19. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 500-523

The Watcher

Ser Balon Swann has brought the chest containing Gregor Clegane's head to Sunspear, where Doran Martell, Arianne, Ellaria and three of the Sand Snakes are all gathered for the opening. Areo Hotah is watching, his longaxe at the ready for potential trouble. The enormous skull is removed and placed on top of a marble column.

The deed done, Doran lets his seneschal propose a toast to King Tommen, and a feast follows. Hotah keeps his eye on Balon Swann and those he had brought with him from King's Landing. He realizes that they know something is wrong, since neither Ser Arys Oakheart nor Princess Myrcella is present at the feast. They don't know yet that Ser Arys is dead and Myrcella seriously disfigured as a result of Arianne's plot to make her queen.

Cersei has sent a letter, suggesting that Myrcella return to King's Landing for a visit and that Doran take a seat on the small council as a representative of Dorne. Doran postpones discussion of these matters until tomorrow, when they will travel to the Water Gardens, where Myrcella is staying. Doran mentions, in talking of the Water Gardens, that they had been built by one of his ancestors "to please his Targaryen bride," whose name was Daenerys. Then he says he is tired and would like to go to bed, and asks Obara Sand to help him.

As Obara pushes his wheeled chair she asks if Doran really means to send Myrcella and her betrothed, Prince Trystane, to King's Landing. "Do that, and we will never see the girl again, and your son will spend his life a hostage to the Iron Throne." He assures her that he has no intention of doing that. Maester Caleotte has followed them, carrying Ser Gregor's skull, and when they reach Doran's solar, Obara takes it ansks, "What did the Mountain look like? How do we know this is him?" Her sister, Nym, points out that Clegane was eight feet tall, and Cersei would be a fool to have faked his death. Doran agrees that the skull is large enough and that Prince Oberyn is known to have wounded Clegane so badly that his slow, agonizing death is likely. Her other sister, Tyene, agrees, saying that she knows which poison Oberyn used, and that if he even broke the skin, Clegane is dead.

Ellaria points out that all of the people who were involved in the death of Elia and her children are now dead. Oberyn's quest for vengeance for their deaths is over, and she doesn't want further vengeance for Oberyn's death. Obara, however, speaks of the chaos in Westeros, and says, "Our enemies are in disarray. The time is ripe." But Ellaria wants it to end, and tells Doran, "I can hear no more of this." He tells her that no harm will come to her children, and sends her to them.

When Ellaria is gone, he tells the Sand Snakes, "there are things that Ellaria does not know and should not know. This war has already begun." Obara agrees, and says that Arianne began it with her failed attempt to crown Myrcella. When Ser Balon sees the girl, and finds that she's missing an ear, and that Hotah killed Arys Oakheart, things will get more violent.

But Arianne has a plan: Ser Balon will be told that Gerold Dayne, Darkstar, was the one who killed Ser Arys, and that he tried to kill Myrcella. And that Myrcella will back up the story herself. But Obara insists, "If Ser Balon is allowed to carry tales back to King's Landing, drums will sound and blood will flow." But Doran is prepared for this, and he tells them he is not as weak as they think. He makes the Sand Snakes swear to serve him, then explains what he knows:

"Dorne still has friends at court. Friends who tell us things we were not meant to know. This invitation Cersei sent us is a ruse. Trystane is never meant to reach King's Landing. On the road back, somewhere in the kingswood, Ser Balon's party will be attacked by outlaws, and my son will die. I am asked to court only so that I may witness this attack with my own eyes and thereby absolve the queen of any blame. Oh, and these outlaws? They will be shouting, 'Halfman, Halfman,' as they attack. Ser Balon may even catch a quick glimpse of the Imp, though no one else will." 

Then he outlines the plan: When Balon hears the story of Darkstar's attack from Myrcella, he'll send word of it to Cersei. Myrcella will ask him to hunt down Darkstar, and Obara will accompany Balon to High Hermitage to confront Darkstar. Nymeria will accompany Myrcella to King's Landing and serve as Dorne's representative on the council. Tyene, whose mother was a septa, will go to King's Landing and cozy up to the High Septon.

