24. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 809-856

Tyrion

Standing for the wedding makes Tyrion extremely uncomfortable, not least because he has drunk so much wine he needs to urinate. And he is seething with his recognition that Joffrey was the one who sent the assassin to kill Bran: Jaime would have taken care of the job himself, and Cersei would never have used a weapon that could be traced to her. But he still hasn't figured out a motive other than "Simple cruelty, perhaps." He wishes now that he hadn't indicated to Joffrey that he knew about the dagger. "My big mouth will be the death of me, I swear it."

After the ceremony, as they are riding back in the litter, Tyrion suggests to Sansa that they go to Casterly Rock for a while. It would get him away from Joffrey and Cersei, and he tells her about the places there he knew as a boy. But her responses to the suggestion are cold and distant: "Yes, my lord. As you wish."

He relieves himself and begins to change for the wedding feast, thinking gloomily about the coming reign of King Joffrey, especially after he comes of age:  "who would be mad enough to contest Joffrey's rule now, after what had befallen Stannis Baratheon and Robb Stark?" He decides to get very drunk at the feast. He goes to Sansa's bedchamber where "Shae had arranged her hair artfully in a delicate silver net winking with dark purple gemstones." Shae begs Sansa to let her accompany her to serve at the table. "I so want to see the pigeons fly out of the pie." But Sansa has to tell her that Cersei has already chosen the servers, and Tyrion adds that "the hall will be too crowded."

On the way to the feast, they exchange courtesies with other guests, and Lady Olenna Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns, comes up to Sansa and says, "The wind has been at your hair." Then she reaches up and straightens Sansa's hair net.

Joffrey and Margaery ride into the throne room on a pair of white horses. Sansa and Tyrion are seated to the right of the king, next to Ser Garlan Tyrell and his wife, Leonette. There are a dozen others between them and Joffrey, which doesn't bother Tyrion at all, even though by rights, as the king's former Hand, he should have been much closer. The first of the seventy-seven courses, a soup of mushrooms and snails, is served. Tyrion thinks, "Seventy-seven dishes, while there are still starving children in this city, and men who would kill for a radish." Tyrion finishes the soup quickly, glad to have something on his stomach beside the wine he has been drinking all day. Sansa, however, only tastes it and pushes it away.

The first of the seven singers appears, and sings a song celebrating the aid of Renly's ghost in defeating Stannis. He also includes "The Rains of Castamere" among his songs. Then there is a dancing bear, Moon Boy chases Butterbumps on stilts, and a troupe of Pentoshi tumblers, as the other courses are served. Another singer appears, and again his songs include "The Rains of Castamere." Tyrion asks Sansa which singer she preferred, and she says, "I'm sorry, my lord. I was not listening."

She was not eating, either. "Sansa, is aught amiss?" He spoke without thinking, and instantly felt the fool. All her kin are slaughtered and she's wed to me, and I wonder what's amiss."

Pryomancers do tricks with fire and a juggler juggles swords and axes, and then another singer comes in with a ballad about the Battle of the Blackwater. Tyrion grumbles, "If I am ever Hand again, the first thing I'll do is hang all the singers," which makes Lady Lyonette laugh. The song goes on for seventy-seven verses, and by the time it ends, Grand Maester Pycelle has fallen asleep, and two of the guests get into a drunken fight in which one stabs the other.

Then Joffrey gets to his feet and calls out drunkenly, "Bring on my royal jousters!" The doors open and two dwarfs, one mounted on a dog and the other on a pig, enter, struggling with their lances and shields. The crowds hoots with laughter -- "even Lord Tywin looked mildly amused." Sansa, however, is not laughing, which pleases Tyrion. He decides not to blame the dwarfs and to be gracious about it and to give them each a purse of silver when it is all over. "And come the morrow, I will find whoever planned this little diversion and arrange for a different sort of thanks."

The combat of the dwarfs becomes more and more grotesque, and the laughter more raucous. "Joffrey was snorting wine from both nostrils." He proclaims one of the dwarfs champion, and then calls for a new challenger. He turns to Tyrion and calls out, "Uncle! You'll defend the honor of my realm, won't you? You can ride the pig!" Tyrion finds himself standing on the table saying to Joffrey, "I'll ride the pig ... but only if you ride the dog!" Joffrey is confused, and says, "Me? I'm no dwarf. Why me?" Whereupon Tyrion replies, "Why you're the only man in the hall that I'm certain of defeating!"

Laughter echoes through the hall and Joffrey's expression turns to one of "blind rage." Tyrion hops down from the table as Joffrey is helped down by Ser Osmund and Ser Meryn. Noticing Cersei's glare, Tyrion blows her a kiss. The musicians start to play again, and Tyrion calls for another cup of wine. But Ser Garlan alerts him that Joffrey is headed his way.

Joffrey is carrying the huge golden wedding chalice that he had been given, and he empties its contents on Tyrion's head. Ser Garlan says, "That was ill done, Your Grace." But Tyrion holds his temper and tries to defuse the situation: "Not every king would think to honor a humble servant by serving him from his own royal chalice. A pity the wine spilled." Joffrey's pride and humorlessness won't let him acknowledge Tyrion's graceful step-down: "It didn't spill.... And I wasn't serving you, either."

Margaery, however, is on top of the situation and steers him back to his seat, telling him another singer is about to perform. Lady Olenna Tyrell is there, too, and says, "I do so hope he plays us 'The Rains of Castamere.' It has been an hour. I've forgotten how it goes." Margaery says that Ser Addam wants to propose a toast, and Joffrey says he doesn't have any wine. He tells Tyrion to be his cupbearer, and Tyrion replies, "I would be most honored." Once again, Joffrey proves incapable of irony:

"It's not meant to be an honor!" Joffrey screamed. "Bend down and pick up my chalice." Tyrion did as he was bid, but as he reached for the handle Joff kicked the chalice through his legs. "Pick it up! Are you as clumsy as you are ugly?" He had to crawl under the table to find the thing. "Good, now fill it with wine." He claimed a flagon from a serving girl and filled the goblet three-quarters full. "No, on your knees, dwarf." Kneeling, Tyrion raised up the heavy cup, wondering if he was about to get a second bath. But Joffrey took the wedding chalice one-handed, drank deep, and set it on the table. "You can get up now, Uncle."

Joffrey and Cersei laugh as Tyrion struggles to stand, but Lord Tywin coolly directs Joffrey's attention to the great dove-filled pie that is now being brought in. "Your sword is needed."

Joffrey draws his sword, but Margaery suggests that "Widow's Wail was not meant for slicing pies," so Joffrey asks for Ser Ilyn Payne to bring his sword. Sansa breaks her long silence and asks, "What has Ser Ilyn done with my father's sword?" Tyrion thinks, "I should have sent Ice back to Robb Stark." When the sword cuts through the pie crust, the doves fly from it to everyone's delight.

The servers bring the guests slices of hot pigeon pie with spoonfuls of lemon cream. But neither Tyrion nor Sansa has an appetite for it, and Tyrion suggests that she get some fresh air while he changes into a dry doublet. But he attracts Joffrey's notice and is forbidden to leave. "Serve me my wine," Joffrey orders. Tyrion has to stand on a chair to reach the big chalice, and Joffrey downs the wine greedily, some of it running down his chin. Margaery tries to get him to go back to his place for another toast, but Joffrey notices Tyrion's untouched pigeon pie, thrusts his hand into it, and wolfs it down.

He begins to cough, and takes another swallow of wine. The coughing grows worse. Margaery cries out, "He's choking," and the Queen of Thorns calls out for someone to help. Ser Garlan pounds Joffrey on the back and Ser Osmund Kettleblack opens his collar. "Joffrey began to claw at his throat, his nails tearing bloody gouges in the flesh. Beneath the skin, the muscles stood out as hard as stone. Prince Tommen was screaming and crying."

Tyrion realizes, "He is going to die." There is chaos all around, people either shoving to get a better view of the dying king or hurrying to leave the hall. Joffrey's eyes meet Tyrion's, and Tryion realizes that he has Jaime's eyes. "The boy's only thirteen," he thinks. He turns and looks for Sansa, but she isn't there anymore. He sees the wedding chalice, which has fallen on the floor. There is still half an inch of wine in it. "Tyrion considered it for a moment, then poured it on the floor."

He hears Cersei's scream, and he goes toward her. She is cradling Joffrey's body, but when Lord Tywin asks her to let him go, she clings tighter, so that it takes two men of the Kingsguard to pry her fingers loose. Margaery Tyrell is being consoled by her mother, who says, "He choked on the pie. It was naught to do with you."

"He did not choke," Cersei says. "My son was poisoned." And she orders Loras Tyrell to arrest Tyrion and Sansa.

Sansa

Joffrey was still alive when Sansa fled the throne room, but now she hears a bell begin to toll. She had hidden a change of clothing in the godswood, and she struggles to get out of her wedding finery, which she stuffs into a hole in an oak tree. Ser Dontos had told her to dress warmly in dark clothing. She also removes the silver hair net, and notices that one of the black amethysts is missing. This causes a moment of panic that she can't explain to herself except  that Ser Dontos had told her the net was magic.

