5. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 146-187

Jaime

From the river, Jaime spots an inn and points it out to Brienne and Ser Cleos, who remembers stopping there once. It appears to be deserted, but they pull up to its dock to see if there is any food left in it, and possibly to shelter there for the night. Cleos identifies it as "the Inn of the Kneeling Man," built on "the very spot where the last King in the North knelt before Aegon the Conqueror to offer his submission."

Then they hear the whinny of a horse from the stable, but when Jaime opens the door of the inn he is confronted by "a chunky boy of fifteen" aiming a crossbow at him. Jaime says that if the boy shoots him, Ser Cleos will kill him before he can reload, and Brienne assures him that they have money to pay for food and drink if they have any. A man comes up from the cellar and says they have horsemeat to sell.

The man says he found the innkeeper dead and buried him out back, so he and his wife moved in. The boy showed up and they took him in after their own sons died. The boy's mother was killed by the Bloody Mummers. As he feeds them, he asks where they are headed and calls them fools when Jaime says they're going to King's Landing. "Last I heard, King Stannis was outside the city walls. They say he has a hundred thousand men and a magic sword." Brienne tells him that she plans to sail down the Trident to the sea, then go overland by way of Duskendale and Rosby to avoid the worst of the fighting. But the man tells them that the river has been blocked by sunken boats thirty miles downriver and outlaws have been attacking anyone who tries to go that way. Also, "the lightning lord," Beric Dondarrion, has been ranging through the area, accompanied by Thoros of Myr, "the red wizard." And Roose Bolton has been controlling the fords to the rivers.

He advises them to go overland from the inn, avoiding the roads and sheltering in the woods at night. Brienne says they would need horses, and Jaime mentions that he heard one in the stables. He says they're not for sale, but agrees to show them anyway. There is a big plow horse, a gelding with only one eye, and a grey palfrey. Brienne offers him three gold pieces for them, and throws in their skiff when he shows reluctance.

Although the man offers them beds for the night, and Ser Cleos is eager to take him up on it, Brienne insists that they ride on, and Jaime agrees, having sensed that the "innkeeper" can't be trusted. He also points out that he can't ride with his feet shackled, so Brienne strikes them off. He tries to persuade her to remove the wrist chains as well, but she ignores him. As they start to ride off, their host tells them to avoid the road that leads to Ser Warren's towerhouse and to follow the path through the woods. Brienne says that they will do that.

She takes the plow horse, and gives the palfrey to Cleos, leaving the one-eyed gelding for Jaime, preventing him from riding away from them. When they reach the fork in the road, Brienne takes the one to the towerhouse rather than the one through the woods that the man had recommended. Jaime is surprised that she made the same decision he would have, and thinks, "Well, she may be ugly but she's not entirely stupid." When Cleos protests, she tells him that the man was much too interested in what route they would take, so he may have been directing them into a trap.

When they reach the towerhouse, they give it a wide berth, riding through the fields and returning to the road only when it was well behind them. They find a place to stop for the night, and Brienne offers to take the first watch. Ser Cleos falls asleep immediately but Jaime stays awake with her. He asks if she has any brothers and sisters, and she replies, "No. I was my father's only s--child." He laughs at the fact that she almost said "son," and says, "You make a queer sort of daughter, to be sure."

Wordless, she turned away from him, her knuckles tight on her sword hilt. What a wretched creature this one is. She reminded him of Tyrion in some queer way, though at first blush two people could scarcely be any more dissimilar. Perhaps it was that thought of his brother that made him say, "I did not intend to give offense, Brienne. Forgive me."

She rejects the apology: "Your crimes are past forgiving, Kingslayer." He asks why she keeps throwing that epithet at him, and she asks why he put on the Kingsguard's white cloak if he meant to dishonor it. He replies that he was only fifteen, an answer she rejects. He thinks, "You would not like the truth," which is that he had joined the Kingsguard because he was in love with his sister. Their father had brought her to court to marry her off; meanwhile, he had served as a squire. When he visited her at King's Landing, she told him that their father was planning to have him marry Lysa Tully, but there was an opening in the Kingsguard and "if Jaime took the white, he could be near her always." It would mean giving up his right to inherit Casterly Rock, too. They spent a night of passionate lovemaking in an inn, and he was so intoxicated by it that he agreed. She said she would take care of persuading King Aerys to choose him: Their father would never consent to it, but if the king chose him there was nothing Lord Tywin could do to oppose him. A month later, he was summoned to take his vows. His father was furious, since this meant that the alliance with the Tullys wouldn't happen. But he prevented Jaime and Cersei from being together by resigning as Hand and taking her back to Casterly Rock with him. Jaime was left to guard the mad King Aerys.