The three Sand Snakes eagerly agree to their roles, and when they have left, Arianne refers to them as "Three Oberyns, with teats." She regrets that she doesn't have a role in the plot herself, but Doran tells her that she will, soon enough. He has heard from Lys that a great fleet of Volantene ships has set sail. He doesn't know who is aboard them, whether Daenerys or Quentyn, or both.

Jon

Val is setting off beyond the Wall on a mission to contact Tormund. Jon has misgivings -- six of the men he sent off on a similar mission are still missing, and three are dead -- but she thanks him for letting her try. When she has left, he returns to his chambers and is eating breakfast when Dolorous Edd tells him that Bowen Marsh, Othell Yarwyck, and Septon Cellador want to see him.

"You're here about Val," he says. And Marsh says, "The men have concerns, my lord." Jon knows that already, and he turns to Othell, who is chief builder, asking him how work is progressing at the Nightfort, which is being made ready for Queen Selyse. He says it would go faster if he had more builders, so Jon offers him the giant, whose name is Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun, but answers to Wun Wun. But Othell is afraid of giants and declines, which is okay with Jon, who is learning to communicate with the giant and learn stories about his people.

Marsh complains that Jon is sending Iron Emmett to Long Barrow and replacing him with "this savage Leathers as our master-at-arms," a position that he thinks should be filled by a knight or at least a ranger. But Jon speaks well of Leathers's fighting ability and points out that he has taken the vows and is now their brother. "The men don't trust him," Marsh insists, but Jon stifles a desire to find out which ones.

Septon Cellador's objection is to Jon's naming Satin as his steward, replacing Dolorous Edd, who is also going to Long Barrow. Satin is "a painted catamite from the brothels of Oldtown." Jon thinks, "And you are a drunk," but says that brothers who have taken their vows are not supposed to be judged by what they were before, and that Satin is a good fighter and that he has made friends. Marsh, however, insists that "the men do not like it," and asks, "Does my lord believe the men of the Night's Watch would ever follow a whore into battle?" Jon replies by enumerating the sins of other men who are now accepted as their brothers.

Marsh is obviously very angry, but he saves his chief concern for last: the corpses that are being kept in the ice cells under guard, which he cites as "a waste of two good men." But Jon informs him that he hopes they will turn into wights, which shocks the drunken septon. He explains, "My lord father used to tell me that a man must know his enemies. We understand little of the wights and less about the Others. We need to learn." This doesn't please them, especially the septon, who says he intents to "pray to the Crone to lift her shining lamp and lead you down the path of wisdom."

Finally, Jon himself brings up the topic of Val. Septon Cellador reminds him that she is "The king's prize," and that Stannis will be angry if he returns to find her gone. And Marsh asks why he thinks she will return, and is not satisfied with Jon's assurance that he believes her promise that she will. Jon explains that he sent her to offer the same terms to Tormund Giantsbane that he offered the other wildlings: "Food and shelter and peace, if he will join his strength to ours, fight our common enemy, help us hold the Wall."

Marsh is not surprised, but he protests that there may be hundreds, even thousands of them: "Some might call this treason. These are wildlings. Savages, raiders, rapers, more beast than man." But Jon replies, "Tormund is none of those things." They are human beings, he insists. "Winter is coming, my lords, and when it does, we living men will need to stand together against the dead."

He also tells them that the wildlings they found in the grove say that a witch called Mother Mole has led thousands of those who fled from the battle at the Wall to Hardhome, where they "pray and await salvation from across the sea." Hardhome sits on a natural harbor, and there are supposedly plenty of building materials and fish and game there, but six hundred years, when it was becoming a town, its inhabitants had been attacked and the city burned. "Traders reported finding only nightmarish devastation where Hardhome had stood." But now Mother Mole has been preaching "that the free folk would find salvation where once they found damnation." But Cotter Pyke has told Jon that his ships have sailed past it and that Mother Mole and her followers will find only "cold and starvation" there.

Thousands will die there, he says, but Marsh sees them only as "Thousands of enemies." So he asks Marsh what "will happen when all these enemies are dead?" They will become wights, he says, "and they will come for us."

26. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 894-926

Tyrion

He is informed that he will be tried and judged by Mace Tyrell, Oberyn Martell, and his own father, but he can also choose a trial by combat. But Ser Kevan, his uncle, informs Tyrion that Cersei has named Gregor Clegane as her champion, which causes him to have second thoughts about that option. Bronn had succeeded as his champion at the Eyrie, but probably won't be persuaded to go against the Mountain.

