his rightful inheritance. But Aeron tells him to be silent, "And you are a great fool if you believe your lord father will ever hand these holy islands over to a Stark."

Theon broods on this. "As if ten years in Winterfell could make a Stark." He had not been treated as an equal there. "Even the bastard Jon Snow had been accorded more honor than he had." He seethes with resentment, and realizes that the old grudges against Eddard Stark were still alive. He reminds Aeron that Robb Stark is Lord of Winterfell, but his uncle says, "One wolf is much like the other." Theon says that the red comet heralds a new age, and Aeron replies, "It is the flame the Drowned God brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide. It is time to hoist our sails and go forth into the world with fire and sword, as he did."

When they reach Pyke, Aeron leaves. An old woman tells him that his father is waiting for him in the Sea Tower after he rests from his trip. She shows him to "a suite of chilly rooms ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom." It is the Bloody Keep, where enemies had been hacked to pieces a thousand years ago. The furnishings in the rooms are mildewed and musty. "The damp went bone deep." He orders hot water, but it's tepid seawater." He dresses in his best clothes and makes his way to his father.

Balon Greyjoy is "Bone thin and bone hard," and when Theon refers to himself as "Your  blood and your heir," Balon grunts, "We shall see." When he sees Theon's clothes, he asks, "Did Ned Stark dress you like that? ... Was it his pleasure to garb you in velvets and silks and make you his own sweet daughter?" He observes the gold chain around Theon's neck and asks "was it bought with gold or iron?" Theon remembers, "In the Old Way, women might decorate themselves with ornaments bought with coin, but a warrior wore only the jewelry he took off the corpses of enemies slain by his own hand. Paying the iron price, it was called." When he admits it was paid for, his father yanks it from his neck. "'My daughter has taken an axe for a lover,' Lord Balon said. 'I will not have my son bedeck himself like a whore.'"

He gives Balon the letter from Robb. It outlines the plan of attack and proposes to restore the crown the Greyjoys had lost in their rebellion if they aid in the conquest of the Lannisters. "I will lead the attack myself, if it please you," Theon says. As my reward I would ask that you grant me Casterly Rock for my own seat, once we have taken it from the Lannisters."

Balon takes the letter and tosses it on the fire in the brazier, where he has already thrown Theon's gold chain. "The boy will give me a crown. And what is given can be taken away." Theon protests, and his father backhands him. "I am the Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, King of Salt and rock, Son of the Sea Wind, and no man gives me a crown. I pay the iron price. I will take my crown, as Urron Redhand did five thousand years ago."

"I mean to carve out a kingdom with fire and sword ... but not from the west, and not at the bidding of King Robb the Boy. Casterly Rock is too strong, and Lord Tywin too cunning by half. Aye, we might take Lannisport, but we should never keep it. No. I hunger for a different plum ... not so juicy sweet, to be sure, yet it hangs there ripe and undefended."