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."

12. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 413-440

Jaime

His sword hand has been cut off and the stump seared with a torch. In excruciating pain and suffering from a fever caused by the infected wound, he hears the Mummers laughing and tries to restrain his tears. "Now I know how Tyrion has felt, all those times they laughed at him," Jaime thinks.

He and Brienne are riding together on a horse, bound face-to-face, with the severed hand hanging from a cord around his neck between them. To add to his humiliation when he asks for something to drink, he swallows it down and then is told that it's horse piss. He drinks it anyway, but throws it up. They make Brienne clean up his vomit "just as they made her clean him up when he soiled himself in the saddle."

Once he manages to pull the sword from the Dornishman's scabbard, but he is unable to use it with his left hand. Vargo Hoat promises that if he tries something like that again he will cut off Jaime's other hand, or perhaps a foot.

At night, when he is lying next to Brienne, he lets her know that he wants to die, and she asks, "Are you so craven?" He is shocked to realize that it was something no one had ever called him. "'Live,' she said, 'live, and fight, and take revenge,'" but Rorge hears her and comes over to give her a kick. But Jaime lies there and thinks about the word "craven":  "Can it be? They took my sword hand. Was that all i was, a sword hand? Gods be good, is it true?" So the next morning he begins to eat again, and to tell himself to "live for Cersei, live for Tyrion. Live for vengeance. A Lannister always pays his debts." And he wants to live to get even with Vargo Hoat. He envies Brienne, who "has built a fortress inside herself. They will rape her soon enough, but behind her walls they cannot touch her." His wall fell when they took his sword hand, he thinks.

He overhears that their destination is Harrenhal, and he laughs at the irony: The castle was where he was named to the Kingsguard. He gets a lash across the face from a whip for laughing, and is kicked and punched when he continues to laugh. Only when the kick is aimed at his stump does the pain stop him from laughing: He faints.

The next night, three of the Mummers, including Rorge, begin to discuss who will rape Brienne first. As they argue, Jaime whispers to her to "go away inside" while they're doing it.

That was what he he'd done, when the Starks had died before him, Lord Rickard cooking in his armor while his son Brandon strangled himself trying to save him. "Think of Renly, if you loved him. Think of Tarth, mountains and seas, pools, waterfalls, whatever you have on your Sapphire Isle, think...."

But Rorge interrupts him to say that if she fights while he's raping her he'll cut off her nose, or gouge out one of her eyes and make her eat it, or pull her teeth out.

Jaime shouts out, "SAPPHIRES," as a reminder of the supposed ransom that her father will pay for Brienne, and passes out when Rorge kicks him in the stump. But when he comes to, Vargo Hoat is telling the others not to rape her because of the sapphires. Two nights later, Brienne asks him in a whisper why he yelled the word out so loud, and he tries to make a joke, saying, "You're hard enough to look at with a nose. Besides, I wanted to make the goat say 'thapphireth." She thanks him anyway, and he says, "A Lannister pays his debts. That was for the river, and those rocks you dropped on Robin Ryger."

As they near Harrenhal, Hoat has them dismount and approach the castle on foot. Jaime is filled with rage and pain. Brienne observes that the banners flying on the castle are the Bolton flayed man, the Frey twin towers, and the Stark direwolf. When they enter, Hoat announces to the people assembled there, "I give you the Kingthlayer," and a spear jabbed in Jaime's back sends him headlong. Instinctively, he breaks his fall by putting out his hands, sending another shock of pain from the stump through his body. He manages to maintain consciousness, however, and when he sees several of Lord Walder Frey's sons there, he offers his condolences on the death of Ser Cleos.

Brienne steps forth and tells them that she is "sworn to House Stark even as you are." But Ser Aenys Stark spits at her feet and tells her, "That's for your oaths. We trusted the word of Robb Stark, and he repaid our faith with betrayal." Jaime's curiosity is piqued by this news, but Brienne persists, telling them that she vowed to Catelyn that she would deliver Jaime to King's Landing in exchange for her daughters. The Freys begin to argue among themselves about what should be done with Jaime, and Hoat interjects that Jaime is his.

Then Roose Bolton speaks up, quietly, so the others stop arguing to hear him. Jaime, however, can't resist taunting the Lord of the Dreadfort with having lost a battle to his father. Bolton observes that Jaime has "lost a hand," but Jaime says it isn't lost: "I have it here, hanging around my neck." In disgust, Bolton breaks the cord holding the hand and flings it at Hoat, who says he'll send it to Jaime's father. If he doesn't pay the ransom for Jaime, Hoat says, he'll send the rest of Jaime to him piece by piece. And if he sends the ransom, he'll turn Jaime over to Lord Karstark anyway and take Karstark's daughter in marriage as a reward.

Bolton then delivers the latest news: Karstark is dead, beheaded by Robb. And Tywin is at King's Landing until the new year, when Joffrey will marry "a daughter of Highgarden." Brienne corrects him: "You mean Winterfell. King Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark." But Bolton informs her that the Lannisters and the Tyrells are uniting because of the Battle of Blackwater: "The rose and the lion joined there, to shatter Stannis Baratheon's host and burn his fleet to ashes."

Jaime asks about his sister, and Bolton says, "She is well. As is your ... nephew," the pause signifying that he knows about Joffrey's paternity. And Tyrion is recovering from the wound he took in the battle. He orders Jaime taken to Qyburn, the acting maester, and Brienne released from her bonds. When she says that Hoat's men tried to rape her, Bolton says, "I am displeased. By that, and this of Ser Jaime's hand." He has Brienne shown to "suitable rooms."

Qyburn is shocked by Jaime's wound, and says the best thing to do would be to amputate the arm, at least at the elbow, but Jaime is insistent: "Take any part of my arm, and you'd best chop off the other one as well, or I'll strangle you with it afterward." Qyburn agrees to try to cut only the gangrenous flesh and to treat the wound, but warns Jaime that may not succeed. Jaime refuses anything that will put him to sleep, for fear that Qyburn will amputate anyway. During the operation Jaime faints from the pain anyway. When he wakes, Qyburn is sewing up the wrist.

"No man who serves with Vargo Hoat is a stranger to stumps," Qyburn comments. "He makes them wherever he goes." Jaime asks why a maester is with the Brave Companions. Qyburn replies that his chain was taken away by the Citadel, and says he should do something about the cut over Jaime's eye. As he works, he tells Jaime about the battle, which as keeper of the ravens Qyburn was well informed on.

Tyrion

Tyrion and Bronn are outside the walls, where people are returning to their old ways in the area that he had burned out before the battle. Tyrion is forced to take charge of the rebuilding, which would have been his Uncle Kevan's task, but the murder of his son Willem and the fact that his son Martyn is a hostage and his son Lancel is still suffering from a wound that will not heal has taken a toll.

As they pass the three trebuchets still standing in the market square, Tyrion notices children climbing on them and worries that one of them is going to fall off and break his neck. But then manure is thrown at him and his horse rears, so Tyrion changes his mind about protecting them. He also knows that his failure to consummate his marriage has drawn ridicule at the court. Sansa is miserable and shows it. "This was the wife they had given him, for all the rest of his life, and she hated him."

He had wanted to break the news of his impending marriage to Shae, but she had already heard it. It made no difference to her, however. "Some part of him had hoped for less indifference. Had hoped, he jeered bitterly, but now you know better, dwarf. Shae is all the love you're ever like to have."

Today he has another matter to deal with, and Bronn accompanies him as he goes into one of the poorer parts of the city. Leaving Bronn on guard, he goes into a dismal little bar where the woman in the front room directs him to the back. There he meets the singer Symon Silver Tongue, who says, "My sweet lady Shae tells me you are newly wed. Would that you had sent for me earlier. I would have been honored to sing at your feast." Tyrion rebuffs the courtesy and tells him never to speak of Shae again.

He tells Symon that he hears he is "a very gifted singer," and suggests that "it is time you brought your music to the Free Cities. They are great lovers of song in Braavos and Pentos and Lys, and generous with those who please them." He tells him that he will be glad to pay his passage. Symon cheekily responds by giving him a sample of his songs, one that refers to Tyrion's clandestine dalliance with Shae. When Tyrion tells him not to sing it again, Symon suggests that others, such as Cersei or his father, might like it better. Tyrion replies, "A wise man could earn more from silence than from song."

But Symon is not deterred, and suggests that he be invited to join the tournament of singers at Joffrey's wedding feast. Tyrion points out that seven singers have already been invited, and that everything at the feast is in multiples of seven: "seven vows, seven challenges, seventy-seven dishes ... but eight singers?" Symon suggests that something might happen to one of the seven already invited, making a place available for him. So Tyrion says, "I will inquire after the health of Cersei's seven. If any of them should be indisposed, my man Bronn will find you."

Symon still taunts him with the prospect that he might sing his song about Tyrion and Shae if the invitation doesn't come through, but Tyrion replies, "You have my word as a Lannister," and leaves. Outside, he tells Bronn,

"Give him three days, then inform him that Hamish the Harper has broken his arm. Tell him that his clothes will never serve for court, so he must be fitted for new garb at once. He'll come with you quick enough." He grimaced. "You may want his tongue, I understand it's made of silver. The rest of him should never be found."

Bronn says he knows of a pot shop that makes a stew from all kinds of meat. Tyrion replies, "Make certain I never eat there."