In response to Brienne's charge that he dishonored his vow to guard the king, he says, "You are not old enough to have known Aerys Targaryen...." She says that she knows he "was mad and cruel," but that doesn't invalidate his oath to protect the king. Jaime retorts, "We're both kingslayers here, if what I've heard is true." She denies that she killed Renly, and when she tells about the shadow that slew him, he mocks the story: "When they found me standing over my dead king, I never thought to say, 'No, no, it wasn't me, it was a shadow, a terrible cold shadow.'" He hopes to provoke her into attacking him: "A step closer, and I'll snatch that dagger from her sheath and bury it up her womb." But she refuses to take the bait, but further provocations about her wish to be a man only increase her loathing for him, and she walks away, leaving him alone.

He hopes to dream about Cersei, but his mind turns to the murder of Aerys Targaryen. Jaime had killed Rossart, the last of Aerys's Hands, before entering the throne room to confront the king, who "lost control of his bowels" when he realized that Jaime had murdered Rossart and was now about to kill him. Jaime thinks, "Queer that they never ask who killed Rossart ... but of course, he was no one, lowborn, hand for a fortnight, just another mad fancy of the Mad King." Several of his father's knights had entered to see the end of the king's murder, so Jaime had no way of escaping or denying it, but they weren't surprised: "Jaime had been Lord Tywin's son long before he had been named to the Kingsguard." Jaime had sat down on the Iron Throne and waited "to see who would come to claim the kingdom. As it happened, it had been Eddard Stark."

He dreams of fighting with the dead, "gowned in swirling green flames, ... but for every one he struck down two more arose to take his place." Brienne wakes him and they ride on before dawn.

Tyrion

Varys is surprised to find Tyrion waiting for him in his own quarters. Tyrion has searched Varys's room for secrets and passageways, but found nothing. He asks Varys if it's true that Grand Maester Pycelle, whom he had imprisoned, has been reinstated on the small council, and Varys says it is: The archmaesters of Oldtown had insisted on it because only their Conclave can discharge a Grand Maester.  The Conclave had met and chosen a new Grand Maester, "a Tyrell of Highgarden. When I told your lord father he acted at once" and reinstated Pycelle. Tyrion observes, "better a Lannister toad than a Tyrell toad, no?" On the other hand, Varys points out, Ser Boros Blount is being restored to the Kingsguard after "Cersei had stripped Ser Boros of his white cloak for failing to die in the defense of Prince Tommen when Bronn had seized the boy on the Rosby road," so one of Cersei's enemies has also regained power.

Varys wonders if Tyrion's visit has anything to do with his inquiries into the relationship of his would-be assassin, Ser Mandon Moore, and Cersei. Tyrion admits that Bronn has been unable to turn up anything about Ser Mandon except that he "seems to have been quite friendless." Varys agrees, "Lord Arryn brought him to King's Landing and Robert gave him his white cloak, but neither loved him much, I fear." Even his brothers in the Kingsguard found him cold and aloof, devoted to duty. Varys adds, "'And he died as a knight of the Kingsguard ought, with sword in hand, defending one of the king's own blood.' The eunuch gave him a slimy smile and watched him sharply."

Tyrion is disappointed not to find "a link to Cersei, some sign that Ser Mandon had been his sister's catspaw," so he changes the subject. He wants Varys to bring Shae to him. Varys replies, "The dear sweet child. It would be such a shame if your father hanged her." Tyrion isn't surprised that Varys knows about Lord Tywin's threat, but says that he wants "to see her one last time before I send her away." He says that he suspects that he's being watched, and Vary confirms that "The Kettleblacks report frequently to your sweet sister." He adds that Cersei has been flirting with Ser Osmund to secure his loyalty. Tyrion has other enemies as well, including Janos Slynt's sons and Littlefinger, who has spies in the brothels: "Should you be so unwise as to visit any of them, he will know at once, and your lord father soon thereafter." And of course, Varys adds, he's spying on Tyrion too.

Tyrion laughs, and though he knows he can't trust Varys, the eunuch already knows enough about Shae that if he wanted to inform his father he could do so. So he arranges for Shae to be brought to him in the only place in the castle that he knows to be safe: Varys's own quarters.