There is a noise, and she calls out "Who's there?" It is Dontos, who is staggering drunk. In response to her question about the amethysts, he assures her that they were just gemstones. She persists: "There was murder in them!" But he reassures her that Joffrey "choked on his pigeon pie." She accuses him of poisoning Joffrey with a stone that he took from the net, but he denies it and urges her to come away with him. "Your husband's been arrested."

She turns her suspicions on Tyrion, who she knew hated Joffrey, and wonders if he knew about the hair net, and "How could you make someone choke by putting an amethyst in their wine?" And then she realizes that if Tyrion had done it, she might be implicated as well.

She follows Dontos through the castle to a secret exit and then finds herself at the top of a sheer wall. Dontos tells her that a man with a boat it waiting below to row them to the ship. "There's a sort of ladder, a secret ladder, carved into the stone." (The reader's suspicions may be aroused by this detail: Littlefinger once conducted Sansa's father down the same secret steps.) Terrified, Sansa follows Dontos down the steps, clinging to the face of the wall. Fifty yards downriver, they find the waiting boat, which glides through the wreckage at the mouth of the river and out into Blackwater Bay.

When they reach the ship, a rope ladder is lowered and she climbs, followed by the oarsman. Ser Dontos stays in the boat. When she is helped on board, she hears a familiar voice say, "She's cold." And then she sees his face: Lord Petyr Baelish, Littlefinger, is standing there with Ser Lothor Brune. From the boat, Dontos calls out that he needs to row back and is waiting for his payment. Littlefinger tells Lothor to give Dontos his "reward," and Lothor signals to three men who step forward with crossbows and kill Dontos, then Lothor tosses a torch into the boat and sets it ablaze.

Sansa cries out in protest that Dontos had saved her, but Littlefinger says,

"He sold you for a promise of ten thousand dragons. Your disappearance will make them suspect you in Joffrey's death. The gold cloaks will hunt, and the eunuch will jingle his purse. Dontos ... well, you heard him. He sold you for gold, and when he'd drunk it up he would have sold you again. A bag of dragons buys a man's silence for a while, but a well-placed quarrel [i.e., arrow] buys it forever." He smiled sadly. "All he did he did at my behest. I dared not befriend you openly. When I heard how you saved his life at Joff's tourney, I knew he would be the perfect catspaw."

He quotes from the note she had been sent: "Come to the godswood tonight if you want to go home," and she realizes that it had always been Littlefinger's scheme. Moreover, it was Littlefinger who had engineered the jousting dwarfs at the wedding, over Joffrey's objection: "His Grace said, 'Why would I want some ugly dwarfs at my feast? I hate dwarfs.' I had to take him by the shoulder and whisper, 'Not as much as your uncle will.'"

Sansa says, "They think Tyrion poisoned Joffrey," and Littlefinger replies, "Widowhood will become you, Sansa." But though she realizes that she ought to feel good about being freed from her marriage to Tyrion, she is uneasy about it. He shows her to her cabin, and tells her that his rescuing her is his gambit in the game of thrones. Besides, he had loved her mother, and "In a better world," she might have been his daughter, not Ned Stark's. "Put Joffrey from your mind, sweetling. Dontos, Tyrion, all of them. They will never trouble you again. You are safe now, that's all that matters. You are safe with me, and sailing home."

Jaime

He hears the news of Joffrey's death at an inn on the way to King's Landing. "They rode hard the next day, at Jaime's insistence. His so was dead, and his sister needed him." He wonders why he feels so little emotion at his son's death, and acknowledges that he "had seen him born, that was true, though more for Cersei than the child. But he had never held him," and Joffrey always believed Robert Baratheon was his father. He is more than ever determined that he will marry Cersei openly.

He rides back to talk to Brienne, who is mourning for Catelyn and Robb far more deeply than he is for Joffrey.

The strength is gone from her. The woman had dropped a rock on Robin Ryger, battled a bear with a tourney sword, bitten off Vargo Hoat's ear, and fought Jaime to exhaustion ... but she was broken now, done. "I'll speak to my father about returning you to Tarth, if it please you," he told her. "Or if you would rather stay, I could perchance find some place for you at court." 

She rejects the latter offer.

They ride into the city, but he is so changed that no one recognizes him until they enter the Red Keep and Ser Meryn Trant rides up. Jaime chides Meryn, "How many monarchs have you lost since I left the city? Two, is it?" Then Ser Balon Swann notices Jaime's missing hand. Jaime tells him, "I fight with my left now. It makes for more of a contest." He asks where he can find his father, and is told that he is meeting with Mace Tyrell and Prince Oberyn, a combination that surprises Jaime. And he asks about Cersei, who is praying in the sept over Joffrey's body.

But his inquiries are interrupted when Loras Tyrell notices Brienne in their company. He strides toward her and asks why she killed Renly. Loras doesn't believe her story about the shadow, and challenges her to combat. Jaime intervenes, but Loras ignores him until Jaime pulls rank: "I am the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, you arrogant pup." And he tells him to put his sword away "or I'll take it from you and shove it up some place even Renly never found." Loras puts his sword away but demands that Brienne be arrested. Jaime has her put in a tower cell under guard, then turns and goes toward the sept.

At the door another unfamiliar member of the Kingsguard challenges him, and only after a rebuke recognizes him. He begs Jaime's pardon for the error and introduces himself as Ser Osmund Kettleblack. Jaime tells him to make sure that no one else enters the sept while he is there with his sister. Cersei is kneeling at the altar of the Mother, but rises and embraces him. She comments on how thin he is, and about his shaven head, then is shocked when he displays the stump where his hand once was.

She turns to Joffrey's bier and says that Tyrion killed him, "Just as he'd warned me. One day when I thought myself safe and happy he would turn my joy to ashes in my mouth, he said." She says, "You'll kill him for me, won't you? You'll avenge our son." But Jaime is not so quick to believe in Tyrion's guilt and says he wants to know more. She says he'll hear more at the trial. Then she kisses him and says, "I am not whole without you." He returns the kiss passionately, and though she protests that the septons might enter, "he knocked the candles aside and lifted her up onto the Mother's altar, pushing up her skirts and the silken shift beneath." When he tears away her underclothes he sees that she is menstruating, but that proves no deterrent.

Afterward, he wipes away the blood on the altar with his sleeve and they replace the candles. She tells him they must be careful, but he says he's "sick of being careful." He wants to marry her, the way the Targaryens married brothers and sisters. But she is much more cautious, and reminds him that "Tommen's throne derives from Robert." She tells him he's scaring her, and when he touches her cheek with his stump, out of the habit of using his right hand, she recoils. Backing off, she tells him that they'll talk about it later, that she has to question Sansa's maids, and that he should go see his father.

"I crossed a thousand leagues to come to you," he says, "and lost the best part of me along the way. Don't tell me to leave." She replies, "Leave me," and turns away.

He goes to see his father, and is pleased to find him alone, not wanting "to flaunt his maimed hand for Mace Tyrell or the Red Viper." But when he shows it to his father, "Lord Tywin pushed himself out of his chair, breath hissing between his teeth. "Who did this?" Jaime tells him it was Vargo Hoat, and Tywin reports that Gregor Clegane has taken Harrenhal and "found Hoat sitting alone in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths, half-made with pain and fever from a wound that festered. His ear, I'm told." This delights Jaime, who can't wait to tell Brienne, though he knows she won't find it as funny as he does. Hoat's feet and hands have been cut off, but he isn't dead yet because "Clegane seems amused by the way the Qohorik slobbers."

Jaime asks about Joffrey's death, and Tywin seems to think that Tyrion poisoned him. "It was meant to appear as though he choked on a morsel of food, but I had his throat slit open and the maesters could find no obstruction." Jaime observes that it seems "rather foolish" of Tyrion to have poisoned Joffrey "with a thousand people looking on," but Tywin assures him, "The king's justice will be done." Jaime doesn't much believe in the power of evidence in "this city of liars," and when Tywin repeats the belief that "Lord Renly was murdered by one of his own guards, some woman from Tarth," Jaime repeats his belief in Brienne's innocence.

Tywin looks at the stump again and says, "You cannot serve in the Kingsguard without a sword hand," but Jaime insists that he can and will. He has a duty to do so. But his father counters,

"You do." Lord Tywin rose as well. "A duty to House Lannister. You are the heir to Casterly Rock. That is where you should be. Tommen should accompany you, as your ward and squire. The Rock is where he'll learn to be a Lannister, and I want him away from his mother. I mean to find a new husband for Cersei. Oberyn Martell perhaps, once I convince Lord Tyrell that the match does not threaten Highgarden. And it is past time you were wed. The Tyrells are now insisting that Margaery be wed to Tommen, but if I were to offer you instead--" 

Jaime lets out a thunderous "NO!" He insists, "The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard! And that's all I mean to be!" Tywin maintains an icy silence, which Jaime endures for as long as he can stand, but when he breaks it with, "Father...," Tywin says, "You are not my son." If he wants to be "the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, and only that," so be it. 

11. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 382-412

Sansa

Being fitted for her new dress delights Sansa and fills her head with more romantic notions about Willas, the man she expects to marry. Then Cersei enters and surveys how Sansa looks, and suggests she wear the moonstones Joffrey had given her. Once that is added, she nods approvingly and says, "Yes. The gods have been kind to you, Sansa. You are a lovely girl. It seems almost obscene to squander such sweet innocence on that gargoyle."

Sansa is puzzled, and when Cersei adds a maiden's cloak -- a garment apparently worn by a bride -- to the outfit, she is terrified. Then Cersei says the septon and the wedding guests are waiting, and Sansa cries out "No." It's then that she learns she is about to be married to Tyrion. She thinks then that she should have taken Ser Dontos's advice and fled, but when she tries to run she is stopped. Ser Meryn Trant and Ser Osmund Kettleblack are there to escort her. Cersei tells them to carry her if they have to, but be careful with the gown -- "it was very costly."


When Ser Osmund tells her, "almost gently," to be brave: "Wolves are supposed to be brave, aren't they?" She pulls herself together and reminds herself that it was Tyrion who saved her from being beaten. When Joffrey meets her and says, "I'm your father today," she bristles and talks back to him, so he bullies her by reminding her that he can marry her off to "the pig boy" if he wants to. She begs Joffrey not to marry her to Tyrion, but just as she is doing so, Tyrion himself appears and asks if he may speak to her privately.


He takes her aside and tells her that he is sorry to be doing this, especially so suddenly, but his father "felt it necessary, for reasons of state." He tells her she has to marry either him or his cousin Lancel, whom he knows to be still recovering from his wounds and may not live. She doesn't want to marry any Lannister, but knows she has no choice in the matter. "You were kind to me, I remember," she tells him, and they go off to be married.


At the ceremony, she realizes that none of the Tyrells are present, having been thwarted in their plans to marry her to Willas. Joffrey cops a feel as he removes her maiden's cloak. Tyrion is a foot and a half shorter than she is, and when it comes time for him to place his cloak on her as a sign of his protection, he is unable to reach high enough. He tugs on her skirt, a suggestion that she kneel, but she stubbornly ignores him: "Why should I spare his feelings, when no one cares about mine?" she thinks. The guests begin laughing and Joffrey orders Ser Dontos to get down on his hands and knees. "And so it was that her lord husband cloaked her in the colors of House Lannister whilst standing on the back of a fool."


When she sees the look on Tyrion's face, however, she is ashamed, and she kneels in front of him as they exchange a kiss. Still, when the septon pronounces them wed, "She had to bite her lip to keep from sobbing."


The Tyrells are at the wedding feast, but only Margaery acknowledges her, giving her "a sad look." The Queen of Thorns never looks at her, and the other women and girls she had thought of as friends ignore her completely. She sits there, not tasting the food, dreading the custom known as "the bedding," in which she would be carried to the marriage bed by the men, who would undress her along the way, making ribald jokes, while the women performed the same task with Tyrion. When the dancing starts, she asks Tyrion if he wants to lead the dance with her, but he replies, "I think we have already given them sufficient amusement for one day, don't you?" She sits there with him, watching the others dance, until Ser Galan Tyrell asks if he may dance with her.


Ser Galan not only dances with her but also conveys the sympathies of the Tyrells. He adds, too, that he has noticed how she looks at his brother, the Knight of Flowers, and tells her, "Loras is valiant and handsome, and we all love him dearly ... but your Imp will make a better husband. He is a bigger man than he seems, I think." It's another glance at Loras's still-veiled homosexuality. The motions of the dance bring her into contact with others, and finally with Joffrey, who says, "You shouldn't look so sad. My uncle is an ugly little thing, but you'll still have me." When she protests that he's marrying Margaery, he says he can still "have other women," and "My uncle will bring you to my bed whenever I command it." She stumbles through the rest of the dance, and then Joffrey proclaims, "It's time to bed them! Let's get the clothes off, and have a look at what the she-wolf's got to give my uncle!"


Tyrion, who has been drinking all the while, looks up and says, "I'll have no bedding." Joffrey says that he will if he commands it, and Tyrion drives his dagger into the table and says, "Then you'll service your own bride with a wooden prick. I'll geld you, I swear it." Sansa pulls away from Joffrey, ripping her sleeve, and Cersei whispers to her father, "Did you hear him?" But Lord Tywin rises and says, "I believe we can dispense with the bedding. Tyrion, I am certain you did not mean to threaten the king's royal person." Tyrion apologizes and says he made a bad joke because he envied Joffrey's "royal manhood. Mine own is so small and stunted." And if Joffrey cuts out his tongue he "will leave me no way at all to pleasure this sweet wife you gave me."


There is uneasy laughter, and Tywin excuses Tyrion on the ground of obvious drunkenness. Tyrion grabs Sansa and makes some bawdy jokes, then they leave quickly. Alone in the bridal chamber, Tyrion asks for another cup of wine, saying, "I am not truly drunk, you see. But I mean to be." Sansa pours herself a cup, hoping that things will go easier if she is drunk too. Tyrion tells her how different this wedding was from his first, and then asks Sansa how old she is. She says she will be thirteen "when the moon turns," and Tyrion is shocked at how young she is, but says, "Shall we get on with this, my lady?" He tells her, "My lord father has commanded me to consummate this marriage."


She clumsily undresses, and when she finally looks at him, "There was hunger in his green eye, it seemed to her, and fury in the black. Sansa did not know which scared her more." He says, "You're a child," and she says she has "flowered." He tells her that "abed, when the candles are blown out, I am made no worse than other men. In the dark, I am the Knight of Flowers." He is also, he says, generous and loyal, he has proved he is not a coward, and he is "cleverer than most." "Kindness is not a habit with us Lannisters, I fear, but I know I have some somewhere."


"He is as frightened as I am, Sansa realized." But she realizes that all she feels for him is "pity, and pity was death to desire." He tells her to get in bed, "We need to do our duty." She lies there with her eyes closed as he undresses, and shudders when his hand touches her breast. Then he tells her to open her eyes, and she sees him sitting there, naked and erect. But he tells her, "I cannot do this." He will wait, no matter what his father says, "Until you have come to know me better, and perhaps to trust me a little." And when she asks, "And if I never want you to, my lord?" he recoils for a moment and then says "that is why the gods made whores for imps like me" and leaves the bed.


Arya


They have reached the town of Stoney Sept, where Harwin says Arya's father won a battle known as the Battle of the Bells because the septons rang the bells to warn people to stay indoors. The town shows signs of more recent fighting, and it's only when the gatekeeper recognizes them that he opens a portal for them. They hear from the captain of the gate about the atrocities that have been committed in and around the town, and of the outlaw known as the Huntsman who is looking for revenge on the Lannisters for the rape of his wife and sister, the torching of his crops, and the killing of six of his dogs, whose bodies were thrown down his well.


In the marketplace there are a dozen "crow cages" in which naked men are held, unable to sit or lie or to defend themselves against the attacks of the crows, until they die. They were caught by the Huntsman, and when Arya hears that they are men loyal to Robb she is shocked. As they pass, some of the living men in the cages beg for water. Arya gets down from her horse and goes to the fountain to take a cup to one of them. A townsman protests, but Harwin says to let her be, and Lem says that Beric Dondarrion "don't hold with caging men to die of thirst." Gendry gives her a boost as she lets them drink by pouring the water on them. Then Anguy takes his bow and arrow and puts all of the prisoners out of their misery. "Valar morghulis," Arya thinks.


There is an inn on the market square, and "The buxom red-haired innkeep howled with pleasure at the sight of them," greeting most of the men by name. She spots Gendry, and comments on his strong arms, making him blush. Tom Stevenstrings says, "Tansy, you leave the Bull alone, he's a good lad." They are welcomed into the inn where Arya notices that there are "more serving wenches than any inn could want, and most of them young and comely. And come evenfall, lots of men started coming and going at the Peach." Tansy has two of the women carry Arya off to be bathed and then dressed "like one of Sansa's dolls in linen and lace" before they allow her to sit down and eat.


Arya whispers to Gendry, "I bet this is a brothel," which makes him blush again and say, "A brothel's no place for a highborn lady." One of the girls overhears this and says she's "a king's daughter.... They say King Robert fucked my mother when he hid here, back before the battle."

The girl did have hair like the old king's, Arya thought, a great thick mop of it, as black as coal. That doesn't mean anything, though. Gendry has the same kind of hair, too. Lots of people have black hair.

Her name is Bella, she says, and she tries to get Gendry to go with her. But he refuses and goes outside.  She overhears Tansy telling Lem and Harwin that Catelyn "and this other wench, the one who slew Renly" had spend the night in Jaime's cell, and that the next morning "Lady Catelyn cut him loose for love." To herself Arya denies that it's true, and feels "sad and angry and lonely, all at once." Then a drunken man sits down beside her, taking her for one of the prostitutes, but Gendry returns and scares him away by saying she's his sister. Arya is angry, not because he saved her from the man's attentions but because he said he was her brother. This makes Gendry angry: "I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high." She denies that that's how she meant it, but he tells her to go away, and she does.