When he returns to the castle he is summoned to his father, whom he finds talking with an armorer about the sword being made as a wedding gift for Joffrey. It is made of Valyrian steel, and Tywin has always wanted a Valyrian blade to belong to House Lannister. "Thrice at least Lord Tywin had offered to buy Valyrian longswords from impoverished lesser houses, but his advances had always been firmly rebuffed." Tyrion comments on the color of the blade. Tywin had wanted crimson, but the armorer says that despite his efforts the blade continued to turn a darker shade. Tyrion says he likes these colors. "They have an ominous beauty ... and they make this blade unique. There is no other sword like it in all the world, I should think." But there is, the armorer says, and unfolds the cloth covering a second blade, which is similar.

Tyrion wields it, and pronounces it "Magnificent." Tywin says, "It is meant for my son." Tyrion thinks, "No need to ask which son," and lays it next to Joffrey's. The armorer, who is Gendry's former master, Tobho Mott, promises to have both swords ready the day before the wedding. When he leaves, Tyrion says, "So ... a sword for Joff, a sword for Jaime, and not even a dagger for the dwarf. Is that the way of it, Father?" Tywin says if he needs a dagger to get one from the armory and asks for his report on the riverfront.

Tyrion details what needs to be done, and comments on the enormous expense, especially considering the extravagance of the wedding. Tywin dismisses his concerns: "I will have the wedding and the waterfront. If you cannot pay for them, say so, and I shall find a master of coin who can." Tyrion doesn't want to be disgraced by losing a post he has held so briefly, so he agrees to find the money.

Then Tywin turns to the topic of the unconsummated marriage of Tyrion and Sansa. "You seem to have no difficulty bedding whores. Is the Stark girl made differently?" When Tyrion protests that she is so young, Tywin points out that she's old enough to inherit Winterfell. "Claim her maidenhood and you will be one step closer to claiming the north. Get her with child, and the prize is all but won." Otherwise, he points out, the marriage can be annulled.

Tyrion changes the subject by asking about Cersei's marriage to Willas, and Tywin tells him that Mace Tyrell has refused the offer. Tyrion is pleased by anything that embarrasses Cersei, and especially so when Tywin tells him that the refusal seems to have been the work of the Queen of Thorns: "Varys claims she told [Mace Tyrell] that your sister was too old and too used for this precious one-legged grandson of hers." When Tyrion laughs, his father says that Cersei must never know about this, and that the official position is, "The offer was never made."

Tywin has some thoughts about other marriages that might be arranged for Cersei, but before he can voice them they are interrupted by Grand Maester Pycelle, who reports that another raven has arrived from Castle Black. The news is that vast numbers of wildlings are moving south, and that the acting commander of Castle Black, Bowen Marsh, fears that Jeor Mormont and his men have been wiped out. He has sent a plea for more men "to all five kings." Tywin bristles at the idea that there might be more than "one king in Westeros."

Tywin has nothing but scorn for the Night's Watch -- "a pack of thieves, killers, and baseborn churls" -- but if Mormont is dead, they need a new Lord Commander. Pycelle has the very man for the job: Janos Slynt. He also knows that Tyrion hates Slynt, whom he sent to the Wall to get rid of. But when Tyrion says that the Night's Watch chooses their own commander, Tywin says that if they don't choose whom he wants, they will never get the reinforcements they need. Tyrion tries to argue his father out of bullying them into choosing Slynt, but loses.

2. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 43-74

Arya

The last time we saw Arya, she had just killed a guard and escaped from Harrenhal with Gendry and Hot Pie, so now we rejoin them on the run. They are heading north, riding on their stolen horses through the rain. She is a little surprised at her success, though also aware of the odds against her: "She was only ten, a skinny girl on a stolen horse with a dark forest ahead of her and men behind who would gladly cut off her feet."

They encounter wolves devouring a fawn and burned-out villages with dead men hanging from a tree, and Hot Pie is terrified, but she steadily leads them onward to what she believes is the north because of the way the moss grows on the trees. When Gendry asks why they're going north, she points to the map she has stolen from Roose Bolton and indicates the Trident, which they can follow until they get to Riverrun. Hot Pie, who is astonished when he learns she can "read writing," asks why they should go to Riverrun, and she realizes that she can't tell him yet that it's her grandfather's castle because she doesn't really trust him with her secrets.

Hot Pie begins to complain of saddle sores, but all she needs to do to keep him going is to remind him that he has a choice between being caught by the wolves or by the Bloody Mummers. Gendry also shows signs of discomfort from riding so long, and Arya realizes that she is the only one of them who grew up riding horses: the other two are city boys. Finally they reach a river, and Hot Pie is relieved that they have come to the Trident. But Arya isn't so sure: They haven't been going long enough. But when she looks at the map she can't be sure what the river is. She says they should just cross the river and keep going north, but the day is overcast so they can't tell the position of the sun, and Gendry points out that a tree that has moss on three sides and one that has no moss at all.

She finds a crossing and they follow her, and then another river which is easier to ford. It is growing dark, so they they argue that they should bed down for the night. Arya stubbornly insists on continuing to ride, but when she falls asleep in the saddle, she gives in: "The Mummers will need to sleep too, she told herself, hoping it was true."

Gendry offers to take the first watch, so she falls into a troubled sleep, dreaming of the Mummers pursuing her.

She was no little girl in the dream; she was a wolf, huge and powerful, and when she emerged from beneath the trees in front of them and bared her teeth in a low rumbling growl, she could smell the rank stench of fear from horse and man alike.

She and her pack attack the Mummers and kill them. Evidently Bran and Jon aren't the only ones who have wolf-dreams.

Tyrion

Tyrion is still feverish when he is awakened in his room in Maegor's Holdfast by Bronn, who is now Ser Bronn of the Blackwater. "I lose half my nose and you gain a knighthood," Tyrion grumbles. "The gods have a deal to answer for." Bronn fills him in on what has happened: The Hound has disappeared, Ser Jacelyn is dead, the gold cloaks are under the command of Ser Addam Marbrand, the mountain clans have gone home with the exception of Shagga and the Stone Crows, who have settled in the kingswood, Alayaya has been freed after being whipped. Tommen has been brought home.

My hirelings betray me, my friends are scourged and shamed, and I lie here rotting, Tyrion thought. I thought I won the blood battle. Is this what triumph tastes like?

He asks Bronn if it's true that the battle was won by Renly's ghost, and Bronn tells him that there are plenty who say he did, and that the members of Stannis's army who had previously been supporters of Renly went over to the Lannisters when they saw someone in Renly's shiny green armor. Tyrion thinks, "eclipsed by a dead man. If indeed Renly is dead. Something else he would need to look into."

Stannis escaped, Bronn tells him, when he made it to the Lyseni ships that had stayed in the bay, outside of Tyrion's chain. Robb Stark is still making raids, and Tywin is sending Lord Tarly to deal with him. "I've half a mind to join him," Bronn says. "It's said he's a good soldier, and openhanded with the plunder." Tyrion doesn't want to lose Bronn on top of everything else, and says, "You're the captain of the Hand's guard." But Bronn reminds him that he's not the Hand anymore: "Your father is, and he's got his own bloody guard." The rest of Tyrion's guard are either dead or were dismissed by Tyrion's uncle Kevan.

Tyrion says he still needs Bronn. He wants to find proof that Ser Mandon Moore, who tried to kill him, had been in Cersei's pay, but he can't tell Bronn that because the castle is full of listeners. So he decides to get dressed and go see his father instead. He is weak and in pain when he gets up, and calls for Podrick Payne to help him. "Hideous though his face might be, the worst of his wounds was the one at the juncture of shoulder and arm, where his own mail had been driven back into his armpit by an arrow." He finally gets dressed and sips some opiated wine to ease the pain.

When he reaches the steps that lead to his old quarters, now occupied by his father, Tyrion realizes that he can't climb them, and has to be carried by Bronn, hoping that no one will see him so helpless. The castle yards are full of tents housing people there for Joffrey's wedding to Margaery Tyrell. He meets Ser Addam Marbrand, who tells him that the City Watch still numbers forty-four thousand, and that Cersei has forbidden him to reduce the numbers until Tyrion's cousin, thirteen-year-old Tyrek Lannister, who vanished in the riot before the battle, has been located.

With Podrick's help, Tyrion makes it up the last steps to his father's offices, where Lord Tywin tells Bronn and Podrick to wait outside. "Even with the windows of the solar shuttered against the night, the chill in the room was palpable. What sort of lies has Cersei been telling him?" Tywin asks "what madness possessed" Tyrion to enter into battle the way he did, and when Tyrion replies, "If Jaime had led the sortie, you'd call it valor," Tywin retorts, "Jaime would never be so foolish as to remove his helm in battle." Finally Tywin says, "Your face is pale as death, and there's blood seeping through your bandages. Say what you want and take yourself back to bed."

Tyrion gets angry, and says, "A little bloody gratitude would make a nice start.... I saved your bloody city, it seems to me." But Tywin is unwilling to give him that: "Most people seem to feel that it was my attack on Lord Stannis's flank that turned the tide of battle," and he gives Cersei credit for having the pyromancers make the wildfire. He admits that the "chain was a clever stroke," and the marriage of Margaery and Joffrey, creating the alliance with Dorne, but indicates that he is finished with his audience with Tyrion and wants to go back to his correspondence.

So Tyrion makes his move: "What do I want, you ask? I'll tell you what I want. I want what is mine by rights. I want Casterly Rock?" That is Jaime's birthright, Tywin says. Tyrion retorts that Jaime gave up that right when he became a knight of the Kingsguard, who are not allowed to hold land. "I want you to stand up before the realm and proclaim that I am your son and your lawful heir." And Lord Tywin says, "Never." Tyrion admits that he had always known it would come to this, but he still asks why.