They make passionate love, but Tyrion is forced to tell her it will be the last time. She seems to ignore his fear, telling him that she isn't afraid of his father. She asks if she can have her jewels and silks again, and how much longer she has to say with Lollys now that he's well. "'Have you been listening?' Tyrion said. 'You can stay with Lollys if you like, but it would be best if you left the city.'" She persists, however, asking if she can go to the king's wedding feast, about which she's heard from the singer Symon. Tyrion is alerted by this, and worries about the singer: "One careless word in the wrong ear,, and Shae would hang." She proposes to dress up like a lady, and says, "No one would know I wasn't."

She arouses him again, and after they make love another time, she continues to plead with him and he continues to insist, "it is not safe."

For a time she said nothing at all. Tyrion tried to speak of other things, but he met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he'd once walked in the north. Gods be good, he thought wearily as he watched the candle burn down and begin to gutter, how could I let this happen again, after Tysha? Am I as great a fool as my father thinks? Gladly would he have given her the promise she wanted, and gladly walked her back to his own bedchamber on his arm to let her dress in the silks and velvets she loved so much. Had the choice been his, she could have sat beside him at Joffrey's wedding feast, and danced with all the bears she liked. But he could not see her hang. 

When the candle burns out, he lights another and looks for secret entrances and exits. She tells him that there are steps under the bed, which rises up when Varys touches a certain spot. He gets ready to leave, telling her to wait for Varys, and she tells him that she knows she can't go to the wedding feast, but she wants to stay. "I like being a whore for you, Tyrion. Just keep me, my lion, and keep me safe."

He says that he will, but silently berates himself: "Why did you say that? You came here to send her away!" He returns to his room and sends Podrick to fetch Bronn, who, when he arrives, is annoyed at having been called away from Chataya's brothel. He tells Bronn to find "a singer who calls himself Symon Silver Tongue." He wants to tell Bronn to kill him, but instead says, "Find him before someone else does."

Arya

Arya and Hot Pie are digging up carrots and cabbages from an abandoned garden, and Gendry is sleeping when she hears someone singing. As the song grows louder, Hot Pie says they have to hide. There's no safe place nearby, so she tells Hot Pie to wake Gendry and take the horses behind the remaining wall of the ruined cottage. She'll hide behind a tree, and she draws her sword.

Unfortunately, as the singer gets nearer, one of the horses whickers, and the singer stops. "Did you hear that?" a voice asks, then a second voice answer and then a third. Arya can't see them, but she hears one of them say he could fire some arrows over the wall and see if anyone comes out from behind it. So Arya steps out and says, "Don't," showing them her sword. The singer is a small man about fifty, and with him is a man who looks like a soldier wearing a hooded yellow cloak and a younger man, red-haired, with a bow and a row of arrows stuck in the ground before him.

The singer addresses her as "Boy," and tells her to put her sword away. "Anguy here could put three shafts through you before you could hope to reach us." She denies that and adds, "I'm a girl." She tells them to keep on walking down the road and she won't kill them, which makes Anguy, the archer, laugh. "Lem, she won't kill us, did you hear?" Lem is the one with the yellow cloak. The singer says this is "No place for a little girl to be wandering alone."

Gendry, riding his horse from behind the wall, says "She's not alone." Hot Pie is behind him, leading her horse. The singer asks where they stole the horses, and Arya says, "They're ours." The singer asks their names, and Hot Pie blurts his out, making the singer say, "It's not every day I meet a lad with such a tasty name. And what would your friends be called, Mutton Chop and Squab?" Gendry asks why they should give their names when they haven't told them theirs. The singer says he is "Tom of Sevenstreams, but Tom Sevenstrings is what they call me, or Tom o' Sevens. This great lout with the brown teeth is Lem, short for Lemoncloak. It's yellow, you see, and Lem's a sour sort. And young fellow me lad over there is Anguy, or Archer as we like to call him."

Arya doesn't want to give her name, so she says, "Squab, if you want," and Gendry says, "I'm the Bull." Tom Sevenstrings observes that they escaped from Lord Bolton's kitchen: "You bear his sigil on your chest, little one." Arya realizes that she has forgotten this. When Hot Pie says they were at Harrenhal before Bolton came, Tom asks if they are "lion cubs" -- i.e., Lannister supporters. Hot Pie says, "We're nobody's men. Whose men are you?" Anguy replies, "We're king's men," and when Arya asks, "Which king," Lem says, "King Robert."