In the room at the top of the house where they sleep, she gets out of the linen and lace and into her tunic, then lies down to sleep.

She dreamed of wolves that night, stalking through a wet wood with the smell of rain and rot and blood thick in the air. Only they were good smells in the dream, and Arya knew she had nothing to fear. She was strong and swift and fierce, and her pack was all around her, her brothers and her sisters. They ran down a frightened horse together, tore its throat out, and feasted. And when the moon broke through the clouds, she threw back her head and howled.

She wakes in the morning to the barking of dogs. There are dozens of them in the square, and a dozen riders open the crow cage and pull the fat man out of it and feed him to the dogs. One of the men says, "Here's your new castle, you bloody Lannister bastard" to a bound prisoner.


The noise wakes the others, and Tom says, "The Mad Huntsman's come back with another man for the cages." Arya says she heard them say he was a Lannister, and Gendry asks if they have caught the Kingslayer. Then Arya recognizes the prisoner. "The gods had heard her prayers after all."


Jon


Ghost is still gone when the party begins to scale the Wall. The forest grows right up next to it, giving them a start on the climb. Jon notices that the Thenns are increasingly uneasy as they get nearer to the Wall. "They have never seen the Wall before, not even the Magnar, Jon realized. It frightens them." But Jarl and his group are not afraid, having made the climb before. There are a dozen of them, including Jarl, and he divides them into three teams of four. He tells them that Mance has promised a sword for each of the members of the first team to reach the top.


Jarl's team climbs a tree that has grown up next to the Wall, and Jon watches as Jarl moves from the treetop onto the side of the Wall, then kicks toeholds in the surface of the ice with his spike-tipped boots. Using hammers, axes, and iron stakes, the first two men begin climbing the Wall while the third is just reaching the top of the tree. The other two teams are farther behind, not having found trees that were so well-placed.


Styr complains that they're not climbing fast enough and worries that they'll be spotted by a patrol of the Watch. Jon knows that climbing ice is harder than climbing stone and that the blocks of which the Wall is composed may be frozen solid, but their surfaces are wet and slick and that air gets trapped when the ice refreezes, making it fragile. They hit bad ice around noon when a piece that Jarl has looped his rope around gives way and big chunks fall on the climbers in his team. But they hold on, and Jarl is left dangling below the team until he regains a handhold.


The team led by Grigg the Goat catches up with Jarl's team. The four led by Errok are still behind. Jarl's and Grigg's teams move up side by side, but after six hours Jarl has moved ahead again. But then there is a loud crack and "a sheet of ice a foot thick and fifty feet square broke off from the Wall and came tumbling, crumbling, rumbling sweeping all before it." The ice landed even were Jon was watching, and he pulls Ygritte down to shield her from it. A chunk of ice breaks the nose of one of the Thenns. Jarl and his team have disappeared.


They find Jarl impaled on a splintered tree branch and the three other men still roped to him. One of them is still alive, but so badly injured that one of the Thenns responds to his plea of "Mercy" by putting him out of misery with a blow to the head from a stone mace. They gather wood and build a pyre. "The dead were burning when Grigg the Goat reached the top of the Wall. By the time Errok's four had joined them, nothing remained of Jarl and his team but bone and ash."


As the sun is setting, the teams on top of the wall lower ropes, which are attached to rope ladders that are uncasked below. The Thenns begin the climb, and by midnight Jon and Ygritte have joined them at the top. Two of the Thenns have fallen from the ladder, but they are the only other casualties of the climb.

6. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 188-226

Catelyn

Robb has arrived at Riverrun, and Catelyn is eagerly awaiting her son. She can't go to meet him because she is still denied the run of the castle, and the return of Ser Robin Ryger after his boat was sunk by Brienne, foiling the recapture of Jaime, has only put her in more disrepute. Moreover, some news has come that caused a stir, making about forty men leave the castle in what seems to be anger, but no one will tell her what it was.

Finally the summons comes to meet Robb in the Great Hall. It's crowded when she arrives, and she has an uneasy feeling as she moves through the crowd. Robb, on the dais, looks harder and leaner and battle-worn, but also regal. There are several people on the dais she doesn't recognize, including Robb's squire. She wonders if they are prisoners, but realizes that they wouldn't be on the dais with Robb. As she approaches him, "it seemed to her that it was not anger she saw in her son's eyes, but something else ... apprehension, perhaps? No, that made no sense. What should he fear? He was the Young Wolf, King of the Trident and the North."

Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, comes down from the dais and hugs her, and Robb greets her as "Mother." He tells her about the wound, an arrow through the arm, that he suffered, and assures her that it has healed. And she says, "They will have told you what I did. Did they tell you my reasons?" He knows it was an attempt to rescue his sisters, and she says, "I had five children. Now I had three."

But Lord Rickard Karstark comes forward to remind her of his sons, killed by Jaime, and to say, "You have robbed me of my vengeance." Jon Umber, the Greatjon, interposes himself between Catelyn and Karstark to say, "It was a woman's folly. Women are made that way," but Karstark rejects that excuse: "I name it treason." Robb cries out, "Enough," and Catelyn tells Karstark she "would gladly make amends" for what she did. But Karstark is not satisfied, and leaves the hall angrily.

Robb tells her they must talk and signals for the steward, Utherydes Wayn, to dismiss the audience. As the company leaves, she realizes what she has been missing in the hall: Grey Wind, Robb's direwolf, is not there. Finally she is there with only Robb, her three uncles, and the six strangers she had seen on the dais. Robb presents the Lady Sybell Westerling, her brother Ser Rolph Spicer, her son Ser Raynald Westerling, his sister Elenya, his brother and Robb's new squire Rollam Westerling. And finally a shy young woman: "'Mother,' he said, 'I have the great honor to present you the Lady Jeyne Westerling, Lord Gawen's elder daughter, and my ... ah ... my lady wife.'"

Catelyn thinks first that Robb's only a child, second that he is already pledged to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's daughters, and third, "Mother have mercy, Robb, what have you done?" But she has no choice except to welcome her new daughter-in-law, and to remember that the girl is now a queen. At least, she observes, she has "good hips" and "should have no trouble bearing children, at least."

When the Westerlings have left, Catelyn observes that Lady Jeyne's father, Lord Gawen, is sworn to Tywin Lannister and is now imprisoned by Jason Mallister, held as a hostage at Seagard. "We wed without his consent, I fear," Robb admits, "and this marriage puts him in dire peril." She also observes that by the marriage, he has lost the allegiance of the Freys, and asks how many swords he gained by the marriage.

"Fifty. A dozen knights." His voice was glum, as well it might be. When the marriage contract had been made at the Twins, old Lord Walder Frey had sent Robb off with a thousand mounted knights and near three thousand foot. "Jeyne is bright as well as beautiful. And kind as well. She has a gentle heart."

Catelyn is flummoxed by what she sees as Robb's stupidity, but she just asks him "how this came to be." He replies that when they took the Crag, the Westerling castle, he was wounded and the wound festered. Jeyne nursed him through the fever, and when the news came of the fall of Winterfell and the deaths of Bran and Rickon, "That night, she ... she comforted me, Mother." "And you wed her the next day," Catelyn says.

Robb insists that "It was the only honorable thing to do" and that he's "made a botch of everything but the battles." She agrees that he has: "Not only have you broken your oath, but you've slighted the honor of the Twins by choosing a bride from a lesser house." Robb replies that the Westerlings are "an ancient line, descended from the First Men," but Catelyn says this will only make Lord Walder angrier: "It has always rankled him that older houses look down on the Freys as upstarts."

Brynden Blackfish diplomatically interrupts these recriminations and suggests that they go somewhere more private. As they are leaving, she asks Robb where Grey Wind is. He says he is outside, and that "Jeyne's anxious around him, and he terrifies her mother." This doesn't make Catelyn feel any better about the marriage: "He is part of you, Robb. To fear him is to fear you." And when he tells her that Grey Wind bares his teeth when Jeyne's uncle, Ser Rolph, come around, Catelyn is even more concerned: "Send Ser Rolph away. At once." When Robb resists, she insists:

"Robb." She stopped and held his arm. "I told you once to keep Theon Greyjoy close, and you did not listen. Listen now. Send this man away. I am not saying you must banish him. Find some task that requires a man of courage, some honorable duty, what it is matters not ... but do not keep him near you.... Any man Grey Wind mislikes is a man I do not want close to you. These wolves are more than wolves, Robb. You must know that. I think perhaps the gods sent them to us. Your father's gods, the old gods of the north. Five wolf pups, Robb, five for five Stark children."

Robb reminds her there was a sixth, for Jon, whom Catelyn has conveniently omitted. And he argues that he stopped believing in the wolves when he heard of Bran and Rickon's deaths: "Small good their wolves did them." But he agrees that he'll find some pretext for sending Ser Rolph away, "Not because of his smell, but to ease your mind. You have suffered enough."