"You ask that? You, who killed your mother to come into the world? You are an ill-made, devious, disobedient, spiteful little creature full of envy, lust, and low cunning. Men's laws give you the right to bear my name and display my colors, since I cannot prove that you are mine. To teach me humility, the gods have condemned me to watch you waddle about wearing that proud lion that was my father's sigil and his father's before him. But neither gods nor men shall ever compel me to let you turn Casterly Rock into your whorehouse."

Tyrion realizes that Cersei has told their father about Alayaya, who had been seized instead of Shae by mistake. And Tywin reminds him of the prostitute Tysha whom Tyrion was tricked into marrying. Moreover, Cersei has told him of Tyrion's threat that if Alayaya was harmed, he would do whatever was done to her to Tommen as well. Tywin says that Tyrion will have some reward "appropriate to your service and station," but "this was the last time I will suffer you to bring shame onto House Lannister. You are done with whores. The next one I find in your bed, I'll hang."

Davos

When we last saw Davos, he was being swept downriver toward the flaming wreckage caught by Tyrion's chain across the mouth of the river. Now he is feverish and dying on a rocky island "no more than a barren spire jutting up out of the immensity of Blackwater Bay." He has been there for days, after swimming underwater beneath the flames and then being washed ashore. But now he has spotted a sail, "A ship where no ship should be. He knew where his rock lay, more or less; it was one of a series of sea monts that rose from the floor of Blackwater Bay." Ships usually avoided them, because there were more invisible beneath the surface of the bay than there were rising above it.

He almost decides not to hail the ship.

Why should I live? he thought as tears blurred his vision. Gods be good, why? My sons are dead. Dale and Allard, Maric and Matthos, perhaps Devan as well. How can a father outlive so many strong young sons? How would I go on? I am a hollow shell, the crab's died, there's nothing left inside.

He recalls how they had sailed up the Blackwater Rush into the battle, and how the ships had been destroyed by the wildfire. As his ship sank, he had considered letting himself drown with the others, but instead he had swum underwater as far as he could until he ran out of air and felt himself beginning to drown. "The next he knew the sun was up, and he lay upon a stony strand beneath a spire of naked stone, with the empty bay all around and a broken mast, a burned sail, and a swollen corpse beside him." He had even lost the leather pouch he wore around his neck, containing the four finger bones that Stannis Baratheon had cut from his hand as punishment for smuggling on the same day that he knighted him for saving Dragonstone from the siege.

He prays to the Mother, but hears her say to him, "You burned us ... burned us ... burrrned ussssssss." He blames the burning of the seven gods on Melisandre, who had ordered him to burn them, as well as the godswood and the heart tree at Storm's End. But he also blames himself for following her orders and rowing her into Storm's End so she could give birth to a shadow: "You watched the Seven burn at Dragonstone, and did nothing ... she burnt them all to the glory of her cruel god, and you stood and held your tongue. Even when she killed old Maester Cressen, even then, you did nothing."

The sail grows closer, and Davos, weak with fever and malnutrition, climbs the rock and hails it. He is spotted, and a boat is sent out for him. When they ask for his name, he suddenly realizes that it might be a Lannister ship, but then he observes that it's a Lysene vessel, part of Salladhor Saan's fleet, and he says he serves King Stannis. "'Aye,' said the man in the boat, 'and so do we.'"

11. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 431-468

Daenerys

Daenerys is pissed. She has been to see the highborn of Qarth. "They never saw me for a queen, she thought bitterly. I was only an afternoon's amusement, a horse girl with a curious pet." She had even dressed in Qartheen fashion, with one breast bared. She had hoped to persuade them to lend her some of the ships they owned, and perhaps some sailors too. But they were more interested in her dragon than in helping her get back the crown of the Seven Kingdoms.

But she has been making money, thanks to the merchant prince Xaro Xhoan Daxos, who has publicized the presence in Qarth of the Mother of Dragons. So people come bearing opulent gifts just for the opportunity to witness the fabulous beasts. She sells most of them, though the keeps the crown given her by the Tourmaline Brotherhood: It is "wrought in the shape of a three-headed dragon; the coils were yellow gold, the wings silver, the heads carved from jade, ivory, and onyx." Viserys had sold her mother's crown, so she kept this one, "though the weight of it made her neck ache."

Xaro has ships but he doesn't want to part with them. Instead, he proposes that he marry Daenerys and they can rule over Qarth as if they were king and queen. But Daenerys knows perfectly well that Xaro is gay, and she doesn't want to rule anywhere but in Westeros. She threatens to go to see Pyat Pree and seek the help of the warlocks, but Xaro assures her that they have nothing to give her.

The oxcart in which they are riding has slowed, and Aggo calls out to her that the way has been blocked by people watching a firemage. She gets out and Aggo lifts her up onto his horse so she can see: The firemage has created a ladder of flame that reaches into the sky. As the crowd gapes, cutpurses are moving among them, picking their pockets. The firemage begins to climb the ladder, and each rung disappears behind him. When he reaches the top, both he and the ladder disappear.

When Jhogo says, "A fine trick," a voice behind them says it isn't a trick. It is Quaithe, wearing her red lacquered mask. She says that the firemage had been only a common sleight-of-hand magician with a few tricks to distract the crowd as his cutpurses went to work; but after Daenerys arrived with her dragons, his powers have grown. Then she warns, "You must leave this city soon, Daenerys Targaryen, or you will never be permitted to leave it at all."

Daenerys asks where she should go, and Quaithe replies, "To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow." Daenerys thinks that she means she must go to Asshai, and asks what she will find there. "Truth," says Quaithe, and disappears into the crowd.

When she returns to her chambers, Ser Jorah tells her what she is beginning to realize: "You will get no help in this city, Khaleesi." She tells him that Xaro has proposed again, and he replies that Xaro is after her dragons. He advises that she should go east, but she fears that will only take her farther away from Westeros. She proposes to go to the Free Cities and seek out Illyrio Mopatis again. He argues, "For sufficient gold, Illyrio would sell you as quickly as he would a slave, and reminds her that it was Illyrio who sold her to Khal Drogo. She persists in arguing that Illyrio could hire ships and men for her.

"Sellswords have their uses," Ser Jorah admitted, "but you will not win your father's throne with sweepings from the Free Cities. Nothing knits a broken realm together so quick as an invading army on its soil.... The lords of Westeros do not know you, and have every reason to fear and mistrust you. You must win them over before you sail. A few at least."

He adds that the longer she stays in one place, the easier it will be for her enemies to find her. "The name Targaryen still frightens them, so much that they sent a man to murder you when they heard you were with child. What will they do when they learn of your dragons?"


She realizes that the one person in Qarth whose aid she hasn't sought is the warlock, Pyat Pree.


Tyrion


Myrcella is sailing to meet her future husband, the Prince of Dorne, and Tyrion is worried that so many ships had to be sent to protect her. They are to sail to Braavos first, avoiding the island of Dragonstone. Myrcella should be safe when they get there, and the Braavosi will take her the rest of the way to Sunspear. It's a circuitous route, but Tyrion hopes its the safest. Stannis's fleet is still at Storm's End, besieging the castle "where Ser Cortnay Penrose continued to defy the besiegers in dead Renly's name."


The High Septon is there to bless the journey, and Tyrion rejoins the royal entourage: Cersei, Joffrey, Tommen, and members of the court. Cersei is flirting with Lancel, who has already begun feeding information to Tyrion. The queen, he has told him, is plotting with "a certain hedge knight with the unlikely name of Ser Osmund Kettleblack, and his equally unsavory brothers Osney and Osfryd" who are helping her assemble a force of sellswords all her own. But meanwhile, Bronn is paying off the Kettleblacks to promise the queen everything but give her nothing.


Prince Tommen is crying because of his sister's departure, and when Sansa tries to comfort him, Joffrey threatens her. Tyrion notices this but Cersei doesn't, and Tyrion wonders, "Can she truly be so blind as to what he is?" He has not heard from Littlefinger since he set off on his mission to try to arrange a marriage between Joffrey and Margaery Tyrell, and he wonders if they were arguing over the marriage: "Tyrion could scarcely blame them. If I were Mace Tyrell, I would sooner have Joffrey's head on a pike than his cock in my daughter."


When the ship has sailed, they begin their journey back to the castle, with the City Watch holding back the crowds. Ser Jacelyn Bywater leads the procession, followed by more of the City Watch and Ser Aron Santagar and Ser Balon Swann carrying the banners of both houses, Lannister and Baratheon. Joffrey, wearing a golden crown, follows next, with Sansa riding at his side. They are flanked by the Hound on the king's right and Ser Mandon Moore to the left of Sansa. Then came Tommen, Cersei, and Tyrion, followed by the High Septon and other courtiers including Lady Tanda and her daughter.


Tyrion can feel the hostility of the crowd, which is not cheering the royal procession. They "moved through a sea of ragged men and hungry women, breasting a tide of sullen eyes." Then, halfway to the castle, "a wailing woman forced her way between two watchmen and ran out into the street in front of the king and his companions, holding the corpse of her dead baby above her head." Joffrey starts to ride over the women, but Sansa says something to him and instead he throws a coin at her. It bounces off the dead baby and into the crowd, which starts to fight over it. "'Leave her, Your Grace,' Cersei called out to the king, 'she's beyond our help, poor thing.'"


But the woman hears Cersei. "'Whore! she shrieked. 'Kingslayer's whore! Brotherfucker!' Her dead child dropped from her arms like a sack of flour as she pointed at Cersei. 'Brotherfucker brotherfucker brotherfucker.'" Then from out of the crowd someone throws a handful of dung that hits Joffrey in the face. He screams, "Who threw that?" and rakes the filth from his hair. "A hundred golden dragons to the man who gives him up." Immediately the crowd starts pointing and shoving. He orders the guard to bring him the man. "He'll lick it off me or I'll have his head. Dog, you bring him here!"