Gendry, who doesn't know that he's Robert's bastard, says, "That old drunk? ... He's dead, some boar killed him, everyone knows that." Arya doesn't believe that they're any king's men. "They looked like outlaws, all tattered and ragged," and they have no horses. Hot Pie, to Arya's fury, blurts out, "We're looking for Riverrun." She tells him to shut up, but the damage is done. Tom says it's a long way, but "There's an inn not far ahead kept by some friends of ours. We could share some ale and a bite of bread, instead of fighting one another."

Arya doesn't trust him, but the thought of food is irresistible. Gendry wants to know what sort of friends these are. Tom tells him the innkeep is named Sharna, and she has a husband "and an orphan boy they took in." We have been there before. He tells them to bring along the vegetables they "stole from Old Pate's garden." He buried Old Pate himself, he says, and they have "no wish to bury you, I swear it on my harp. Archer, show her." And before Arya knows it, Anguy has sent an arrow whizzing past her and into the tree she had been hiding behind and has notched and drawn a second one. "She'd thought she understood what Syrio meant by quick as a snake and smooth as summer silk, but now she knew she hadn't." She realizes now that they have no choice but to trust the three of them.

Arya gets on her horse and tells Hot Pie to bring the carrots and cabbages, and they ride along behind the three on foot. Along the way, Anguy kills a duck, which they take with them, and Hot Pie joins in with Tom in singing. When they reach the inn, Arya notices the skiff docked in front and suggests to Gendry that they could take it and sail up the river to Riverrun. Gendry is skeptical about the idea. When they stable the horses, Gendry volunteers to stay and watch them, even though Tom says they'll be safe.

Sharna greets them crossly, and calls her husband up from the cellar to give him the duck to hang for a few days. They'll eat rabbit, she says, and Arya offers the carrots and cabbages. She has the boy bring them ale while she goes off to cook. The husband comes in to say that there are horses in the stable, and Tom says they're "better horses than the three you gave away." He replies that he sold them and got a skiff in the bargain. "Anyways, you lot were supposed to get them back."

Arya thinks, "I knew they were outlaws." Lem says, "They never came our way," but the husband insists that he sent them in their direction. (Jaime and Brienne had been right in not taking his advice.) They argue among themselves for a while, and then Tom offers to buy their horses. Arya realizes that they can take the horses if they want, so she offers to trade them for the "boat outside. But only if you can show us how to work it." The offer provokes general laughter until Gendry bursts in to say there are soldiers coming down the river road. Hot Pie jumps up in alarm and spills his ale.

But Sharna tells them not to worry. "Whatever harm's been done you, it's over and it's done and you're with king's men now. We'll keep you safe as best we can." Arya reaches for her sword, but Lem grabs her wrist. She grabs the tankard and swings it at his face, breaking his nose and blinding him with the ale, but not so much that he can't grab her when she starts to run. Tom pulls a dagger and stops Gendry from coming to her aid.

The door opens and a huge, bearded Tyrioshi enters, followed by two crossbowmen helping a wounded man, then others, including "a spearman in a lion-crested helm, an older man with a limp, a Braavosi sellsword...." And then Arya recognizes Harwin, "Hullen's son, who used to lead her pony around the yard, ride at quintain with Jon and Robb, and drink too much at feast days." She weeps at seeing him, and says, "Harwin, it's me!" He doesn't recognize her at first, and is confused by the sigil on her doublet: "who are you, some serving boy to Lord Leech?" She insists, "You have to know me! You used to lead my pony when I was little."

His eyes went wide, "Gods be good," he said in a choked voice. "Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her." 


"She broke my nose." Lem dumped her unceremoniously to the floor. "Who in seven hells is she supposed to be?" 


"The Hand's daughter." Harwin went to one knee before her. "Arya Stark, of Winterfell." 

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

Arya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Davos

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

He almost decides not to hail the ship.

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

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

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

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

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."  

13. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 498-532

Bran

Bran/Summer (in his dream they are one) hears a faint sound of steel scraping on stone, and he howls. Shaggydog joins him, his fur bristling at the hint of danger. He throws himself against the chained gate that keeps him in the godswood, but to no avail. He hears a shout in the night, and looks for a way over the wall. There is a tall tree, and the boy part of him remembers how to climb it, but the wolf part is unable. Then he hears the dogs in the kennels begin to bark: "They smelled it too; the scent of foes and fear." He hurls himself up the tree and gets a foothold so he can climb, but "suddenly he was sliding, stumbling. He yowled in fear and fury, falling, falling, and twisted around while the ground rushed up to break him...."