When they are in private, it is Edmure Tully's turn to be scolded, first by the Blackfish and then by Robb. Edmure had been commanded only to defend Riverrun, and not to wage a campaign against the Lannisters at the fords, which Edmure had been boasting about. Robb's aim had not been to attack Lannisport or Casterly Rock, but to lure Lord Tywin further west, and distract him from what was happening at King's Landing: "'Lord Stannis was about to fall upon King's Landing,' Robb said. 'He might have rid us of Joffrey, the queen, and the Imp in one red stroke.'" When Edmure delayed Lord Tywin it gave time for word to reach him about what was happening in the east, so that he could turn and rescue King's Landing.

Once the wedding of Joffrey and Margaery is over, Robb says, the Lannisters will turn their attention to him instead, and they'll have the Tyrells on their side, and possibly the Freys. Catelyn says that Robb's "first duty is to defend your own people, win back Winterfell, and hang Theon in a crow's cage to die slowly. Or else put off that crown for good, Robb, for men will know that you are no true king at all." Robb says that the last news he had had was that Ser Rodrik was about to retake Winterfell, and that he may have done it already. "We must win back the Freys," he says. "I am willing to give Lord Walder whatever he requires ... apologies, honors, lands, gold ... there must be something that would soothe his pride...."

"'Not something,' said Catelyn. 'Someone.'"

Jon

He is watching giants riding mammoths. The giants are "more bearlike than human," as much as fourteen feet tall, covered with hair. "Their sloping chests might have passed for those of men, but their arms hung down too far, and their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper." They also smell very bad, "but perhaps that was the mammoths." Tormund, who is with Jon, is full of tall tales about the giants and of his other exploits, but he is also teasing Jon for not having sex with Ygritte, who has been sleeping next to him every night and making her availability plain. But Jon is still trying to keep his vow of chastity, and he has tried to get Ghost to sleep between them. He is also shocked by the sexual mores of the wildlings, who don't regard bastardy as a stigma. He gives as his excuse for not having sex with Ygritte his determination not to bring another bastard into the world.

He is coming to know the various subcultures among the wildlings, most of whom, he has discovered, have never even seen the Wall and don't speak the Common Tongue of Westeros. He is following Qhorin Halfhand's order to "Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them.... And watch." He is becoming more aware of the difficulty of his task, and of the possibility that he may have to kill their leader, Mance Rayder, "a man he half admired and almost liked," to save Winterfell and the north from "Rattleshirt and Harma Dogshead and the earless Magnar of Thenn."

He knows they are drawing near to the Fist of the First Men and that "Mormont will not run.... He is too old and he has come too far. He will strike, and damn the numbers." He also knows that it's not the thousands of wildlings they need to kill but just one: Mance Rayder. "The King-beyond-the-Wall was doing all he could, yet the wildlings remained hopelessly undisciplined, and that made them vulnerable." The vast majority of them are on foot, not on horseback or on mammoths.

He is riding beside Ygritte, and she and others have been singing a song, "The Last of the Giants," when suddenly she cries out: "JON!" There is the sound of wings and "Blue-grey feathers filled his eyes, as sharp talons buried themselves in his face." He falls from his horse, but the eagle clings to his face, flapping and pecking. When he comes to, Ygritte is bending over him and the eagle has disappeared. He can't see out of one eye, but Ygritte tells him it's blood from the lacerations to his face. Tormund is there as Rattleshirt rides up and the eagle reappears and settles on the giant's skull he wears as a helmet. He orders Jon to come with him to see Mance Rayder.

As they ride, Jon sees the Fist of the First Men rising above the trees, and wonders if Mormont has attacked the wildlings. But as they get closer, he sees first one dead horse and then another. Blood is everywhere inside the garrison, and ravens are flapping around the dead animals. Jon wonders what has happened to Sam. A few tents are still standing, and Mance Rayder is in one of them. He gives Jon a "grim and cold" look as he enters, and says, "tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell."

With the pain from his wounds, Jon finds it hard to think, but he decides that his only recourse is to stick to the truth: "There were three hundred of us." Rayder says he should never have lied to them, and asks whose tent this was. Jon says, "You did not find his body?" Rayder says, "The next time you answer me with a question, I will give you to my Lord of Bones." As Rayder moves closer, Jon's hand moves toward his sword, but Rayder notices. Finally, Jon tells him: "The Old Bear." And when Rayder asks who is commanding at Castle Black, Jon tells him that Bowen Marsh is, which elicits derision from Rayder. But he also admits that if he had tried to storm the hill, he would have lost five men for every one defending it.

Rayder also knows that the garrison has been attacked by the wights, and "when the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing," so the Watch may have done him a favor by drawing their attention away from his own forces. He dispatches various of his men to see if the wights can be located, making sure that they all have torches.

Rattleshirt wants to kill Jon, but Ygritte steps forward to defend him. He asks Jon if he and Ygritte are lovers, and Jon lies, "Yes." So he says they are to go with Jarl and Styr, "Over the Wall. It's past time you proved your faith with something more than words, Jon Snow." Styr protests, but Rayder points out that Jon "knows the Watch and he knows the Wall, ... and he knows Castle Black better than any raider ever could."

Rattleshirt threatens Jon, but Ygritte points out Ghost on top of the ringwall, glaring at Rattleshirt, so he moves off. When they are alone, Jon says he didn't ask her to lie for him, and she says didn't. She said "that we fuck beneath your cloak many a night. I never said when we started, though." And then she tells him to find another place for Ghost to sleep that night.

Sansa

Sansa is being fitted with a new gown, and is surprised to hear that the orders have come from Cersei and not from Margaery or her grandmother. She has been spending time with the ladies of the Tyrell court and enjoying herself, though she feels a little superior to them: "Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father's head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them."

Margaery has been talking to her about her brother Willas, and calling Sansa sister, which has led her to give Margaery more warnings about Joffrey's cruelty. But Margaery dismisses her fears: She has her brother Loras to protect her, she says. Sansa is not so sure:

Joff might restrain himself for a few turns, perhaps as long as a year, but soon or late he will show his claws, and when he does ... The realm might have a second Kingslayer, and there would be war inside the city, as the men of the lion and the men of the rose made the gutters run red.

She has also been warned by Ser Dontos not to marry Willas: "I tell you, these Tyrells are only Lannisters with flowers." He wants her to go through with their plan to escape: "The night of Joffrey's wedding, that's not so long, wear the silver hair net and do as I told you, and afterward we make our escape." But Sansa says she doesn't want to escape now. Ser Dontos tries to make her see reality: The Tyrells want her to marry Willas because it gives them a claim to Winterfell. She leaves him and avoids the godswood after that, but he has planted a doubt in her mind. She assures herself that Robb will get married and produce an heir. "Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?"

She fills her head with romantic images of being married to Willas, though occasionally she brings herself back to reality: "Willas Tyrell was twice her age, she reminded herself constantly, and lame as well, and perhaps even plump and red-faced like his father. But comely or no, he might be the only champion she would ever have." And then she dreams she marries Joffrey instead and on their wedding night he turns into Ilyn Payne, the headsman. She worries again about Margaery and when she goes to the sept she prays to the Mother to protect Margaery and to the Warrior for Loras.

Then she thinks of the new dress Cersei has ordered for her, and assumes it is for the wedding. "She could scarcely wait to wear it."

18. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 656-689

Daenerys

Having failed to persuade the influential people in Qarth to provide the ships and men she wants, Daenerys sets off for the waterfront to see what she can pick up for herself. "She was fleeing again," she realized, but it's necessary: "Xaro had learned that Pyat Pree was gathering the surviving warlocks together to work ill on her." Her Dothraki followers, who are nomads, are getting restless, and burning down the House of the Undying had reminded the Qartheen "that dragons were dangerous."

But Xaro still thinks the dragons are worth the risk, and when he is turned down again in his offer of marriage, he tries to persuade Daenerys to trade one of her dragons for ten of his ships. Daenerys says her price for one of her dragons would be one-third of all the ships in the world. He says she's mad and that she can no longer live in his house and must return all of his gifts. She recalls, "The warlocks whispered of three treasons ... once for blood and once for gold and once for love." She thinks that the first treason must have been Mirri Maz Duur's, murdering Khal Drogo and her unborn son as retribution for the Dothraki's treatment of her people, and wonders if Pyat Pree and Xaro Xhoan Daxos were the other two treasons. But Pyat didn't try to trap her in the House of the Undying for gold, and Xaro certainly didn't love her.

As they ride to the waterfront she thinks of the warlocks' other prophesies: "Child of three, they had called her, daughter of death, slayer of lies, bride of fire. So many threes." She asks Jorah Mormont why the dragon in the sigil of House Targaryen has three heads. He suggests that the three heads were Aegon and his sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys.  She observes that she is descended from Aegon and Rhaenys. Jorah tells her to stop worrying about what the warlocks said. "All they wanted was to suck the life from you, you know that now."