Sandor Clegane dismounts, but there is no way to make it through the crowd. Tyrion tells Clegane not to try, but Joffrey is pointing at the roof of a building where someone had said the dung-flinger had been, and ordering the Hound to pursue him. Then from every direction there are cries of "Bastard" and "bastard monster," "Whore," "Brotherfucker," "Freak," "Halfman," and "a few cries of 'Justice' and 'Robb, King Robb, the Young Wolf,' of 'Stannis!' and even 'Renly!'" After a while the crowd takes up the cry of "Bread, bread!"


Tyrion rides up to Cersei and yells, "Back to the castle. Now." Ser Lancel draws his sword, and at the head of the column Jacelyn Bywater is giving orders to the guardsmen. A hand reaches out from the crowd and grabs Joffrey's leg, but Ser Mandon cuts off the reaching arm. Tyrion rides up and gives Joffrey's horse a smack on the rump sending it rushing forward as the crowd parts in front of it. Tyrion rides close behind, followed by Bronn, as a rock flies past Tyrion's head. The Hound and others have vanished behind. "Someone staggered in front of Joffrey's horse and shrieked as the king rode him down. Whether it had been man, woman, or child Tyrion could not have said."


They finally reach the castle and ride under the portcullis. Tyrion, Joffrey, and Ser Mandon get there first, followed by Cersei, Tommen, and Lancel, with Ser Meryn and Ser Boros behind. Then Ser Balon Swann, who has lost his helmet, and Lady Tanda, who is "half-crazed with fear for her daughter Lollys, who had been knocked from the saddle and left behind. Lord Gyles, more grey of face than ever, stammered out a tale of seeing the High Septon spilled from his litter, screeching prayers as the crowd swept over him."


Joffrey is babbling about traitors and cutting off their heads when Tyrion walks up and slaps his face, then shoves him and knocks him down. "You blind bloody fool." He calls Joffrey a "spoiled witless little boy" and charges that he has "killed Clegane and gods know how many more, and yet you come through unscratched. Damn you!" Then he kicks him. Then he starts counting who is still missing and realizes that Sansa is not there. "If Sansa Stark had come to harm, Jaime was as good as dead."


But as they are arguing about how to rescue Sansa, "Sandor Clegane cantered briskly through the gates astride Sansa's chestnut courser. The girl was seated behind, both arms tight around the Hound's chest." Tyrion asks if she's hurt. She's bleeding from a scalp wound, and she says that a man tried to pull her from the saddle and the Hound cut off his arm. The Hound lifts her down and says, "The little bird's bleeding. Someone take her back to her caste and see to that cut."


Clegane reports that four men bashed in Ser Aron Santagar's head with a cobblestone. "I gutted one, not that it did Ser Aron much good." Lady Tanda asks about her daughter, and Clegane says he never saw her, then starts looking for his horse: "If anything's happened to that horse, someone's going to pay."


A lookout calls down that Flea Bottom is on fire, and Tyrion realizes that the store of wildfire could be endangered. He tells Bronn and Clegane to make sure that the water wagons are safe and that the Guildhall of the Alchemists is protected from the fire. For an instant, Tyrion sees a look of fear in the Hound's eyes, and realizes how terrified he must be of fire, but he says he'll go, "though not by your command. I need to find that horse."


Tyrion then orders the three knights of the Kingsguard to escort heralds to order people to go home and proclaim a curfew. Ser Meryn objects that their place is with the king, but "Cersei reared up like a viper. 'Your place is where my brother says it is,' she spit. 'The Hand speaks with the king's own voice, and disobedience is treason.'"


Tyrion returns to his quarters and sends for Shagga, whom he dispatches to protect Shae. That evening, Ser Jacelyn reports that the High Septon was torn apart by the mob. "Starving men take a hard view of priests too fat to walk, Tyrion reflected." Lady Tanda's daughter had been gang-raped and was found wandering naked by the City Watch. Ser Jacelyn has more to add.

"We held the city today, my lord, but I make no promises for the morrow. The kettle is close to boiling. So many thieves and murderers are abroad that no man's house is safe, the bloody flux is spreading in the stews along Pisswater Bend, there's no food to be had for copper nor silver. Where before you heard only mutterings from the gutter, now there's open talk of treason in guildhalls and markets." 

He adds that he can't even trust his own men because "They're half-trained and undisciplined, and what loyalty they have is to their own skins. If it comes to battle, they'll not hold, I fear." Tyrion admits that if the "walls are breached, we are lost, I've known that from the start." Bywater goes on to say that his men are in touch with what people are saying. "They whisper that the gods are punishing us for the sins of your House." But they hate Tyrion the most: Cersei was there "when times were better under King Robert, but you were not." They don't like Tyrion's guards, the mountain men; they think that he got rid of Janos Slynt "because you found him too bluff and honest"; they say he threw Pycelle in the dungeon because he disagreed with Tyrion; and they say that Tyrion is plotting to take the throne for himself.

Perhaps my lord father was right to despise me all these years, if this is the best I can achieve, Tyrion thought when he was alone.... My most trusted advisers are a eunuch and a sellsword, and my lady's a whore. What does that say of me?

He calls for those advisers nevertheless. Bronn lights a fire in the fireplace and it is blazing by the time Varys appears. Varys has an excuse that he was about "the king's business," which provokes Tyrion to mutter, "My nephew is not fit to sit a privy, let alone the Iron Throne." Bronn observes, "Ever think how easy life would be if the other one had been born first? .... The weepy one, Tommen. Seems like he'd do whatever he was told, as a good king should."


Tyrion realizes what Bronn is getting at and puts it out of his mind. "Joffrey was his own blood, and Jaime's son as much as Cersei's. 'I could have your head off for saying that,' he told Bronn, but the sellsword only laughed.


Davos


A parley is taking place between Stannis Baratheon and Ser Cortnay Penrose. Davos is present, though he has not seen Stannis since he arrived at Storm's End. His son Devan, one of Stannis's squires has told him, "Since Lord Renly died, he has been troubled by terrible nightmares.... Maester's potions do not touch them. Only the Lady Melisandre can soothe him to sleep." Davos wonders if Melisandre's soothing consists of having sex with Stannis, but he doesn't dare ask his son.


The meeting is taking place at the foot of the walls of Storm's End, and when Penrose addresses Stannis as "my lord," he is corrected by Lord Alester Florent: "It is customary to grant a king the style Your Grace." Florent "had been the first of Renly's bannermen to declare for Stannis, and the first to renounce his old gods and take up the Lord of Light." He has the zeal of a convert, so when Penrose tells Melisandre, "I bow to other gods, and a different king," Florent proclaims, "There is but one true king, and one true god."


Stannis commands Penrose to open the gates of Storm's End and to surrender Robert Baratheon's bastard, Edric Storm. Penrose, of course, refuses. He also denounces the former followers of Renly who have joined Stannis as "turncloaks." And he asks why those who were closest to Renly, such as the Knight of Flowers and Brienne of Tarth are not among them. When someone claims that it was Brienne who killed Renly, Penrose says this is a lie. Lord Florent says it's possible that Brienne was the murderer, but he believes it was Catelyn Stark. The argument continues until Stannis silences it: "The Lord of Light willed that my brother die for his treason. Who did the deed matters not."


It matters to Penrose, and he pulls off his glove and throws it into Stannis's face with a challenge: "Single combat. Sword, lance, or any weapon you care to name." But Stannis refuses the challenge: "Why would I choose single combat when my eventual victory is certain?" Penrose defies him once again and returns to the castle.


As they return to the camp, Stannis's maternal grandfather, Lord Estermont observes, "If we storm these walls thousands will die.... Better to hazard but a single life, surely?" The others chime in with their opinions until Stannis silences them, and orders Davos to ride with him away from the others. Davos notices the dark circles under Stannis's eyes and the haggard look. Stannis asks if they should use Penrose's father as a hostage to persuade him to surrender, and Davos replies, "Ser Cortnay will watch his father die before he would ever betray his trust. It would gain us nothing, and bring dishonor to our cause."

He tells Stannis that he admires Penrose because "He keeps faith," unlike the men behind them who so swiftly changed allegiance from Renly to Stannis. "Last year they were Robert's men. A moon ago they were Renly's. This morning they are yours. Whose will they be on the morrow?" Stannis acknowledges the point, and admits that he has no illusions about Renly's former followers: "I have marked them for what they are. Pardoned them, yes. Forgiven. But not forgotten."


But Stannis also admits remorse for his brother's death.

"I dream of it sometimes. Of Renly's dying. A green tent, candles, a woman screaming. And blood." Stannis looked down at his hands. "I was still abed when he died. Your Devan will tell you.... Devan says I thrashed and cried out, but what does it matter? It was a dream. I was in my tent when Renly died, and when I woke my hands were clean." 

Davos thinks, "Something is wrong here."


Back in the pavilion, Stannis asks Davos what he should do about the siege. Davos says, "Strike for King's Landing at once." He argues that thousands of lives might be lost in attacking the castle, which is of no real strategic value in the battle with the Lannisters. "Once you dethrone Joffrey this castle must come to you with all the rest." But Stannis argues, "If I leave Storm's End untaken in my rear, it will be said I was defeated here. And that I cannot permit."


And then he tells Davos, "Ser Cortnay will be dead within the day. Melisandre has seen it in the flames of the future. His death and the manner of it. He will not die in knightly combat, needless to say." But he also tells Davos why he came to Storm's End to attack Renly: "Melisandre saw another day in her flames as well. A morrow where Renly rode out of the south in his green armor to smash my host beneath the walls of King's Landing. Had I met my brother there, it might have been me who died in place of him."