The falling wakes Bran, who realizes what is happening: "The sea has come. It's flowing over the walls, just as Jojen saw." He calls for help, but no one comes because Ser Rodrik has taken the guard off his door, needing every able-bodied man he could find to go to the defense of Torrhen's Square, which "was under attack by some monstrous war chief named Dagmer Cleftjaw." Bran calls for Hodor, but suddenly the door crashes open and a strange man carrying a dirk and with an axe strapped to his back enters, followed by Theon Greyjoy.

The sight of Theon is a welcome one, until Theon tells him, "I've taken your castle, my prince." Bran is confused: "But you're Father's ward." Theon replies that Bran and Rickon are his wards now, and that his men are gathering all the residents of the castle into the Great Hall. "You and I are going to speak to them. You'll tell them how you've yielded Winterfell to me, and command them to serve and obey their new lord as they did the old."

Bran refuses, but Theon insists that he will. He leaves, saying that he will send someone to dress Bran and bring him to the Great Hall. Bran waits, expecting to see Hodor or one of the servants, but it is Maester Luwin who comes to him. He explained that Theon's men swam the moat and climbed the walls. They killed Alebelly at the gate. Luwin sent off two ravens, but one was shot down.

Luwin helps Bran dress and tells him there is no shame in yielding the castle. One of Theon's men comes to carry Bran, and Luwin gathers Rickon on the way. They meet Meera and Jojen and the Freys as well. When they reach the Great Hall, Rickon says, "Theon's sitting in Robb's chair," and Bran tells him to hush.

Maester Luwin explains to Theon that the Freys are Catelyn's wards, and that Jojen and Meera had come to Winterfell to renew the oath of fealty the Reeds had sworn.  The last of the staff are driven into the hall, followed by the prisoner called Reek, who explains to Theon why he is there, and says that his real name is Heke.

Bran notices that there are only twenty of Theon's men there, and assumes that if he left guards on the gates and the armory there were only thirty of them in all. He tells the group that he has yielded Winterfell to Theon and that they should do what he asks. But the smith, Mikken, shouts out, "Damned if I will!" One of Theon's men silences him with a blow from the butt of his spear. When Theon speaks again, however, Mikken shouts something, then is silenced forever when he is stabbed through the throat. Hodor begins to shout "Hodor hodor hodor hodor," and is beaten by two of the men when Theon orders them to "shut that halfwit up." Theon continues to address the crowd.

"Torrhen's Square and Deepwood Motte will soon be ours as well, and my uncle is sailing up the Saltspear to seize Moat Cailin. If Robb Stark can stave off the Lannisters, he may reign as King of the Trident hereafter, but House Greyjoy holds the north now."

Reek speaks up and volunteers his services in support of Theon (and promises to "wash some" if needed), so Theon has one of his men give Reek a spear and has him swear "obedience to House Greyjoy and King Balon." Then Osha surprises Bran by stepping forward and saying she will fight for Theon too if he'll give her a spear. The man who killed Mikken grabs his crotch and says, "I've got a spear for you right here." But when Osha knees him in the groin and grabs the spear away from him, then knocks the man down with it, Theon tells her to keep the spear and swear her loyalty.

Hodor, bleeding and weeping, carries Bran back to his room.

Arya

Arya is in the kitchens, trying to persuade Hot Pie to give her a tart, when she hears the sound of a warhorn and the portcullis being raised. She swipes a tart and runs off to see what is happening. The mercenaries known as the Bloody Mummers are entering with cartloads of looted goods and a train of prisoners. There are at least a hundred of them, and she recognizes from their sigils that they're all men allied to Robb. Ser Amory Lorch appears and asks the leader of the Mummers, Vargo Hoat, what's going on. Hoat explains that his group attacked the forces commanded by Roose Bolton, and captured their commander, Robett Glover and Ser Aenys Frey. Lorch orders them sent to the dungeons.

Arya slips away from the crowd and finds Gendry in the armory. She tells him about the captives, and asks him to help her free them. The castle is poorly defended now, and there are almost as many men among the captives as there are among Ser Amory's men. "We just have to get them out and we can take over the castle and escape." Gendry is uninterested: He's a smith, he says, and it doesn't matter who he works for. "A sword's a sword, a helm's a helm, and if you reach in the fire you get burned, no matter who you're serving. Lucan's a fair enough master. I'll stay here." Arya reminds him that the queen is after him, and there must be some reason why she wants him, but he is unmoved.