Jorah dismisses the visions she had as meaningless: "A dead man in the prow of a ship, a blue rose, a banquet of blood.... A mummer's dragon, you said." She explains that a mummer's dragon is a cloth dragon carried on poles by mummers for mock combat. And she remembers the vision of the man she thought was Viserys but is now convinced was her brother Rhaegar: "His is the song of ice and fire.... He had a harp with silver strings." Jorah admits that Rhaegar had a harp like that. As for the woman with the baby whom Rhaegar said should be named Aegon, Jorah acknowledges that "Prince Aegon was Rhaegar's heir by Elia of Dorne," killed by the Lannisters. As for the song of ice and fire, Jorah says he's never heard such a song.

They are nearing the waterfront, and Jhogo smells what he calls "the poison water" -- the Dothraki don't like the sea. "Water that a horse could not drink was water they wanted no part of." But Daenerys thinks that if she could make it through their sea of grass, they can make it through hers. They ride for several miles through the buildings on the harbor toward the part "where the ships from the Summer Islands, Westeros, and the Nine Free Cities were permitted to dock."

Daenerys is dressed in Dothraki clothing but Jorah wears "his green wool surcoat over chainmail, the black bear of Mormont sewn on his chest." But their attempts to obtain the ships and men they need are unsuccessful. As they are walking from quay to quay, Jorah tells Daenerys that they are being followed, cautioning her not to look behind her, he stops at a brass-seller's stand, picks up a large, highly polished platter as if showing it to her to buy, and directs her attention to the men reflected in it: "a fat brown man and an older man with a staff."

The merchant steps up and offers it to her for "thirty honors," though they all know it "was worth no more than three." Daenerys says he is trying to rob her, and whispers to Jorah that the two men may just be ogling her. The brass-seller lowers the price to twenty, and as they continue to haggle, Daenerys wonders if they have been sent by "the Usurper," Robert Baratheon, to kill her or if they are "creatures of the warlocks." The merchant lowers the price to ten, then eight. Daenerys turns to walk away and gets a better look at the men.

The brown man appears to be a eunuch. He carries an arakh in his waistband. "Old scars crisscrossed his tree-trunk arms, huge chest, and massive belly, pale against his nut-brown skin." The other man has long white hair and a white beard, and doesn't wear a sword. "Only fools would stare so openly if they meant me harm," Daenerys thinks. The merchant pursues them as they walk away, offering five, then four, then finally two. Jorah points out that the staff the old man carries can be a deadly weapon. Daenerys tells him to pay the merchant two honors just to get rid of him, then turns to confront the two men.

Just then a Qartheen steps up, addresses her as "Mother of Dragons," and presents her with a carved wooden jewel box. She opens it and sees a carved green scarab of onyx and emerald. She thinks, "This will help pay for our passage," and thanks the man. But as she reaches into the box, the scarab turns into a creature with "a malign black face, almost human, and an arched tail dripping venom." She hears a hiss, and suddenly the box is knocked out of her hand and she feels a pain in her fingers. Ser Jorah rushes forward and Daenerys falls to one knee as she sees hears the hiss again and sees the old man drive his staff into the ground. There is a commotion around her as Aggo rides forward and jumps from the saddle, and Jhogo's whip cracks. Jorah takes the brass platter and crashes it onto the head of the eunuch.

The old man kneels before her and begs her pardon, telling her that he had to knock the box away and hopes he hasn't broken her hand. Jhogo and Aggo are on him and have a dagger at his throat, but Daenerys tells them to release him and to sheathe their weapons. Jorah protests that the men were trying to kill her, but Daenerys says it was the Qartheen. She recognizes him as one of the hired killers known as "Sorrowful Men" because he had said, "I am so sorry" after she opened the box. "There was a manticore in that jewel box he gave me. This man knocked it out of my hand."


The man identifies himself as Arstan, though his companion, the eunuch, calls him Whitebeard. The eunuch is Belwas. They have been sent, they say, by Magister Illyrio. They had been following Daenerys because they weren't certain she was the woman for whom they had been sent. Belwas is originally from Meereen, and has been sold as a pit fighter several times. Arstan is originally from  the Dornish Marshes and as a boy had been squire to a knight in the house of Lord Swann. He recognizes Ser Jorah, having seen him fight in tournaments.


Daenerys asks why Illyrio sent them, and Belwas says he wants dragons. Arstan says, "The Seven Kingdoms have need of you. Robert the Usurper is dead, and the realm bleeds." It's just what Daenerys wants to hear. Illyrio has hired three ships for her, and Daenerys thinks, "Three heads has the dragon." She tells them to rename the ships, and Arstan agrees, asking for the new names.

"Vhagar," Daenerys told him. "Meraxes. And Balerion. Paint the names on their hulls in golden letters three feet high, Arstan. I want every man who sees them to know the dragons are returned."

Arya

There are fresh heads on the walls of Harrenhal now that Roose Bolton is in charge, but word that King's Landing has been held with the aid of Tywin Lannister has reached them, and now the news has it that Lord Tywin is on his way to take back the castle. Gendry has told Arya that he hates the forces that hold Harrenhal even more than he did Ser Amory and his men. She doesn't disagree: the Brave Companions/Bloody Mummers are just mercenaries, and they have given Rorge and Biter free rein.

"Sometimes she wished she had gone off across the narrow sea with Jaqen H'ghar. She still had the stupid coin he'd given her, a piece of iron no larger than a penny and rusted along the rim." But she doesn't believe it's as valuable as he said it was, and has even tried to throw it away but thought better of it and retrieved it.

She is carrying a pail of water to Roose Bolton when Bolton's squire, Elmar Frey, calls her over to help him roll a barrel of sand which is used to clean Bolton's chainmail. Elmar is her age and "liked to boast how he was the son of the Lord of the Crossing, not a nephew or a bastard or a grandson but a trueborn son, and on account of that he was going to marry a princess." (Arya doesn't know of Robb's vow to marry her off to one of the Freys as part of the deal made for their help against the Lannisters.) She tells him that the mail isn't clean enough yet, and he tells her she can roll the barrel herself. But she is carrying the water to Lord Bolton because he is being leeched, and Elmar is terrified of leeches, so he lets her go.

Bolton is lying there covered with leeches, and as she fills the basin with water she listens to what's being said. Ser Aenys Frey is fretting about the imminent arrival of Tywin Lannister, but Bolton assures him that Tywin has business to conclude in King's Landing before marching on Harrenhal. Frey disagrees: "You do not know the Lannisters as we do, my lord. King Stannis thought that Lord Tywin was a thousand leagues away as well, and it undid him." Besides, he argues, even if Robb and the forces from Riverrun come to their aid, they'll still be outnumbered, and the forces once pledged to Renly Baratheon have gone over to the Lannister side.

And then Hosteen Frey mentions that Winterfell has fallen and that Robb's brothers are dead. Arya is stunned, but she musters her strength not to show it. When the Freys leave, Bolton calls her over to remove the leeches. She hears him order the castle of the Darrys burned, which pleases her because that's where she'd been taken after the fight with Joffrey and where the queen had ordered Sansa's wolf killed. And speaking of wolves, Bolton announces his intention to go wolf-hunting. Apparently the local wolves have grown bold and killed two of Septon Utt's horses.

After Bolton leaves, she cleans his quarters and thinks about Bran and Rickon and the vengeance Robb will wreak on the Lannisters, who she assumes killed them. "If Winterfell is truly gone, is this my home now? Am I still Arya, or only Nan the serving girl, for forever and forever and forever?" As she is tidying she finds a map, THE LANDS OF THE TRIDENT, that shows "everything from the Neck to the Blackwater Rush." She finds Harrenhal on the map, and then Riverrun, and thinks, "It's not so far...."

She goes to the godswood where she practices her swordwork, slaying the enemies on her list one by one, concluding with Joffrey. Then she salutes the heart tree: "'Valar morghulis,' she told the old gods of the north. She liked how the words sounded when she said them." When the hunting party returns with nine dead wolves, Bolton orders hot spiced wine and his dinner, and Arya goes off to prepare it. In the kitchen she finds Hot Pie, who rebuffs her when she tries to help spice the wine.

She takes the food to Bolton, who tells her he doesn't need her anymore that night. But she asks him if he will take her with him when he leaves Harrenhal. He rebukes her for speaking without leave and tells her that when he leaves she will remain there to serve Vargo Hoat. She starts to protest, but he says, "I am not in the habit of being questioned by servants, Nan. Must I have your tongue out?" She says, "No, my lord," knowing that he is capable of doing it, and he says he will "forget this insolence."

As she passes the Wailing Tower, where the Freys reside, she finds Elmar weeping outside. He tells her that he won't marry a princess after all, because the Freys have been dishonored. "My lord father says I'll need to marry someone else, or be a septon." She thinks that's not so bad and tell him that her brothers might be dead. When he says, "No one cares about a serving girl's brothers," she hits him and runs off to the godswood, where she prays to the gods to tell her what to do.

She hears a wolf howl, and remembers her father's words: "When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives." But she thinks that she no longer has a pack: "Bran and Rickon were dead, the Lannisters had Sansa, Jon had gone to the Wall." She hears her father's voice saying, "You have the wolf blood in you," and she thinks, "I'll be as strong as Robb. I said I would." She takes her broomstick sword and breaks it over her knee: "I am a direwolf, and done with wooden teeth."