Davos states the obvious: "If she saw two futures, well ... both cannot be true." But Stannis replies, "Some lights cast more than one shadow.... Well, men cast their shadows across the future as well. One shadow or many. Melisandre sees them all."


Now Stannis comes to what he needs Davos to do: "Only land a boat beneath the castle, unseen, in the black of night. Can you do that?" Davos had been a smuggler, so Stannis knows perfectly well that he can do it. But Davos isn't so sure he wants to: "He was a knight now, no longer a smuggler, and he had never been an assassin." He realizes that Melisandre has done something to Stannis, and he makes a last attempt to persuade him: "Let Ser Cortnay keep the bastard boy and he may well yield." But Stannis is firm: "I must have the boy, Davos. Must. Melisandre has seen that in the flames as well."


So he finds himself sailing toward the castle with Melisandre wrapped in "a dark red cloak that covered her from head to heels." She asks him, "Are you a good man, Davos Seaworth?" He tells her, "I would say my parts are mixed, m'lady. Good and bad." And she contend, "If half an onion is black with rot, it is a rotten onion. A man is good, or he is evil." When he asks her what she is, she says she is good, "A champion of light and life." But he says she plans to kill Penrose, as she killed Maester Cressen." That was because he tried to kill her, and she "was protected by a higher power." So who killed Renly Baratheon, he asks. "Not I," she says. He replies, "Liar."


As they reach the castle and lower the sail he asks, "Who rowed you to Renly?" She says there was no need for that because "He was unprotected." But the castle has ancient spells laid upon it. "Dark walls that no shadow can pass." He observes, "A shadow is a thing of darkness." But she counters, "Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows."


Then they are quiet as they reach a cavern under the castle. He makes his way in the darkness as far as they can go until they reach the lowered portcullis whose "bars are too closely spaced for even a child to squeeze through." Then there is a sudden glow of light and he sees that Melisandre has thrown off her cloak and is naked. She is also hugely pregnant. The glow comes from her skin, and Davos watches as she squats and gives birth to a shadow, which "slid out into the world and rose taller than Daos, tall as the tunnel, towering over the boat." Instantly it is through the bars and then it is gone.


"He knew that shadow. As he knew the man who'd cast it."

5. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 197-243

Tyrion

Manipulating such master-manipulators as Pycelle, Littlefinger, and Varys isn't easy, but if Tyrion is going to survive he needs to make an effort. Grand Maester Pycelle is doing his part to manipulate Tyrion by setting the time of their meeting at dawn and serving him a breakfast of boiled eggs, stewed plums, and porridge. "In these sad times, when so many hunger, I think it only fitting to keep my table spare." So it's no wonder that the egg Tyrion is cracking reminds "him unduly of the Grand Maester's bald spotted head."

But Tyrion needs the ravens that the maester commands to deliver letters to Doran Martell, Prince of Dorne. While Pycelle goes to dispatch the ravens, Tyrion has time to inspect the potions on the maester's shelves and to slip one of them into his sleeve. When Pycelle returns, Tyrion can tell he is consumed with curiosity about the letters, but he deftly sidesteps any questions about them. As he leaves, he reminds Pycelle to inform him -- and only him -- when a reply comes from Dorne.

"Pycelle's spotted hand was clutching at his beard the way a drowning man clutches for a rope. It made Tyrion's heart glad. One, he thought."

Outside, he meets Bronn, who is watching the training of men-at-arms in the courtyard. Bronn asks about "the boy in the checkered blue surcoat with the three eyes on his shield," and Tyrion tells him the boy is named Tallad. Bronn comments that the boy is the best of the trainees, but he has spotted the weakness in his defense that "will be the death of him, the day he faces me." Tyrion observes that it's unlikely he'll face Bronn, since he's sworn to defend Joffrey.

Then he asks about the list of the day's supplicants asking favors of the king. One of them, Bronn says, is "A black brother down from the Wall. The steward says he brought some rotted hand in a jar." When he learns that the man is Ser Alliser Thorne, he recalls that he was the black brother he liked the least among those on the Wall, so he tells Bronn, "Find him a snug cell where no one has changed the rushes in a year, and let his hand rot a little more."

In the courtyard he meets Cersei on horseback with her retinue. She informs him that Renly Baratheon is on the move on the roseroad, which he already knows, and tells him, "I want you to make Father bring his army to King's Landing." When he parries her request with "When have I ever been able to make Father do anything?" she persists, nagging him about not freeing Jaime, then calls him "worse than useless" and rides off.

But Tyrion is worried more about Stannis than about Renly, or about the combination of the two self-proclaimed kings. "If Stannis attacks by sea while his brother Renly storms the gates, they'll soon be mounting Joffrey's head on a spike. Worse, mine will be beside him."

Littlefinger is waiting for him, and shows him from the window how Joffrey is shooting at hares with a crossbow -- and mostly missing. Tyrion compliments him on the "handsome knife" he wears on his belt -- the one used to implicate Tyrion in the attack on Bran. Littlefinger says it's his if he wants it. Tyrion realizes "He knows, the insolent wretch. He knows and he knows that I know, and he thinks that I cannot touch him." He's aware of Littlefinger's cleverness and deceit.

Littlefinger was no threat to anyone. A clever, smiling, genial man, everyone's friend, always able to find whatever gold the king or his Hand required, and yet of such undistinguished birth, one step up from a hedge knight, he was not a man to fear. He had no banners to call, no army of retainers, no great stronghold, no holdings to speak of, no prospects of a great marriage.

Tyrion comments that Littlefinger was "fostered at Riverrun. I've heard it said that you grew close to the Tullys." Littlefinger admits as much, claiming that he took the virginity of both Catelyn and Lysa, which Tyrion believes to be a lie, at least where Catelyn is concerned. He suggests that Littlefinger might be able to negotiate with them better than he. Littlefinger doubts that Catelyn would accept an exchange of Sansa for Jaime, but Tyrion says he has a negotiation with Lysa in mind.

"If I gave her Jon Arryn's true killer, she might think more kindly of me," he says. This gets Littlefinger's attention: Does Tyrion want her friendship, he asks, "or her swords?" He wants both, Tyrion claims. Littlefinger mentions that Lysa's lands are plagued by marauding clansmen,who are out "in greater numbers than ever before ... and better armed." "'Distressing,' said Tyrion Lannister, who had armed them." If Lysa and her son would accept Joffrey as their king and reject the claims of Renly and Stannis, Tyrion says, he would call off the marauders. And, he adds, he would give her his niece, Myrcella, as a bride for "little Lord Robert" -- "that appalling child of hers," he calls him, remembering the boy's "I want to see him fly."

So, says Littlefinger, what's in it for him if he helps persuade Cersei to go along with this plot involving her daughter? Tyrion proposes to give him Harrenhal, "one of the richest plums in the Seven Kingdoms, its lands broad and rich and fertile, its great castle as formidable as any in the realm." When he mentions this, Tyrion sees "the flash of hunger in those sly cat's eyes." So Littlefinger asks for two weeks to conclude his current affairs and to hire a ship that would take him to Gulltown, the port nearest Lysa Arryn's Eyrie.

"Two, thought Tyrion."

And then there's Varys, who enters chortling over Tyrion's tantalizing Pycelle with the secret message to Doran Martell in Dorne. Tyrion tells Varys that he has promised to deliver to Martell the men who killed his sister and her child, as well as to offer him a seat on the small council as a replacement for Janos Slynt. "In Casterly Rock, it was common knowledge that Gregor Clegane had killed Elia and her babe. They said he had raped the princess with her son's blood and brains still on his hands." Varys wonders if Tywin Lannister would give up Clegane, his foremost hired killer. Tyrion replies, "My father would be the first to tell you that fifty thousand Dornishmen are worth one rabid dog."

Varys thinks that Martell would want something more, and he guesses, correctly, that Tyrion proposes to offer Cersei's son Tommen in the bargain: "You could scarcely offer Myrcella to Doran Martell and Lysa Arryn both." Tyrion admires Varys's intelligence-gathering abilities, and says that if he can get Tommen "away from Cersei and Joffrey while he's still young, he may even grow to be a good man." And, Varys adds, "a good king" if something should happen to Joffrey: "Tommen, whose nature is so sweet and notably ... tractable."

Tyrion tells Varys he has "a suspicious mind," which Varys takes as a compliment. But Varys says "the queen might be persuaded to send away Tommen or Myrcella. But both of them? Surely not." The queen doesn't need to know of this, Tyrion says. But what if she happens to find out Tyrion's intentions "before your plans are ripe?"

Then, Tyrion says, he would know that the man who informed the queen was his enemy. "And when Varys giggled, he thought, Three."

Sansa

Sansa has found a piece of paper under her pillow that says, "Come to the godswood tonight, if you want to go home." She doesn't know who sent it or what to do about it, and thinks that she should take it to the queen to prove her loyalty. But she has been beaten for saying, when she heard that Janos Slynt was sent to the Wall, "I hope the Others get him." And she has dreamed and prayed to go home.

She knows she can't trust her servants with this secret. "The queen had her servants changed every fortnight, to make certain none of them befriended her." And she has no one to confide in or ask for advice. Septa Mordane was beheaded, and Jeyne Poole, her best friend, disappeared.

As she wonders what to do there is some kind of disturbance outside, and when she looks out the knight who guards the drawbridge over the dry moat has gone and the bridge is down. She dresses quickly and puts on a plain  gray cloak and tucks "the knife she used to cut her meat" under it. On the other side of the drawbridge, men are running about, and some of them are helping Joffrey into his armor. But he doesn't see her and she slips away.