Then she thinks about finding Jaqen, who still owes her a death. She remembers Old Nan's stories about people who had been granted wishes, and how "you had to be especially careful with the third wish, because it was the last. Chiswyck and Weese hadn't been very important. The last death has to count." She goes to the godswood and finds the sword she had made herself out of a broomstick and practices the moves Syrio Forel taught her. She climbs a tree and dances out onto the limbs to practice keeping her balance.

When she tires, she climbs down and tries to pray to the old gods, but thoughts of how they have never made her prayers come true anger her. Her father prayed to them often, she recalls. "I don't care if you help me or not. I don't think you could even if you wanted to." A voice behind her says, "Gods are not mocked, girl." It is Jaqen. She begins to ask him questions: How did he know she was there? How did he make Weese's dog kill him? Are Rorge and Biter human or demons? "Is Jaqen H'ghar your true name."

"Some men have many names. Weasel. Arry. Arya," and adds, "My lady of Stark." She is surprised that he has uncovered her identity, but asks him to kill the guards and help the men in the dungeons escape. He reminds her that he owes her only one more death. Killing one guard won't be enough, she says, but he persists: "Three lives were snatched from a god. Three lives must be repaid. The gods are not mocked." She thinks for a moment and asks if he will kill anyone she asks for, and when he says yes, she makes him swear. He replies, placing his hand in the mouth of the face in the weirwood, "By all the gods of sea and air, and even him by fire.... By the seven new gods and the old gods beyond count, I swear it."

They kneel face to face and she whispers in his ear: "It's Jaqen H'ghar."

He is surprised and upset, but suddenly there is a knife in his hand. "A girl will weep," he says. "A girl will lose her only friend." She replies that he's not her friend. "A friend would help me.... I'd never kill a friend." He asks, "A girl might ... name another name then, if a friend did help?" And when she says she might if he helps, he puts the knife away and says, "Come." She is startled that he wants to act so soon, and he replies, "A man hears the whisper of sand in a glass. A man will not sleep until a girl unsays a certain name. Now, evil child."

They leave the godswood and hear a noise of celebration in the castle. Jaqen asks her again to say another name "and cast this mad dream aside," but she refuses, so he orders her to obey his instructions. She is to go to the kitchens and ask Hot Pie to make broth for a hundred men. "A girl will help make broth, and wait in the kitchens until a man comes for her. Go. Run." She does what he tells her, and when the kettles are hot, Jaqen arrives with Rorge and Biter. Jaqen and Arya carry one of the kettles between them, Rorge takes one, and Biter carries two.

They take them to the Widow's Tower, where the men are imprisoned, and the guards let them pass. They descend into the dungeons where there are eight men guarding the prisoners. They gather around the table, and first Rorge and then Jaqen and Biter heave the scalding broth in the guards' faces.

Arya pressed back against the wall as Rorge began to cut throats. Biter preferred to grab the men behind the head and under the chin and crack their necks with a single twist of his huge pale hands. Only one of the guards managed to get a blade out. Jaqen danced away from his slash, drew his own sword, drove the man back into a corner with a flurry of blows, and killed him with a thrust to the heart. The Lorathi brought the blade to Arya with heart's blood and wiped it clean on the front of her shift. "A girl should be bloody too. This is her work." 

The prisoners are freed quickly, and Arya notices that that the wounded ones don't seem as badly wounded as they had when they arrived. And Robett Glover asks if the broth was Hoat's idea. He also asks if they are members of the Brave Companions (i.e., the Bloody Mummers). Jaqen introduces himself as "once of the Free City of Lorath," and his "discourteous companions" Rorge and Biter. Since Biter is currently nibbling on the fingers of one of the dead guards, he doesn't need to say which one he is. When he turns to Arya, she says, "I'm Weasel."

When Rorge and Biter have left with the freed men, Jaqen H'ghar stays behind with Arya. He realizes that she is confused, and he explains, "A goat has no loyalty" -- the Bloody Mummers switched sides on the road, and the imprisonment was only a ruse. Eventually, the prisoners would have been freed to take over the castle without Arya's intervention. Jaqen still wants to "hear a certain name unsaid."