Lying in her bed, she hears the wolves howling and thinks, "They are calling to me." She slips on a tunic and goes to the forge where Gendry and the other apprentices are asleep. She wakes him and tells him she wants a sword, and that he should escape with her: "Lord Bolton is giving Harrenhal to the Bloody Mummers, he told me so." She tells him that Vargo Hoat plans to cut the left foot off of every servant to keep them from running away. He should go to the kitchens and tell Hot Pie the same think. "We'll need bread or oakcakes [sic] or something. You get the swords and I'll do the horses." She'll meet them at the postern in the Tower of Ghosts, which is abandoned and only lightly guarded.

She goes back to her room and dresses warmly, then slips into Bolton's quarters and steals the map as well as his dagger. In the stables, she wakes a groom and tells him that Lord Bolton needs "three horses saddled and bridled." She is wearing Bolton's livery, with a sigil of a flayed man. The groom gets the horses ready. "She hoped they would not hurt him afterward, but she knew they probably would." She leads the horses to the Tower of Ghosts without being seen.

Hot Pie arrives with bread and cheese and Gendry with swords. Gendry tells her there is a guard at the postern, but she tells them to stay there with the horses and she'll howl like a wolf when they should join her. She approaches the guard as if on official business and tells him that she has come "to give all his guards a silver piece, for their good service." She hands the man the iron coin Jaqen had given her, but lets it drop, and when he bends over to pick it up she slits his throat. "'Valar morghulis,' she whispered as he died."

She picks up the coin and gives out a wolf howl. It has started to rain by the time Hot Pie and Gendry arrive with the horses. "'You killed him!' Hot Pie gasped. 'What did you think I would do?'" she replies. Her hands are bloody, but as they ride off she thinks, "The rain will wash them clean again."

Sansa

The court has gathered in the throne room, beautifully dressed, and Sansa arrives just in time for Lord Tywin Lannister's entrance. He rides his horse right up to the Iron Throne.

The Lord of Casterly Rock made such an impressive figure that it was a shock when his destrier dropped a load of dung right at the base of the throne. Joffrey had to step gingerly around it as he descended to embrace his grandfather and proclaim him Savior of the City. Sansa covered her mouth to hide a nervous smile. 

Lord Tywin is made both regent and Hand of the King. Then there is a procession of heroes: Mace Tyrell, the Lord of Highgarden; his sons, Ser Loras and Ser Garlan the Gallant. Ser Loras is made a member of the Kingsguard, and Ser Garlan offers Joffrey the hand of their sister, Margaery, who was married to Renly but the marriage was not consummated. Joffrey says that unfortunately he is "promised to another," but Cersei rises to say that "in the judgment of your small council, it would be neither proper nor wise for you to wed the daughter of a man beheaded for treason, a girl whose brother is in open rebellion against the throne even now." There are shouts of "Margaery" in the hall, but Joffrey say, "I took a holy vow." This is the cue for the High Septon to say that the crimes of the Starks invalidate the "marriage contract 'twixt you and Sansa Stark."

There are more cries of "Margaery, Margaery" in the hall, and Sansa waits, hoping that Joffrey will not go against counsel again as he did when he had her father beheaded. To her relief, he doesn't, and accepts Margaery as his betrothed. Sansa reminds herself not to smile. Cersei has threatened her, "I will not have my son humiliated." When Sansa asked what would become of her, Cersei said, "That will need to be determined. For the moment, you shall remain here at court, as our ward."

There are more honors to be awarded to those who distinguished themselves defending the city, including lordships for Hallyne the Pyromancer and Ser Lancel Lannister, who was seriously wounded and is not present "to accept the title; the talk was, his wound might cost him his arm or even his life. The Imp was said to be dying as well, from a terrible cut to the head."

Lord Petyr Baelish is next to be honored, though "Sansa had not heard of Littlefinger doing anything especially heroic during the battle." Ser Kevan Lannister announces that "Lord Baelish is granted the castle of Harrenhal with all its attendant lands and incomes, there to make his seat and rule henceforth as Lord Paramount of the Trident." Then more than six hundred knighthoods are conferred, and Joffrey goes visibly restless as the ceremony goes on.

Then the captives are led in, including some "great lords and noble knights." Some of them had changed allegiance during the battle and only needed to swear fealty to Joffrey, but the ones who had stayed loyal to Stannis until the end are forced to speak, usually to beg forgiveness and have their lands and rights restored to them. But a few, true believers in the Lord of Light, remained defiant. Joffrey orders one of them dragged away to be beheaded by Ser Ilyn Payne.

Then "a knight of solemn mien with a fiery heart on his surcoat shouted out, 'Stannis is the true king! A monster sits the Iron Throne, an abomination born of incest!'" Ser Kevan Lannister orders him to be silent, but the knight continues, "Destroy them all, queen whore and king worm, vile dwarf and whispering spider, the false flowers." Joffrey can't restrain himself and shouts "I'm king! Kill him! Kill him now! I command it." And then he slams down his hand on the Iron Throne and cuts it on one of the protruding blades. As the blood starts to flow, he wails, "Mother!"

The defiant man snatches a spear from one of the guards. "'The throne denies him!' he cried. 'He is no king!'"

Cersei was running toward the throne, but Lord Tywin remained still as stone. He had only to raise a finger, and Ser Meryn Trant moved forward with drawn sword. The end was quick and brutal. The gold cloaks seized the knight by the arms. "No king!" he cried again as Ser Meryn drove the point of his longsword through his chest.

Joffrey is hustled away, and Lord Tywin takes charge.

Sansa returns to her chambers where she can rejoice, and that evening she goes to the godswood. She is puzzled, however, that Ser Dontos looks so sad. He explains the reality of her situation: "The queen will never let you go, never. You are too valuable a hostage.... And if [Joffrey] wants you in his bed, he will have you, only now it will be bastards he plants in your womb instead of trueborn sons." But, he tells her, he has made arrangements for her to escape on the night of Joffrey's marriage to Margaery. "For a little while, you will be forgotten, and the confusion will be our friend."

Then he gives her a gift: "a hair net of fine-spun silver, the strands so thin and delicate the net seemed to weigh no more than a breath of air when Sansa took it in her fingers." It is set with small stones that Dontos tells her are "Black amethysts from Asshai.... It's magic, you see. It's justice you hold. It's vengeance for your father.... It's home."  

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 564-588

Sansa

King's Landing is filled with smoke from both Tyrion's firing of the waterfront and Stannis's burning of the kingswood on the other side of the Blackwater Rush.  Sansa has gone to the godswood to meet Ser Dontos, who assures her that he has spoken to someone about hiring a ship "when the time is right." Sansa observes that there couldn't be a better time than now, before the fighting has started, but Dontos points out that the city is "more heavily guarded than ever," and that the only ships to be seen are warships.

Stannis himself has not arrived yet, but the first of his men have been there for two days. Sansa has heard that there are five thousand of them and that by the time Stannis arrives with the rest there will be ten times as many of them as Joffrey commands. Like everyone she is afraid, and she is more than a little disgusted that her only friend is this drunken knight-turned-fool. She shies away when he tries to kiss her, and returns to the castle.

But her room only arouses claustrophobia, so she goes out and climbs to the top of the tower where she can see the fire, the soldiers preparing for battle, and the three great trebuchets waiting to repel the attack. She suddenly feels a sharp pain, and almost falls, but Sandor Clegane emerges from the shadows and grabs her arm. When she tells him to let go, he asks if she thinks she has wings, and tells her she'll wind up a cripple like Bran. She says she wasn't going to fall and that he startled her, but he tells her she's still afraid of him. "The little bird still can't bear to look at me, can she? ... You were glad enough to see my face when mob had you, though. Remember?"

She does remember, and forces herself to look him in the face. His scars don't repel her so much as his eyes. "She had never seen eyes so full of anger." She tries to express her thanks for his bravery, but he denies that he was brave. The mob feared him, he says, and that was his advantage. She asks if he likes scaring people, and he says he likes killing them. "Killing is the sweetest thing there is." Drawing his sword, he says, "Here's your truth. Your precious father found that out on Baelor's steps." And he mocks her father and evokes his execution for her.

She asks why he is "always so hateful," and he mocks her romantic view of knighthood. Laying his blade along her throat, he says, "So long as I have this, ... there's no man on earth I need fear." She thinks, "Except your brother," but she knows better than to say it aloud. Doesn't he fear the soldiers across the river, she asks, and he replies, "All this burning.... Only cowards fight with fire." She asks if he isn't afraid of being sent to hell by the gods, and he scorns the gods: "Tell me, little bird, what kind of god makes a monster like the Imp, or a halfwit like Lady Tanda's daughter? If there are gods, they made ... the weak for the strong to play with."

She backs away and says, "You're awful." He replies, "I'm honest. It's the world that's awful," and tells her to "fly away, little bird." She leaves, telling herself that he's wrong, that there are gods and true knights. But in her bed she dreams of the riot and that she is being stabbed in the belly and cut to shreds. When she wakes, she realizes that she is menstruating for the first time.