She makes her way to the godswood, where a man comes out of the shadows. She recognizes him immediately as Ser Dontos Hollard, the drunken knight whom Joffrey had threatened to drown in a wine vat until she suggested he was only a fool. So Joffrey turned him into one, like Moon Boy. She draws her knife and, deeply disappointed, says, "I prayed to the gods for a knight to come save me.... Why would they send me a drunken old fool?" Dontos admits that he deserves the epithet, but he wanted to do something to thank her: "You saved me, not only from Joffrey, but from myself."

And then he does something more persuasive. He likens himself to a character in one of her beloved romances, Florian, a fool who redeemed himself for the love of Jonquil. She lowers the knife, realizing that this may be the only chance she gets to escape. He has knelt before her and she tells him to rise.

"Thank you, sweet lady." Ser Dontos lurched clumsily to his feet, and brushed earth and leaves from his knees. "Your lord father was as true a man as the  realm has ever known, but I stood by and let them slay him. I said nothing, did nothing ... and yet, when Joffrey would have slain me, you spoke up. Lady, I have never been a hero, no Ryam Redwyne or Barristan the Bold. I've won no tourneys, no renown in war ... but I was a knight once, and you have helped me remember what that meant. My life is a poor thing, but it is yours." 

He can't help her escape tonight, but if she will come to the godswood often, he'll help work out a plan for escape. "And if I should seem cruel or mocking or indifferent when men are watching, forgive me, child. I have a role to play, and you must do the same. One misstep and our heads will adorn the walls as did your father's." She promises to do so, kisses him on the cheek, and leaves.

As she is returning to her room, thinking of Dontos as "my Florian," a man reaches out from a doorway and grabs her wrist. It is Sandor Clegane. He is drunk, but he says, "Back to your cage, little bird. I'll take you there. Keep you safe for the king." The push he gives her is "oddly gentle." The bridge is being guarded again, so the Hound's presence is helpful. He tells her not to be afraid of Ser Boros Blount, who is the guard. "Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger." She explains to Ser Boros that she had gone to the godswood "to pray for the safely of the king."

The disturbance, he says, was some people who heard there was a wedding feast and were protesting the lack of food. Joffrey "led a sortie and sent them scurrying." After they cross the bridge and are inside, Sansa asks Clegane, "Why do you let people call you a dog?  You won't let anyone call you a knight." He tells her, "I like dogs better than knights." His grandfather was a kennelmaster whose dogs helped rescue Lord Tytos Lannister from a lioness and was knighted for it.

He has called her a little bird and has taunted her about singing a song for him. She says she knows a song about Florian and Jonquil, but he dismisses them as "A fool and his cunt." Then he warns her, "They're all liars here ... and every one better than you."

Arya

After escaping through the tunnel, Arya and Gendry had returned to the ruins of the holdfast when the soldiers seemed to have gone. But they had found only bodies, including Yoren's. Then Gendry remembered the sentries in the towerhouse, and found Cutjack, Tarber, and Kurz still alive. Their party also includes Hot Pie and Lommy, plus a little girl they had rescued earlier from the ruins of a village. Lommy has named her Weasel. Since then they have been making their way northward along the shore, surviving mostly on water and acorns, though Gendry caught a frog and Arya has eaten bugs and worms. Along the way, Kurz, who had been wounded, died. After that, Cutjack and Tarber disappeared.

Arya has climbed a tree and has sighted a village with smoke coming from the chimneys, the only sign of habitation they have seen in the deserted landscape. They decide to explore it more closely. Lommy was wounded through the calf during the fight at the holdfast, so they have constructed a litter for him, but carrying him slows them down. He keeps advising them to yield if they encounter soldiers. "That's what Yoren should have done. He should have opened the gates like they said." Hot Pie agrees, "If he'd of yielded, they would have left us be."

Gendry asks Arya what else she saw, and she says it was a fishing village, and that there were a lot of crows down by the water. "Something's dead there." Hot Pie and Arya get into an argument and Gendry shushes them because he needs to think. "He always looked pained when he tried to think, like it hurt him something fierce." Finally, he decides that he and Arya will go scout the village when it gets dark. Hot Pie protests that he can't carry Lommy if they don't come back, and that he heard wolves the night before. Arya had been awakened by them, too.

Arya has to run to keep up with Gendry, who is five years older than she is and a foot taller with long legs. When they get some distance from the others, he says, "I think Lommy's going to die." She agrees; she has felt how warm he is and smelled the infection setting in to his leg. Gendry thinks they should leave the others. "You're the only one of the bunch who's good for anything. Even if you are a girl."

Arya protests, but Gendry has caught on to her slipping off to piss. He dares her to "pull out your cock and take a piss," and she says she doesn't need to. He says if she's not a girl she must be a eunuch, and she replies, "You're the eunuch." He says, "You know I'm not.... You want me to take out my cock and prove it? I don't have anything to hide." Arya seizes on the chance to change the subject, and says that he does: Why were the gold cloaks after him? He says he doesn't know. "I think Yoren knew, but he never told me." And why did she think they were after her.

She realizes that she's been found out and that she has to trust Gendry. She makes him promise not to tell Hot Pie and Lommy, and then reveals, "My name is Arya. Of House Stark." When he realizes that "The King's Hand was named Stark. The one they killed for a traitor," she tells him that he was her father and he wasn't a traitor. Yoren was helping her escape and get home to Winterfell. Suddenly he realizes she's "a lady." His manner changes, and he seems "uncertain, almost afraid." He apologizes for talking about cocks, "And I been pissing in front of you and everything." When he keeps calling her "m'lady," she knocks him down and kicks him. "'What kind of lord's daughter are you?' he said, laughing."

She tells him to keep laughing; she's going to check out the village. He follows her, and as they get closer to the village they smell decaying flesh. She tells him to stick to the shore and she'll go see if there's a road. She looks back to see him watching her. "He's probably thinking that he shouldn't be letting m'lady go stealing food. Arya just knew he was going to be stupid now." As she gets closer to the village the stench grows stronger, and she discovers it's a gibbet with the remains of corpses in chains hanging from it. Crows are picking at what's left. She hears horses and a man's voice.

Beyond the gibbet she sees two men in armor standing in front of a building. Then she hears a shout behind her. Gendry has been captured by two spear-carrying men. They take him to the building and when they open the doors to put him inside a small boy escapes, but is captured and thrown back in. "Arya heard sobbing from inside the building, and then a shriek so loud and full of pain that it made her bite her lip."

She stays and watches as the guard changes, and men arrive with the carcass of a deer that they start to roast. She watches as men bring food to the guards. Finally, she slips from where she has been hiding and starts back to where they had left the others. "Far off, she heard the howling of wolves." She startles Lommy and Hot Pie when she returns, and Weasel runs up to her. She tells them of Gendry's capture, and says Hot Pie has to help her kill the two guards at the door. Lommy insists, as usual, that they should just yield. Finally, she persuades Hot Pie to go, and tells Lommy to keep Weasel with him. What should he do if the wolves come, Lommy asks. "'Yield,' Arya suggested."

She and Hot Pie make it back to the village, but as they are crawling past the gibbet, a crow lands on Hot Pie's back and he gasps, alerting a guard who challenges them. "Hot Pie leapt to his feet. 'I yield!" He throws down his sword and runs to the guards. Arya draws Needle as the guards surround her, but she is disarmed and when she tries to bite one of the guards he slugs her.

When she comes to she is on her knees next to Hot Pie in front of "the tallest man Arya had ever seen, a monster from one of Old Nan's stories." Then she recognizes him from the tourney at King's Landing as "the Hound's brother," Gregor Clegane. They are forced to lead the men to Lommy, who calls out "I yield" when he sees them coming. When they ask about the girl Hot Pie had told them was there, Lommy tells them she ran away.

One of the men looks at Lommy's leg and asks if he can walk. Lommy says no, "You got to carry me." The man says, "Think so?" and cuts Lommy's throat.

Tyrion

Tyrion is exploring the underground vaults where the alchemists keep their powerful weapon, wildfire. Hallyne the Pyromancer is explaining that it is stored in fragile clay jars, and that water won't extinguish it. "Once it takes fire, the substance will burn fiercely until it is no more. More, it will seep into cloth, wood, leather, even steel, so they take fire as well." And when Tyrion asks why it doesn't seep into the clay of the pots, he is told that it does. The older pots are stored in a vault beneath the one they are in, and should have been destroyed, but they don't have enough acolytes to handle the job.

Tyrion placed the jar he'd been holding back among its fellows. They covered the table, standing in orderly rows of four and marching away into the subterranean dimness. And there were other tables beyond, many other tables.

There are "seven thousand eight hundred and forty" jars, Tyrion is told, including the four thousand older ones that are more hazardous to handle. The queen has ordered ten thousand jars. The pyromancer assures Tyrion that there won't be any mishaps in handling the wildfire. "Above each work cell is a room filled entirely with sand.... Any fire in the cell below causes the floors to fall away, and the sand smothers the blaze at once." Tyrion adds, "Not to mention the careless acolyte." The pyromancer assures Tyrion that acolytes are never careless, but on the other hand, "the common soldier ... in the unthinking frenzy of battle ... any little mistake can bring catastrophe."

Tyrion is thinking that it would be a good idea to keep King Joffrey away from such toys, but the pyromancer proposes "A small demonstration of our powers, as it were, to distract His Grace from his many cares for an evening." Tyrion promises to take it up with the queen, "but Joff's fondness for making men fight to the death was trial enough; he had no intention of allowing the boy to taste the possibilities of burning them alive."