"I take back the name," Arya says, and then asks if she still has a third death coming to her. Jaqen points out the eight bodies: "The debt is paid." She agrees that it has been. And then he says, "A god has his due. And now a man must die." She protests that she has unsaid the name and he doesn't need to die, but he says, "My time is done."

Jaqen passed a hand down his face from forehead to chin, and where it went he changed. His cheeks grew fuller, his eyes closer; his nose hooked, a scar appeared on his right cheek where no scar had been before. And when he shook his head, his long straight hair, half red and half white, dissolved away to reveal a cap of tight black curls.

Arya is "too astonished to be afraid," and asks how he did it, and if she could learn to do it too. She would have to come with him to learn, he says. But she still wants to go home to Winterfell. "Then we must part," he says, and presses a small iron coin in her hand. "If the day comes when you would find me again, give that coin to any man from Braavos, and say these words to him -- valar morghulis." She repeats the words, but begs him, "Please don't go, Jaqen." He replies, "Jaqen is as dead as Arry." He has her repeat valar morghulis once more, and walks off into the darkness.

The castle has been taken by morning, and Arya returns to work, "mopping up dried blood." She sees "people looking at her strangely" and hears jokes about "weasel soup." That evening the new master of Harrenhal, Roose Bolton, arrives. He is an ordinary-looking man except "for his queer pale eyes." The fool Shagwell pulls her over to him and introduces her as "the weasel who made the soup." Bolton asks how old she is, and it takes Arya a moment to remember that she is ten. He asks what her real name is, and she says it's Nymeria, but that her mother called her Nan. He asks if she's afraid of leeches, and she says, "They're only leeches. My lord." He indicates that his squire is afraid of them, but that he believes "Frequent leechings are the secret of a long life. A man must purge himself of bad blood." He makes her his cupbearer for as long as he's at Harrenhal.

The banners of the Lannisters and Ser Amory Lorch are hauled down and the "flayed man of the Dreadfort and the direwolf of Stark" are raised in their place. Ser Amory is paraded naked to the bear pit and kicked in by Shagwell.

Daenerys

Continuing her quest for ships and sailors, Daenerys visits the palace of the warlocks, which is "a grey and ancient ruin" that Xaro Xhoan Daxos calls the Palace of Dust. Everyone advises her not to enter it, but Daenerys is stubborn, and when Pyat Pree appears, she takes his arm. He warns her to follow his instructions carefully, "The House of the Undying Ones was not made for mortal men."

Inside it, she will find herself in a room with four doors, counting the one she entered through. Always take the door to the right, he says. If she comes to a stairwell, go up. Never go downstairs. Some doors will be open, and inside them she will see things, some horrible, some wonderful; some will be visions of the past, and some of the future, and some of things that will never be. Don't enter them until she comes to the "audience chamber." People may speak to her as she proceeds, and it's up to her whether she answers them or ignores them. "When you come to the chamber of the Undying, be patient. Our little lives are no more than a flicker of a moth's wing to them. Listen well, and write each word on your heart."

At the entrance, which is a door shaped like a mouth in a wall shaped like a face, a dwarf no taller than her knee holds on a tray "a slender crystal glass filled with a thick blue liquid: shade of the evening, the wine of warlocks." Pyat Pree tells her to drink it and it will open her eyes and ears to the truths revealed inside. The first sip tastes like "ink and spoiled meat," but as it comes to life in her when she swallows it becomes "all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them."

She enters, and keeps moving through rooms, always taking the right-hand door, until she reaches a long hallway in which the only doors are on the left; on the right are a row of torches mounted on the wall. Drogon, who has been perched on her shoulder, unfolds his wings and flies "twenty feet before thudding to an undignified crash." The carpet underfoot is moldy but had once been gorgeous, and there are sounds like rats scurrying in the walls, which attract Drogon's notice.

Most of the doors on the left are closed, but strange sounds come from them. Daenerys tries not to look in the ones that are open, but she can't help it. One room contains mutilated corpses. "In a throne above them sat a dead man with the head of a wolf. He wore an iron crown and held a leg of lamb in one hand as a king might hold a scepter, and his eyes followed Dany with mute appeal." The next open door showed her the house where she had lived in Braavos, a house with a red door that was one of the few pleasant memories of her childhood remaining.

Another door shows her a man whom she at first takes for Viserys and a woman nursing a baby they have named Aegon, "What better name for a king?" The woman asks if he will make a song for the baby, and he says, "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." His eyes meet Daenerys's and he says, "The dragon has three heads."