In the meantime, he is under house arrest, which makes locating witnesses on his behalf somewhat difficult. He will be allowed access to his squire, Podrick, however. So when Podrick arrives Tyrion sends him in search of Bronn. Podrick is so long in returning, that Tyrion turns his mind to other things, such as figuring out who did poison Joffrey. He decides that it must have been Sansa, though he can't imagine who her accomplice might be in locating the poison, and sends word to his uncle that she should be found.

Podrick finally returns the next day with Bronn, who reveals that he is to marry Lollys, Lady Tanda's daughter, who is pregnant from being raped during the riots. When Tyrion points out to Bronn that Lollys is not the heir to Stokeworth, since she has a married elder sister, Falyse, Bronn point out that Falyse has been married for ten years without giving birth. Besides, Falyse could always die before Lady Tanda does. "Tyrion wondered whether Cersei had any notion of the sort of serpent she'd given Lady Tanda to suckle." Bronn turns down the offer to fight Gregor Clegane: "Either the Mountain spills my guts, or I kill him and lose Stokeworth. I sell my sword, I don't give it away."

When Bronn leaves, Podrick tells Tyrion he's sorry. But Tyrion replies, "Why? Is it your fault that Bronn's an insolent black-hearted rogue? He's always been an insolent black-hearted rogue. That's what I liked about him."

The day of the trial arrives, and Tyrion is ushered to the packed Throne Room. The first witness against him is Ser Balon Swann, who testifies about Tyrion's bravery at the battle of the Blackwater, and says, "I will not believe he did this thing," which surprises Tyrion. But Ser Balon also recalls that Tyrion "knocked the king to the ground and began kicking him" on the day of the riot. And Meryn Trant follows Balon to the stand to recall the same incident, as well as the time Tyrion stopped Joffrey's humiliation of Sansa, reminding him of "what had happened to Aerys Tergaryen. And that when Ser Boros Blount defended the king, Tyrion "threatened to have him killed." Ser Boros confirms the story.

The three Kettleblacks testify next, recalling Tyrion's threats to Cersei. "He said he would wait for a day when she was happy, and make her joy turn to ashes in her mouth," Osney testifies, without mentioning that Tyrion was protesting the whipping of Alayaya. Ser Osmund claims that Joffrey had told him to guard him against Tyrion, "for my uncle loves me not. He means to be king in my place." Tyrion can't restrain himself and shouts, "Liar!" but is admonished by his father. Cersei begs him to put Tyrion in chains, but is turned down.

On the second day, the maesters who conducted the autopsy say they found no sign of choking on the pigeon pie and that Joffrey was killed by poison. Grand Maester Pycelle is shown a number of poisons and tells the court that Tyrion had stolen them from his chambers when he had Pycelle imprisoned. Tyrion asks if any of them caused the kind of choking that Joffrey experienced, and Pycelle admits that they don't, and that you need a poison known as "the strangler." Tyrion asks if any of it was found, and Pycelle replies no, "You used it all to kill the noblest child the gods ever put on this good earth." The characterization so infuriates Tyrion that he blurts out, "Joffrey was cruel and stupid, but I did not kill him." Once again, Tywin warns him to keep quiet. Then there is a parade of witnesses to what happened at the wedding, including the detail of Tyrion emptying the chalice onto the floor after Joffrey began choking.

That evening, Tyrion's uncle, Ser Kevan, tells him, "If you were to admit your guilt before the throne and repent of your crime, your father would withhold the sword. You would be permitted to take the black." Tyrion recalls that "Those were the same terms Cersei offered Eddard Stark. We all know how that ended." But Kevan reminds him that Lord Tywin was not involved in that betrayal, which Tyrion has to admit. He tells his uncle he will think about the offer, and spends the night trying to decide whether to trust his father. He is aware of the consequences of confessing: "They will call me kinslayer till the end of my days. For a thousand years or more, if I am remembered at all, it will be as the monstrous dwarf who poisoned his young nephew at his wedding feast."