When he emerges from the caverns he finds Bronn waiting with messages that Ser Jacelyn wants to see him urgently, and that Cersei "commands you to return to the castle at once and attend her in her chambers." Tyrion decides to see Ser Jacelyn first. "The longer Cersei waits, the angrier she'll become, and anger makes her stupid. I much prefer angry and stupid to composed and cunning."

Ser Jacelyn tells Tyrion that Cleos Frey has arrived "from Riverrun under a peace banner with a letter from Robb Stark." Ser Cleos tells him that "Even with a peace banner, we were attacked twice.... Lost three men, and twice as many wounded." The countryside is in anarchy. Tyrion reads the letter: "The boy does not want too much. Only half the realm, the release of our captives, hostages, his father's sword ... oh, yes, and his sisters." Cleos tells Tyrion that Robb's "strength grows less each day. The river lords have departed, each to defend his own lands." Tyrion says, "These terms will never do." He tells Cleos that he will consult with the queen and the council and send their terms back with him. Cleos says, "I do not believe Robb Stark will yield easily. It is Lady Catelyn who wants this peace, not the boy."

Outside, on the ramparts, he tells Ser Jacelyn to make Cleos comfortable, but not to let him into the city. "It would never do to have the truth of conditions in King's Landing reach Robb Stark in Riverrun." And he adds that the alchemists will be sending a large supply of empty clay pots. He is to use them to train men to handle wildfire. They should fill the pots with green paint and have them practice loading and firing, and any man who spills the paint should be replaced. Then have them practice with lamp oil, and if they don't burn themselves they might be able to handle wildfire.

Then he heads to see Cersei, knowing that she won't be happy that he intercepted the letter from Robb Stark. But Tyrion's strategy is to keep Robb idle, buying time with negotiations while the Lannisters are raising and training an army. "Once he was ready, he and Lord Tywin could smash the Tullys and Starks between them." But that still left the Baratheon brothers to contend with.

On the way to see the queen, he comes across a man haranguing the crowd in Cobbler's Square:

"We have become swollen, bloated, foul. Brother couples with sister in the bed of kings, and the fruit of their incest capers in his palace to the piping of a twisted little monkey demon. Highborn ladies fornicate with fools and give birth to monsters! Even the High Septon has forgotten the gods!"

When he reaches his chambers he finds Cersei there. She is in a foaming rage about offering Myrcella to the Prince of Dorne. He pours himself a cup of wine, and says, "Myrcella is a princess. Some would say this is what she was born for. Or did you plan to marry her to Tommen?" Cersei knocks the cup out of his hand.

He explains the strategy to her: "Renly has taken Dorne's allegiance for granted. Myrcella is nine, Trystane Martell eleven. I have proposed they wed when she reaches her fourteenth year." She will be a hostage, Cersei says. Tyrion replies, "I suspect Martell will treat Myrcella more kindly than Joffrey has treated Sansa Stark." He mentions that he has also offered Martell his sister's killer and a seat on the council. She says, "You've offered too much, and without my authority or consent." He loses his temper and replies, "What would you have offered him, that hole between your legs?"

She slaps him, but he vows "that was the last time you will ever strike me." She retorts that their father's letter isn't enough to keep Tyrion safe. "A piece of paper. Eddard Stark had a piece of paper too, for all the good it did him." Tyrion says nothing to this, but pours himself another cup of wine and asks, "How safe do you think Myrcella will be if King's Landing falls? Renly and Stannis will mount her head beside yours."

To Tyrion's astonishment, Cersei begins to cry. He reaches out to comfort her, but she pulls away from him. "It should not have hurt, yet it did, more than any slap." He tells her he didn't mean to frighten her and promises that nothing will happen to Myrcella. But she is frustrated by the failure to liberate Jaime, and by the lack of action. She says that Renly could be at the gates any day now, and he reassures her. "From Harrenhal it is a straight, swift march down the kingsroad. Renly will scarce have unlimbered his siege engines before Father takes him in the rear. His host will be the hammer, the city walls the anvil. It makes a lovely picture."

Cersei begins to feed on these reassurances, but she is still suspicious that Tyrion should know so much about strategy and tactics. "Did Father tell you his intentions when he sent you here?" "No," he says, "I glanced at a map." She grows suspicious again, so he gives her Robb's letter, and says, "if we weren't winning, would the Starks have sued for peace?" She is affronted that he should have the letter before her, but he says, "What else is a Hand for, if not to hand you things?"

He congratulates himself that he has won her over to the idea of marrying off Myrcella, and that now he knows who the informer is.

16. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 665-728

Daenerys

The Dothraki have won a battle against the Lhazareen, a sheepherding tribe whom the Dothraki detest: "The grass of the Dothraki sea was not made for sheep." Ser Jorah tells Daenerys that Drogo slew two khals in the fighting, and suffered only "A few cuts ... nothing of consequence."

Daenerys comes across a young girl being gang-raped by Dothraki, and tells Ser Jorah to make them stop, and orders her guards, Jhogo and Qaro, to help him: "I want no rape." They are baffled by the order, even Jorah, who tells her "This is how it has always been." But Daenerys insists, and when they call off the rapists, "The riders looked at her with cold black eyes. One spat. The others scattered to their mounts, muttering." Ser Jorah pulls the man who is in the act of raping the girl off of her, and when he draws a knife, Aggo kills him with an arrow through the throat. Daenerys tells Doreah to look after the girl. As they ride through the conquered town, they come across more women being raped, and each time Daenerys claims the woman as her slave.

They find Khal Drogo beside a pile of human heads. She is distressed to find that his wounds are more severe than Jorah had told her: He has an arrow through one arm, and "his left nipple was gone, and a flap of bloody flesh and skin dangled from his chest like a wet rag." He assures her it's only a scratch. Then a warrior rides up and complains that Daenerys "has taken his spoils, a daughter of the lambs who was his to mount." Drogo asks what she has done, and when she explains tells her, "These women are our slaves now, to do with as we please." So let them take the conquered women as wives, she says, which draws the scorn of Qotho, "the cruelest of the bloodriders":  "Does the horse breed with the sheep?" She retorts: "The dragon feeds on horse and sheep alike." Drogo smiles and rules in Daenerys's favor, but when he reaches out for her he grimaces in pain.

She calls for the healers, but is told that they have been sent to tend to wounded riders. Drogo insists that the wounds aren't serious, but she can see for herself, and tells Jhogo to find the eunuchs who tend to the wounded. Then one of the women she has saved from being raped speaks up and says she can tend to him. But Qotho protests, "The khal needs no help from women who lie with sheep," and tells Aggo to cut out her tongue. Daenerys intervenes, and asks the women's name. She is Mirri Maz Duir, she says. Haggo calls her a maegi, "a woman who lay with demons and practiced the blackest of sorceries." She insists that she's a healer, and claims that she had been trained by a maester from the Seven Kingdoms.

Mia Soteriou as Mirri Maz Duur

Drogo agrees to let her remove the arrow and sew up the wound, and they go to the temple of the Lhazareen. She removes the arrow and stitches the wound after applying ointments, then covers the wound with a poultice of leaves and binds it with lambskin. She tells Drogo to say the prayers she gives him for ten days and ten nights, and that "There will be fever, and itching, and a great scar when the healing is done."

Daenerys asks Mirri Maz Duur to tend to her when she is ready to deliver.

Tyrion

Tywin informs Tyrion that Robb has succeeded in coming to terms with Frey and that his army is no more than a day away from them. Moreover, he has decided to put Tyrion and his force of mountain men in the vanguard when the armies come to battle. "Either his lord father had a new respect for Tyrion's abilities, or he'd decided to rid himself of his embarrassing get for good. Tyrion had the gloomy feeling he knew which." But he decides to face the music and say, "I'll lead your van."

His father says he isn't giving Tyrion command of his forces. Gregor Clegane will lead them. Tyrion leaves in anger and goes to his tent where Bronn has found a girl for him, "slim, dark-haired, no more than eighteen by the look of her." She says her name is Shae.

It had been nigh on a year since he'd lain with a woman, since before he had set out for Winterfell in company with his brother and King Robert. He could well die on the morrow or the day after, and if he did, he would sooner go to his grave thinking of Shae than of his lord father, Lysa Arryn, or the Lady Catelyn Stark. 

Sibel Kekilli as Shae

After she falls asleep, Tyrion goes outside and sees Bronn, who tells him he took Shae from a knight, who didn't want to give her up but was persuaded by Tyrion's name and Bronn's dirk at his throat. "I seem too recall saying find me a whore, not make me an enemy," Tyrion says, telling Bronn he hopes the knight isn't next to him in the battle. Bronn says he'll be next to him in the battle, and Tyrion says, "See that I survive this battle, and you can name your reward." He returns to the tent where Shae sees to it that he goes to sleep smiling.

He is awakened by the sound of trumpets and Shae shaking him. As he is struggling into his armor, Bronn appears and says that Robb's army surprised them by moving down the kingsroad at night and are less than a mile away. When he is armored, Shae says, "M'lord looks fearsome." He replies, "M'lord looks like a dwarf in mismatched armor," but he thanks her. When he hears the sound of the enemy's drums, he thinks about the last time he saw Robb, at Winterfell, and remembers "how the direwolves had come at him out of the shadows." He wonders if Robb brought them to war. "The thought made him uneasy."

Ser Gregor is mounted on the biggest horse he had ever seen, and Bronn says, "Always follow a big man into battle.... They make such splendid targets." Ser Gregor orders him to take the left and hold the river. "The left of the left. To turn their flank, the Starks would need horses that could run on water." He orders his clansmen to protect the river, and they raise a cry of "Halfman!" in his honor. He looks at his soldiers and compares the disorganized rabble to the "mailed fist of knights and heavy lancers" on the right flank. "'Crow food,' Bronn muttered." Robb's army appears over the hilltop, and the battle begins.