She walks on until she reaches a staircase that descends into darkness. She knows she's not supposed to go down them, but all the doors are on the left, and behind her the torches are going out. In the darkness she hears something "shuffling and dragging itself slowly along the faded carpet." Drogon hears it too, she realizes, and she is panicked about what to do when she realizes that the last door on the left is the first door on the right. She plunges through it into another room with four doors, and keeps going through room after room, always to the right, until she starts getting dizzy.

Finally she reaches another room, and the door facing her is open. It's round and shaped like a mouth, and she can see Pyat Pree outside. He says it's too soon for her to have reached there and she must have taken a wrong turn. He reaches out a hand and says he'll show her the way. But then she notices a closed door on the right and opens it. He calls out to her, "Stubborn child. You will be lost, and never found," and when she goes through the door she can hear him screeching, "No, to me, come to me, to meeeeeee."

There is a stairwell inside, climbing upward, though she remembers that from the outside the building had no towers. On the right, a set of beautiful but "somehow frightening" doors made of ebony and weirwood, with "strange interwoven patterns" in the grain, have been thrown open. She goes into a great hall where there is a gathering of wizards, male and female, in a variety of costumes, and the sound of "the most beautiful music she had ever heard." A man rises and welcomes her: "Come and share the food of forever. We are the Undying of Qarth." Others join in the welcome.

She starts to go forward, but Drogon leaps from her shoulder and perches on top of the ebony-and-weirwood door and starts to bite it. She goes to the door, which is very heavy, and finds behind it a hidden door, to the right of the one through which she had entered. The wizards call out to her to come to them, but she goes through the door that had been hidden, which is "old grey wood, splintery and plain," and finds herself in "a chamber awash in gloom."

There is a long stone table in the room, and above it floats "a human heart, swollen and blue with corruption, yet still alive." There are blue shadowy figures around the table, but "no sound but the slow, deep beat of the rotting heart." Then she hears voices saying "mother of dragons ... dragons ... dragons ... dragons." She sits in the empty chair at the foot of the table and introduces herself as "Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros." She asks them to speak to her "with the wisdom of those who have conquered death."

She begins to make out the figures around the table, old men and women, "wrinkled and hairless," dressed in rotting clothing. Gradually she begins to hear them whisper that they live and know.  She says she saw visions of things in the hall and asks what they meant. She begins to hear their voices: "mother of dragons ... child of three ... three heads has the dragon ... three fires you must light ... one for life and one for death and one to love ... three mounts you must ride ... one to bed and one to dread and one to love ... three treasons will you know ... once for blood and once for gold and once for love ..." She tells them she doesn't understand, and asks them to show her. She sees Viserys screaming as the molten gold kills him. "A tall lord with copper skin and silver-gold hair stood beneath the banner of a fiery stallion, a burning city behind him." A "blue-eyed king who cast no shadow" raises a red sword. There is a cloth dragon carried on poles through a cheering crowd. A stone beast flies from a tower that is smoking. Her horse trots through grass to a stream under a sky full of stars. A corpse stands smiling at the prow of a ship. A sweet-smelling blue flower grows from a chink in a wall of ice.

The visions keep coming faster and faster: The shadows dancing in the tent, a little girl running to a house with a red door, Mirri Maz Duur shrieking in the flames, "a dragon bursting from her brow." A silver horse dragging the corpse of a naked man. A white lion running through tall grass. Naked crones emerging from a lake and bowing to her. Slaves with bloody hands calling out to her, "Mother!" She opens her arms to give herself to them.

Then suddenly Drogon's wings are beating around her and the dragon is screaming as she realizes that the Undying surround her, reaching for her, "licking, sucking, biting." She can't move until there is a sudden glare in the room and she sees Drogon tearing at the heart, shredding its flesh, "and when his head snapped forward, fire flew from his open jaws, bright and hot." Around her the Undying are on fire. She pushes through them to the door and calls for Drogon, who flies to her. She finds herself in a serpentine passageway with no doors but only stone walls until she reaches "a door like an open mouth" and runs through it into the sunlight.

Behind her, smoke is rising from the roof of the Palace of Dust and coming through the cracks in the walls. "Howling curses, Pyat Pree drew a knife and danced toward her, but Drogon flew at his face." Jhogo's whip sends the knife flying, and Rakharo wrestles the warlock to the ground. Jorah Mormont is there and puts his arm around her shoulder.

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Two, thought Tyrion."

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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