The next day, Varys is called to testify. He tells of Tyrion's scheme to separate Joffrey from the protection of Sandor Clegane, and of his talking with Bronn about "the benefits of having Tommen as king." Varys has notes on all of Tyrion's movements and threats that confirm Tyrion's malice toward Joffrey. The weight of the evidence is seriously prejudicial, particularly as it is so meticulously documented. At the end of it Tywin asks Cersei if all the witnesses have been produced, and she tells him there is one more. Tyrion feels a kind of gratitude that it's almost over: "After this farce of a trial, execution will almost come as a relief."

That night, Prince Oberyn pays him a surprise visit. He tells Tyrion that Cersei "needs another husband, and who better than a prince of Dorne? Ellaria believes I should accept. Just the thought of Cersei in our bed makes her wet, the randy wench." Of course, Cersei won't consent unless he agrees to convict Tyrion. But he has no love for Cersei.

"To be sure, I have much to thank your sister for. If not for her accusation at the feast, it might well be you judging me instead of me judging you." The prince's eyes were dark with amusement. "Who knows more of poison than the Red Viper of Dorne, after all? Who has better reason to want to keep the Tyrells far from the crown? And with Joffrey in his grave, by Dornish law the Iron Throne should pass next to his sister Myrcella, who as it happens is betrothed to mine own nephew, thanks to you."

Dornish law doesn't apply in King's Landing, Oberyn admits, but that doesn't mean that civil war couldn't result from the claim. When Tyrion says that his father would never support Myrcella over Tommen, Oberyn replies, "Your father ... may not live forever." And Tyrion remembers that Oberyn suspects Tywin of having ordered the rape and murder of Elia, Oberyn's sister: "He wants the head that spoke the words, not just the hand that swung the sword."

Tyrion presses the point: "It was Ser Gregor Clegane who smashed Prince Aegon's head against a wall and raped your sister Elia with his blood and brains still on his hands." But when Oberyn asks if Tywin gave the order, Tyrion can't bring himself to admit it. Oberyn recognizes it as "a very feeble lie," but says he might be able to save Tyrion. He is only one of the three judges, Tyrion says. How could Oberyn save him?

"Not as your judge. As your champion."

Jaime

He has moved into the Lord Commander's quarters, and is spending his days at Tyrion's trial. Tyrion has given no sign that he has seen him, and perhaps hasn't even recognized him. Cersei has kept her distance since the day they had sex in the sept, so Jaime is estranged from his whole family.

He has at his side an enormous book formally known as The Book of the Brothers, but usually called the White Book. It is a history of the Kingsguard, into which each member records his deeds. The records need updating, and Jaime decides he will take care of that once he learns to write with his left hand. He reads through the entry for Ser Barristan Selmy, and observes that his own entry is slender in comparison.

But he sets aside the book when the other members of the Kingsguard arrive, starting with Ser Osmund Kettleblack. There are six of them in all present, with Ser Arys Oakheart away in Dorne. In addition to Ser Osmund, there are Ser Boros Blount, Ser Meryn Trant, Ser Balon Swann, and Ser Loras Tyrell.

Jaime had served with Meryn Trant and Boros Blount for years, adequate fighters, but Trant was sly and cruel, and Blount a bag of growly air. Ser Balon Swann was better suited to his cloak, and of course the Knight of Flowers was supposedly all a knight should be. The fifth man was a stranger to him, this Osmund Kettleblack. 

He begins by pointing out that all five of them were present at the wedding feast, but Joffrey is dead anyway. He observes that this makes Tyrell angry and Balon ashamed, but the other three betray no emotion. And then he asks if Tyrion poisoned Joffrey. It is Meryn Trant who says he must have been the one to poison the wine, and Ser Boros says that spilling it demonstrates Tyrion's guilt. But Ser Balon says the dais was full of people, and that everyone was looking at the doves that flew from the pie. "No one was watching the wine cup."

It's the Knight of Flowers who speaks up to accuse Sansa, "who had reason to want Margaery dead, as well as the king." And she fled afterward. This gives Jaime some hope that Tyrion might be innocent, and he thinks about consulting Varys to find out how Sansa might have escaped. But for now his task is to manage the Kingsguard in protecting Tommen. The first thing he does is to order Ser Boros to "taste everything Tommen eats or drinks." Ser Boros is furious at the idea: "I am no food taster! I am a knight of the Kingsguard!"