Tyrion leads his clansmen into the battle, but they soon charge past him, leaving him in their dust. He sees Ser Gregor's horse cut out from under him, but the Mountain is on his feet, wielding his greatsword. Shagga and the other clansmen fight viciously, but Tyrion is soon surrounded by the enemy. A spear lodges in his shield, and Tyrion hacks at the man's shield with his axe, then leaves him and pursues another man, whom he cuts down from behind. He feels the shock of impact in his arm. He is attacked by another man and leaves him dead. He receives a blow in the elbow that fills him with pain, and then is knocked from his horse. The knight asks him if he yields. Tyrion has no weapon, but when the horse the man is riding rears, he charges headfirst at the animal, piercing its belly with the spike on his helmet. The knight is trapped underneath the horse, with his arm twisted. He yields, and gives Tyrion his sword.

Bronn rides up and observes that the spike on Tyrion's helmet is missing. "I haven't lost it," Tyrion says. "I know just where it is." They go in search of Tyrion's horse, and when they find it the watch Tywin and his knights ride by. They find many of the clansmen dead and Shagga riddled with arrows, but not dead. Chella daughter of Cheyk rides up and shows them the four ears she had cut off of men. "Of the three hundred clansmen who had ridden to battle behind Tyrion Lannister, perhaps half had survived."

Leaving Bronn in charge of the knight he has captured, Tyrion goes to see his father. His uncle says, "Your wild men fought well." But Tyrion is more interested in his father's reaction: "'Did that surprise you, Father?' he asked. 'Did it upset your plans? We were supposed to be butchered, were we not?'" Tywin says that he put the "least disciplined" on the left with Tyrion to set a trap for Robb, "a green boy, more like to be brave than wise." The assumption was that if the left collapsed, they'd put their forces there and Ser Kevan's forces would wheel and trap them there. Tyrion says that he didn't inform him of this plan, and Tywin replies, "I am not inclined to trust my plans to a man who consorts with sellswords and savages."

His savages ruined the plan, Tyrion observes, but Tywin says, "a victory is a victory." He observes that Tyrion is wounded, but as Tyrion is asking for medical help, "Unless you relish the notion of having a one-armed dwarf for a son...." they are interrupted by the arrival of Ser Addam Marbrand, who brings the news that they have taken some of Robb's commanders, but that Robb has eluded them: "They say he crossed at the Twins with the great part of his horse, riding hard for Riverrun." Robb has outsmarted them. Tyrion "would have laughed, if he hadn't hurt so much."

Catelyn

Catelyn waits anxiously for news from the battle, sounds of which she can hear in the distance, and once she sees Jaime Lannister leading his troops. She even hears Robb's voice shouting, "To me! To me!" But then it grows silent until dawn, when she hears Grey Wolf howl.

Finally Robb appears, riding a different horse from the one he had set out on. His shield has been hacked and gouged, but he seems unharmed. And then a mob of men appears, led by Theon and the Greatjon, who are dragging Jaime Lannister between them. They throw him down in front of her, and he says, "I would offer you my sword, but I seem to have mislaid it."  It's not his sword she wants, she tells him, but her father, her brother, her daughters, and her husband.

Theon urges Robb to kill Jaime, but Robb says, "He's more use alive than dead." Catelyn tells them to put him in irons. Then she tells Robb, "You may have lopped the head off the snake, but three quarters of the body is still coiled around my father's castle. We have won a battle, not a war." Theon exults in the battle anyway, but Catelyn points out that they haven't taken Lord Tywin. "Until you do, this war is far from done."

Daenerys

Khal Drogo has grown worse: The burning and itching from the poultice Mirri Maz Duur had applied to his wound bothered him so much that he ripped it off. Finally, he falls from his horse, and Daenerys calls a halt to their march. Drogo's bloodriders resist her order, but she stands firm and calls for Mirri Maz Duur to tend to Drogo.

A tent is erected for Drogo, and Daenerys begins to face the truth of the situation: "A khal who could not ride could not rule, and Drogo had fallen from his horse." Ser Jorah confirms what she fears: "Your khal is good as dead, Princess." But Daenerys stubbornly refuses to admit defeat. Jorah urges her to leave before he dies: Even though she is carrying Drogo's child, the Dothraki will not follow a woman or an infant, and there will be a struggle for leadership. The winner will kill the baby: "Better to kill the child than to risk his fury when he grows to manhood." Drogo's bloodriders will take her to the crones, the widows of the other khals, and they will die with Drogo.

Daenery's continues to resist Jorah's advice, and when Mirri Maz Duur arrives, she sets her to work on a cure. Qotho protests, and threatens to kill Daenerys, but Jorah draws his sword to protect her: "The princess is still your khaleesi." Only while Drogo is alive, Qotho says. "When he dies, she is nothing." Qotho and his fellow bloodrider leave the tent, and Daenerys tells Jorah to put on his armor and keep watch.

After they leave, Mirri Maz Duur tells Daenerys that Drogo is "beyond a healer's skills," and that by removing the poultice he prevented it from healing him. He will be dead by morning. Daenerys pleads with her: Is there anything, some magic, that could save him? Mirri Maz Duur says there is "bloodmagic" that could work: "Only death may pay for life." Daenerys orders her to do it.

Mirri Maz Duur commands Drogo's horse to be brought to her, and she slits its throat, letting the blood spill into the bath where Drogo has been placed. She orders everyone, including Daenerys, to leave the tent: "Once I begin to sing, no one must enter the tent. My song will wake powers old and dark. The dead will dance here this night. No living man must look on them."

Outside, Daenerys waits with Jorah, who is angry with her. On the curtain walls of the tent they see shadows of figures dancing with Mirri Maz Duur inside. The Dothraki are frightened, and Cohollo, the bloodrider who had always been kind to Daenerys, spits in her face. Qotho heads for the tent, and Jorah tries to prevent him from entering. He is wounded, but finally kills Qotho. Daenerys's guards kill Haggo and Cohollo.

A stone thrown by someone in the crowd strikes Daenerys in the shoulder, but as the crowd begins to leave, she feels the pangs of labor begin. Jorah comes to her and shouts for her maids to fetch a midwife. "They will not come," he is told. "They say she is accursed." The maids tell Jorah that Mirri Maz Duur knows how to tend to childbirth. Daenerys tries to tell Jorah not to take her into the tent, but she's unable to speak, and he carries her in.

Arya

Dirty and ragged, Arya has taken to the streets of King's Landing to survive, snaring pigeons and taking them to the "pot-shops," a kind of soup kitchen. The pastries on a pushcart tempt her, but its owner warns her, "The gold cloaks know how to deal with thieving little gutter rats, that they do."

She has kept her distance from the castle, but rumors on the street have made her aware that all may not be well for her father. She knows that King Robert is dead, but not much else for sure. And though she has tried to leave the city, all the gates are carefully guarded: No one is being allowed to leave.

Her clothes and the silver bracelet she had hoped to sell were all stolen from her. She still has her wooden practice sword and Needle. At the wharf she has discovered that the ship she and Sansa were supposed to leave on is still there. She sees guardsmen wearing the colors of Winterfell and the Starks, but she takes a closer look and recognizes that they are strangers -- she is familiar with all of her father's men.

Bells begin to ring out and people start to hurry as they hear the sound. It's a "summoning" bell, someone says, and she catches up with a boy who tells her the gold cloaks are taking the Hand to the sept: "They'll be taking his head off." Four guardsmen that she recognizes ride past, and someone else says, "--the King's Hand, Lord Stark. They're carrying him up to Baelor's Sept." Arya is swept along by the crowd, and when she reaches the throng in front of the temple she looks for a way to see over the crowd. Finally she climbs up onto the plinth that supports the statue of Baelor the Blessed.

Lord Eddard stood on the High Septon's pulpit outside the doors of the sept, supported between two of the gold cloaks.... He was not standing so much as being held up; the cast over his leg was grey and rotten.... Clustered around the doors of the sept, in front of the raised marble pulpit, were a knot of knights and high lords. Joffrey was prominent among them.... His queen mother stood beside him in a black mourning gown slashed with crimson, a veil of black diamonds in her hair. Arya recognized the Hound, wearing a snowy white cloak over his dark grey armor, with four of the Kingsguard around him.... And there in the midst was Sansa.... Arya scowled, wondering what her sister was doing here, why she looked so happy. 

Her father begins to speak: "I come before you to confess my treason in the sight of gods and men." He goes on to proclaim Joffrey as "the one true heir to the Iron Throne, and by the grace of all the gods, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm." A stone comes out of the crowd and hits him in the face.

The High Septon acknowledges Ned's confession, and then asks Joffrey what is to be done with the traitor. Joffrey begins, "My mother bids me let Lord Eddard take the black, and Lady Sansa has begged mercy for her father." He looks at Sansa and smiles, then continues, "But they have the soft hearts of women. So long as I am your king, treason shall never go unpunished. Ser Ilyn, bring me his head!"

Sansa falls to her knees, screaming, as Ser Ilyn Payne comes forward with a sword. Arya leaps into the crowd and draws Needle. She sees Ser Ilyn raise the sword and recognizes it as Ice, her father's own sword. Then a hand reaches out and grabs her. She drops Needle, and a voice snarls, "Don't look!" He makes her look at him, and calls her "boy" several times. Then she recognizes him as Yoren, the member of the Night's Watch who had visited her father. He hands her Needle, then carries her away.