Panic sets in when she realizes that this means she is marriageable, and she tries to burn her bedclothes to hide the evidence. But smoke fills the room, and her maid discovers her. She is taken to the queen, and to cover up her real reason she claims that she was frightened by the blood. She tells Cersei that she thought becoming a woman would be "less messy, and more magical." Cersei responds, "A woman's life is nine parts mess to one part magic, you'll learn that soon enough."

When Sansa tells her that she realizes she is "now fit to be wedded and bedded ... and to bear children for the king," Cersei observes that it is "A prospect that no longer entices you as it once did," and admits to her that "Joffrey has always been difficult." It took her a day and a half to deliver him, she says, and she screamed so loudly that she thought Robert, who was away hunting, could hear her. Sansa is surprised that Cersei's husband was away, but Cersei says, "When they told Jaime he was not allowed in the birthing room, he smiled and asked which of them proposed to keep him out."

When she assures Sansa that she may not love Joffrey but she will love his children, Sansa assures her, "I love his Grace with all my heart." But Cersei tells her to learn some new lies. She recalls that Joffrey always cried when Robert picked him up, whereas his bastards "always gurgled at him happily." She adds, "Robert wanted to be loved. My brother Tyrion has the same disease." And she gives Sansa some "womanly wisdom": "Love is poison. A sweet poison, yes, but it will kill you all the same."

Jon

They are moving through the Skirling Pass, with Ghost at Jon's side responding uneasily to sounds only he can hear. They reach the highest point of the pass and begin their descent into the Milkwater valley. When they pause to rest, Jon tells Qhorin about the story Ygritte had told him of Bael the Bard. Qhorin says he knows it, that Mance Rayder used to sing the song to them when he was a member of the Night's Watch. Jon learns now that Qhorin and Rayder used to be friends and brothers, and asks why Rayder deserted. Qhorin tells him that there are various stories, but he really thinks it was because "He loved the wild better than the Wall." Rayder had been born a wildling and had been brought to the Wall when he was a child.

Qhorin also warns Jon, "Only fools like Thoren Smallwood despise the wildlings. They are as brave as we, Jon. As strong, as quick, as clever. But they have no discipline." And when he says that Rayder "never learned to obey," Jon says, "No more than me." Qhorin is not surprised then to learn that Jon had let Ygritte go. "If I had needed her dead, I would have left her with Ebben, or done the thing myself." He hadn't commanded Jon to kill her, but left it up to him. "To lead men you must know them, Jon Snow. I know more of you now than I did this morning."

When he goes to sleep that night, Jon summons Ghost to sleep beside him, but the wolf only looks at him and then leaves. Jon assumes that he wants to hunt, but during the night he dreams of direwolves the way Bran does: "There were five of them when there should have been six, and they were scattered, each apart from the others." He is one of them, and he howls for the others. A voice behind him calls "Jon!" but when he turns around there is only a weirwood there, growing from a sapling into a tree as he watches. He walks around it until he finds the face. "The weirwood had his brother's face. Had his brother always had three eyes?" He hears the voice say, "Not always.... Not before the crow."

He smells "wolf and tree and boy," but also other smells, including a terrible one: "Death, he knew. He was smelling death." But the voice tells him not to be afraid, and that he needs to open his eyes. "And the tree reached down and touched him." Suddenly he is looking down on the valley in an autumn afternoon. One end of it is plugged with "A vast blue-white wall.... Then he realized he was looking at a river of ice several thousand feet high. Under that glittering cold cliff was a great lake, its deep cobalt waters reflecting the snowcapped peaks that ringed it." Below it were thousands of people, some of them training for war. He also sees "a shaggy lumbering beast with a snake for a nose and tusks larger than those of the greatest boar that had ever lived." And it is being ridden by a huge thing "too thick in the leg and hips to be a man."

Then he hears the sound of wings and a shadow plummets from the sky with a scream. He wakes, shouting "Ghost!" and calling for the wolf. "He could still feel the talons, the pain." His cry brings the others and he tells them about his dream. Qhorin and the others take it seriously. "'Skinchanger?' said Ebben grimly, looking at the Halfhand. Does he mean the eagle? Jon wondered. Or me?"

They set out again, but without Ghost, who hasn't returned. It is growing dark when Squire Dalbridge points out an eagle perched above them, watching. Then Jon spots a patch of white, and when it moves he spurs his horse toward it. It is Ghost, who has been wounded by the eagle. They wash and dress the wound, and when they are done it is dark. Qhorin says they need to retreat. "Eagles have sharper eyes than men. We are seen. So now we run."

They ride all night, and just before dawn they near the place where they had killed the wildlings. They leave Squire Dalbridge there with his longbow and a plentiful supply of arrows. "He's staying to die, Jon realized." When dawn breaks they spot the eagle flying high above them, and hear the sound of a hunting horn. "'And now they come,' said Qhorin."

Tyrion

Our first hint of what may have happened to Bran and Rickon comes when Tyrion is on his way to see Cersei and Varys brings him "A report from the north." He reads it and asks Varys, "Both of them?" Varys replies, "I fear so, my lord," and observes that they were "so young and innocent." When Tyrion gives the letter to Cersei, he says, "I trust you're pleased.... You wanted the boy dead, I believe." She replies that it was Jaime who threw Bran from the window, and that "This was Greyjoy's work, I had nothing to do with it." Tyrion replies that he hopes "Lady Catelyn believes that," which makes Cersei realize that Bran's death could lead to Jaime's. They had better take good care of Sansa, he tells her.

They talk of other things as they dine, including the fact that there has been no news from Littlefinger. She says Varys has told her that Tyrion plans to remove Sandor Clegane from guarding Joffrey. Tyrion is annoyed by the eunuch's telling her that, but he says he needs him "for more important duties." Cersei considers nothing more important than guarding her son, but Tyrion argues that Ser Osmund and Meryn Trant will be sufficient. He needs the Hound and Balon Swann to lead sorties to defend the city. Joffrey will be part of the battle, too -- not "in the thick of the fighting, but he needs to be seen. Men fight more fiercely for a king who shares their peril than one who hides behind his mother's skirts."

She protests that Joffrey is only thirteen, but Tyrion says, "Remember Jaime at thirteen? If you want the boy to be his father's son, let him play the part." He'll be well-armored and well-guarded and if it looks like the city will fall, he'll be "escorted back to the Red Keep at once." She asks him if the city will fall and he tells her no, though he thinks, "if it does, pray that we can hold the Red Keep long enough for our lord father to march to our relief."

When dessert arrives, she says, "I hope you like blackberry tarts," which provokes him to say, "I love all sorts of tarts." She says she knows that, and adds that the reason Varys is so dangerous is that "He doesn't have a cock." Neither does she, he retorts, and thinks, "And don't you just hate that, Cersei?" But he notices a smile on her face that he doesn't like. And he finds out why when she proclaims, "I have your little whore." He affects calm, but wonders how she found Shae, and what she plans to do with her. She tells him no harm will come to her as long as nothing happens to Joffrey or Tommen. "If Joff should be killed, however, or if Tommen should fall into the hands of our enemies, your little cunt will die more painfully than you can possibly imagine."

He is surprised that she believes he would kill his nephew, and promises her that he has nothing of the sort in mind. "Gods be good, Cersei, they're my own blood!" He thinks that in his place Jaime would kill her for making such an accusation, but he knows he can't do that, and thinks, "If I fail this test, I had as lief seek out the nearest grotesquerie." He says that for all he knows she has killed the girl already. She meets the challenge and goes to the door and orders, "Bring in my brother's whore."

The brothers Osney and Osfryd Kettleblack bring her in, bruised and bloody, with her hands tied and a gag in her mouth. Tyrion wants to laugh when he realizes what has happened, but he keeps calm and adopts his father's tone and voice. He says, "Whatever happens to her happens to Tommen as well, and that includes the beatings and rapes." Cersei is taken aback: "You would not dare." He replies, "Dare? I'll do it myself."

When Cersei tries to slap him, he grabs her wrist and twists her arm behind her back, then threatens to break her arm with Osfryd steps forward. He shoves Cersei to the floor and orders the Kettleblacks to untie the woman and remove her gag. He massages her fingers until the circulation returns to her hands and says he is sorry they hurt her. Alayaya bends and kisses his forehead, leaving a trace of blood from her broken lips. Then he turns to Cersei.

"I have never liked you, Cersei, but you were my own sister, so I never did you harm. You've ended that. I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in hour mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid."

She orders him out and he leaves, realizing that he had put Alayaya in danger when he started using the secret tunnel from her brothel to Shae's residence. In his room, Shae is waiting for him. "How could he tell her that another woman had taken the beating meant for her and might well die in her place should some mischance of battle fell Joffrey?" He asks her to show him the secret entrance, but she says Varys had made her wear a hood, and all she could see was a floor with a mosaic of red and black tiles that depicted a dragon.

He goes around the room, trying various loose stones and sconces to see if any of them will trigger the entrance, but nothing works. And when they try to make love, he can't achieve an erection, so he lies awake in the night while she sleeps.