But Joffrey knows how Boros yielded Tommen to Bronn. Cersei had stripped him of his white cloak because of it, but Tywin had restored it. He tells Boros that he "will find carrots and pease less threatening than" Bronn. "You should have died before you let Tommen be taken." Boros retorts, "As you died protecting Aerys, ser?" As a "cripple," Boros says, Jaime should be the one to taste the food. He reaches for his sword, and Jaime tells him to go ahead and draw it, "and we shall see how your two hands fare against my one." Boros spits at Jaime's feet and walks out -- to Jaime's relief, knowing that he is still no match for any of them with his left hand.

Then he turns to Ser Osmund and says he doesn't know him and asks where he served. Osmund's answer reveals that he had been a sellsword, and even the source of his knighthood -- "Ser Robert ... Stone. He's dead now, my lord" -- is questionable. Jaime wonders, "What was Cersei thinking when she gave this one a white cloak?" Jaime reflects that at least Kettleblack knows how to fight, so he tells him to go.

Next it's Meryn Trant's turn, and Jaime questions his role in helping Joffrey abuse Sansa. He asks him to point out in the White Book "where it is in our vows that we swear to beat women and children." Trant replies that he was just following the king's orders, and Jaime tells him to obey the Queen Regent, the King's Hand, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard from now own. Tommen "is eight. Our first duty is to protect him, which includes protecting him from himself.... If Tommen wants you to saddle his horse, obey him. If he tells you to kill his horse, come to me." He dismisses Ser Meryn.

Then he tells Ser Balon that he has seen him fight and "The Kingsguard is honored by your presence." Balon warily thanks him, and Jaime continues, "but Varys tells me that your brother rode with Renly and then Stannis, whilst your lord father chose not to call his banners at all and remained behind the walls of Stonehelm all through the fighting." Balon replies that his father is an old man, "Well past forty. His fighting days are done." As for his brother, he was wounded in the battle and afterward pledged fealty to Joffrey with the other captives. But Jaime says it's not his brother he's concerned with but Balon. What will he do if his brother joins with another usurper and Balon has to defend the king against him. Balon assures him, "that will never happen." But it happened to Jaime himself, he reminds Balon. Embarrassed, Balon says, "On my sword, on my honor, on my father's name, I swear ... I shall not do as you did."

The answer pleases and amuses Jaime, who tells Balon to return to his duties and tell his brother "to add a weathervane to his shield." This leaves only the Knight of Flowers. There is a spell of measuring up against each other: both had been called to the guard as young men, Loras at seventeen, Jaime at fifteen, and both had distinguished mentors. "He's me, Jaime realized suddenly. I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young." Then he reminds Loras that a member of the Kingsguard has no secrets from the Lord Commander and asks who was wearing Renly's armor in the Battle of the Blackwater. Loras hesitates before admitting that it was his brother, Garlan, and that the idea was Littlefinger's.

Loras goes on to say that he will defend King Tommen, but that Renly "was the king that should have been. He was the best of them." Jaime admires Ser Loras's loyalty, but he has a duty left for him: Brienne. Loras insists that she won her place in the Rainbow Guard with a trick. Jaime reminds Loras of the trick he used by riding "a mare in heat against a foe mounted on a bad-tempered stallion." But Loras insists that Brienne killed Renly. "Or let him die." Which brings them back to Joffrey's death: "There were five of you at the wedding feast.... How could Joffrey die? Unless you were part of it." When Loras says there was nothing they could have done, Jaime tells him that's exactly what Brienne said of Renly's death. "Show me how you'd fight a shadow. I should like to see that."

Ser Loras insists that Brienne's flight with Catelyn Stark is evidence of her guilt. But he admits that there is no way a sword could have pierced Renly's armor. "If not her, though ... how could it be a shadow?" Jaime tells him to go to Brienne in her cell, ask her questions and listen to her answers. "All I ask is that you judge her fairly, on your honor as a knight." He dismisses Loras, but the knight turns at the door and says, "if she's innocent, then Robar and Emmon...." But he can't finish the sentence, and Jaime is left to think, "The Knight of Flowers had been so mad with grief for Renly that he had cut down two of his own Sworn Brothers, but it had never occurred to Jaime to do the same with the five who had failed Joffrey."

17. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 630-655

Tyrion

Tyrion watches the conflagration on the river and hears Joffrey cry out "My ships" in dismay as the wildfire consumes most of his fleet along with Stannis's. Tyrion thinks, "There was no other way. If we had not gone forth to meet them, Stannis would have sensed the trap." But though his plan had worked, the chain trapping the fleets into the conflagration, some of Stannis's ships had escaped because the wildfire didn't spread as evenly as Tyrion had hoped. "Stannis would be left with thirty or forty galleys, at a guess; more than enough to bring his whole host across, once they had regained their courage."

Already some of the enemy was coming ashore, so Tyrion sends word to Ser Jacelyn Bywater that they need to attack them. He also orders "the Whores," the three trebuchets, to be shifted to another angle that would fling their content farther. Joffrey pipes up, "Mother promised I could have the Whores," and Tyrion agrees. It will gratify the boy's sadism and keep him out of danger: The Antler Men, the street preachers who had been denouncing Joffrey as a child of incest, have been convicted of treason and are "trussed up naked in the square below, antlers nailed to their heads." Tyrion tells Joffrey to hurry up with his plan to load them into the trebuchets and fling them onto the enemy, "We'll want the trebuchets throwing stones again soon enough."

Word comes that hundreds of men have landed at the King's Gate and they're preparing to ram it, so Tyrion hurries there and shouts, "Who commands here? You're going out." But Sandor Clegane steps forth and says, "No." One of the mercenaries says they've been out three times and half of their men are dead or wounded, "Wildfire bursting all around us, horses screaming like men and men like horses--" Tyrion orders him out anyway, mocking his timidity, but when he orders the Hound out, Tyrion discovers that he is terrified of the fire.

Ser Mandon Moore moves in to second Tyrion's order, but Clegane refuses again. Tyrion can see now that the Hound is not only frightened, but also wounded and exhausted: "The wound, the fire ... he's done. I need to find someone else, but who?" The men won't fight without a leader. There is another great crash at the gate.

This is madness, he thought, but sooner madness than defeat. Defeat is death and shame. "Very well, I'll lead the sortie." 

The Hound laughs at the idea, and the others look at him in disbelief, but Tyrion tells Ser Mandon Moore to carry the banner of the king, and asks his squire, Podrick Payne, to give him his helmet. Ser Mandon helps Tyrion onto his horse. Tyrion looks at Clegane's men and says, "They say I'm half a man.... What does that make the lot of you?" Slowly the men begin to mount up.

He shouts, "This is your city Stannis means to sack, and that's your gate he's bringing down. So come with me and kill the son of a bitch!" He rides toward the sally port, hoping that they're following.

Sansa

Osney Kettleblack arrives to tell Cersei about the course of the fighting, and Sansa overhears. She observes that the queen is drinking heavily. Musicians, jugglers, and Moon Boy and Ser Dontos are doing their best to keep the guests entertained. Cersei tells Sansa that she is doing what is "expected of a queen" and what she will have to do "should you ever wed Joffrey." She is setting an example for bravery that will stand her in good stead "If my wretched dwarf of a brother should somehow manage to prevail."

And if he doesn't, Sansa asks. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Cersei replies. She'll go to the walls and yield to Stannis. "But if Maegor's Holdfast should fall before Stannis can come up, when then, most of my guests are in for a bit of rape, I'd say. And you should never rule out mutilation, torture, and murder at times like these."

Sansa is shocked, not only that highborn women should be subject to such horrors, but also at Cersei's cold matter-of-factness. When Cersei sees this, she leans toward Sansa and says, "You little fool. Tears are not a woman's only weapon. You've got another one between your legs; and you'd best learn to use it."

The Kettleblacks return with more news of the conflagration on the Blackwater and the capture of a groom and two maids trying to escape from the city. Cersei orders their heads posted outside the stables as a warning to other potential escapees, and notifies Sansa that this is another duty of a queen. Sansa vows that if she's ever queen she will win her people over with love, not fear.

Osfryd Kettleblack brings more news of townsfolk, "rich merchants and the like," wanting to take refuge in the castle. Cersei says send them home and if they refuse to go, kill a few.  Sansa notices that she is beginning to slur her words. Cersei recalls how when they were children, she and Jaime used to switch clothes and fool their father because they looked so much alike. But things changed when they got older, she says with some bitterness.

"Jaime learned to fight with a sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a new filly. Jaime's lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood." 

Osney Kettleblack reports that the King's Gate is now being attacked and tells the queen that Joffrey has gone to supervise the trebuchets. Cersei says she wants him out of there and back to the castle. Some of the guests ask leave to go to the sept, and Cersei grants it. Some of the women are crying, and when Sansa begins to tear up as well, Cersei tells her to save her tears for King Stannis. "Matters must have reached a desperate strait out there if they need a dwarf to lead them, so you might as well take off your mask. I know all about your little treasons in the godswood."

Sansa is startled and tells herself not to look in Ser Dontos's direction. And in fact the "treasons" Cersei has in mind are not her visits to Ser Dontos but her going there to pray -- "For Stannis. Or your brother, it's all the same. Why else seek your father's gods. You're praying for our defeat." Sansa claims she is praying for Joffrey, and Cersei asks, sarcastically, "Why, because he treats you so sweetly?" She takes a cup of wine from a servant and orders Sansa to drink it. Sansa drains the cup until her head swims.

Then Cersei asks if she would like to know why Ser Ilyn is really there. She beckons for the executioner to approach, and Sansa sees that he is carrying her father's sword, Ice. She tells Sansa, "Stannis may take the city and he may take the throne, but I will not suffer him to judge me. I do not mean for him to have us alive." And she reaches out and brushes Sansa's hair away from her neck.

Tyrion

Outside the gate, Tyrion orders the troops into a wedge formation. He is at the point, with Ser Mandon Moor to his right and Podrick Payne to his left. They ride around the base of the tower to where Stannis's soldiers are battering at the gate. He orders the lances to be lowered, and they charge. Tyrion, who has told the soldiers he is not going to cry out Joffrey's name, shouts "King's Landing!" and the cry is taken up by the men.

Tyrion wields his axe and takes off half of the head of a man wearing the emblem of the Florents, but feels the shock in his shoulder.  The men at the battering ram drop it and take flight, but there is fighting going on all along the riverfront. He orders his men to go back to defend the Mud Gate, and as they ride he hears cries of "Halfman! Halfman!" They ride through fire and Tyrion knows why the Hound was so frightened.

His men have scattered, each one fighting his own battle. "Tyrion felt drunk. The battle fever. He had never thought to experience it himself, though Jaime had told him of it often enough." He hacks his way through the battle. "Knights twice his size fled from him, or stood and died." A man yields to him, holding up his gauntlet in submission. Tyrion takes it from him and realizes that the man's hand is still in it and he's lying in a pool of blood, not water.

Ser Balon Swann rides up beside him and gets his attention, pointing downriver. "Steel-clad men-at-arms were clambering off a broken galley that has smashed into a pier." There are so many of them that Tyrion wonders where they are coming from, and then he realizes that so many ships have piled up across the river that it's possible to jump from one to another and to cross the river that way. "We made them a bloody bridge, he thought in dismay."

As they ride out onto the quay, a spearman kills Balon Swann's horse. Tyrion swings at him with his axe, but it is too late to rein in his horse, which leaps from the quay and lands in shallow water. Tyrion falls from the horse and loses his axe, and when he discovers that his horse has broken his leg, he draws his dagger and puts the animal out of its misery. He finds himself fighting on the bridge made of ships fighting first with his knife and then with a broken spear he finds somehow. Balon Swann and Mandon Moore are nearby.

Arrows are whizzing past, and one hits him between his shoulder and the breastplate, though he doesn't feel it. A naked man, flung by the trebuchet, drops on the deck near him and splatters him with blood. Then stones begin to land on the ship-bridge and the deck heaves, spilling him into the water. He clambers back onto the deck and suddenly realizes that as the bridge breaks up the current is driving it downstream into the firestorm.

Desperate to get off the ship, he hears Ser Mandon Moore calling him and reaching out from the deck of the next ship. As he reaches for Moore's hand he realizes that Ser Mandon is holding out his left hand. "Was that why he reeled backward, or did he see the sword after all? He would never know." He feels the pain as the point of the sword cuts into his face just below his eyes, and then the shock of falling into the water. He grabs for a broken oar and pulls himself up with it. "His eyes were full of water, his mouth was full of blood, and his head throbbed horribly."

He pulls himself up onto the deck and lies there exhausted as he sees Ser Mandon loom up over him and "put the point of his sword to the hollow of his throat." But then the deck lurches "and Ser Mandon Moore vanished with a shout and a splash." Someone else kneels over him and for a moment he thinks he has been rescued by his brother, Jaime. But it is a boy's voice, telling him he's badly hurt, and Tyrion thinks, "It sounded almost like Pod."

Sansa

Ser Lancel Lannister has come to tell Cersei the battle has been lost, that Tyrion is "likely dead," as is Ser Mandon, and the Hound is missing. He also says that her ordering Joffrey back to the castle caused the troops to lose heart. "The gold cloaks are throwing down their spears and running, hundreds of them." Ser Osney Kettleblack announces that there is fighting on both sides of the river. "It may be that some of Stannis's lords are fighting each other, no one's sure, it's all confused over there." But Stannis's men have taken the riverside and are using the ram on the King's Gate again. And there are mobs trying to get out of the city at the Iron Gate and the Gate of the Gods.

Cersei tells Osfryd to raise the drawbridge and bar the doors to the holdfast, and to bring Joffrey to her. Lancel protests that this will only cause the same desertions that happened at the Mud Gate, but she ignores him and leaves the room. People start to panic, so Sansa gets to her feet and tries to reassure them that Maegor's is the safest place in the city, that Joffrey is unhurt, and that Cersei will return soon, though she knows the last is a lie. She asks Moon Boy to entertain them.

Ser Lancel is wounded and when he protested bringing Joffrey to the castle, she struck him on the wound and made it bleed again. He faints and she and a servant get him back on his feet. She tells the servant to take him to Maester Frenken, though he has a moment of remorse when she remembers he is a Lannister. "I should be killing him, not helping him." Ser Dontos comes over to her and whispers that she should go to her room and he'll come for her when the battle is over.

She leaves the room slowly, then runs up the stairs to her room, running into a guard who is already looting the place. She bars the door to her room and pulls back the draperies, looking out on the fires burning below. She decides to go to bed and try to sleep until everything is over and she knows for certain whether she is going to live or die. But a hand reaches out of the dark and grabs her wrist.

Sandor Clegane claps a hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out. She thinks, "He is drunker than I've ever seen him. He was sleeping in my bed. What does he want here?" He tells her he has lost, and that he wants Tyrion dead -- "No. Bugger that. I don't want him dead.... I want him burned. If the gods are good, they'll burn him, but I won't be here to see. I'm going." He means to leave the city if he has to fight his way out, but before that he wants her to sing the song she promised him.

She says she can't, and that he's scaring her. "Everything scares you," he says. "Look at me. Look at me." Then he tells her, "I could keep you safe.... They're all afraid of me. No one would hurt you again, or I'd kill them." When he pulls her closer she thinks he's about to kiss her, and she closes her eyes, which only makes him say, "Still can't bear to look, can you?" He pushes her down on the bed and points his dagger at her throat. "Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life."

She sings the only song that comes to mind, one of the hymns to the Mother that had been sung earlier that day in the sept. When she can't remember more of the song there is silence, and he takes the knife away from her throat. "Some instinct made her lift her hand and cup his cheek with her fingers." He says, "Little bird" again, and leaves.

She finds herself alone, but his white cloak, stained with blood, is on the floor. She picks it up and wraps herself in it and sits there on the floor. Some time later, bells begin to ring all over the city. "They had rung the bells when King Robert died, she remembered, but this was different, no slow dolorous death knell but a joyful thunder." She could also hear cheering in the street.

She stays there until Ser Dontos appears to tell her, "The city is saved. Lord Stannis is dead, Lord Stannis is fled, no one knows, no one cares, his host is broken, the danger's done." Stannis had been cut off from the rear by men shouting for Lord Renly. Ser Balon has returned to confirm the news. Lord Tywin himself had arrived, along with Randall Tarly and Mace Tyrell. And Lord Renly himself, Dontos says, was in the vanguard. "Lord Renly in his green armor, with the fires shimmering off his golden antlers!"