14. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 533-563

Tyrion

Tyrion sends the last of his mountain men off to harass Stannis's oncoming troops, leaving his with only Bronn and his mercenaries among his personal guard. He now gives Bronn the task of burning the buildings along the waterfront that have attached "themselves to the city walls like barnacles on the hull of a ship." But he's aware that even the walls are not adequate protection. He has heard of the fall of Winterfell to Theon's band, and reflects, "They had given the Starks Harrenhal and taken Winterfell, a dismal exchange." He feels a twinge as he recalls his visit to Winterfell, and especially when he remembers the godswood, where he had felt alien. "He wondered if the Greyjoys would feel it too. The castle might well be theirs, but never that godswood. Not in a year, or ten, or fifty."

He returns to his quarters where angry merchant ship captains are waiting to protest his seizure of their ships. He promises to compensate them after the war. Then he goes to the installation of Ser Balon Swann and Ser Osmund Kettleblack as members of the Kingsguard. Balon is an honorable and courageous man, he thinks; on the other hand, Osmund is being paid by Bronn to tell him Cersei's secrets. He had replaced Ser Boros Blount on the Kingsguard after Jacelyn Bywater and his men had surprised them on the road and taken Tommen into their custody. Blount has been imprisoned.

After the investiture he takes the new High Septon aside and asks him to tell the gods that Stannis plans to burn the Great Sept of Baelor if he takes the city. The septon, who was Tyrion's choice, asks if it's true, and Tyrion replies, "It may be. Stannis burned the godswood at Storm's End as an offering to the Lord of Light. If he'd offend the old gods, why should he spare the new?"

Back at his chambers, he meets with Maester Frenken, who has taken over some of Pycelle's duties. Frenken has received a raven from Balon Greyjoy, who is calling himself King of the Isles and the North and requests that Joffrey send an envoy to discuss the boundaries between their kingdoms as well as a possible alliance. Then he talks to Hallyne the Pyromancer, who tells him they have nearly thirteen thousand jars of wildfire. He explains that for some reason the alchemists' spells have been working better than they once did, and recalls an alchemist who once commented that "magic had begun to go out of the world the day the last dragon died." Tyrion observes that he hasn't seen any dragons lately, so he doesn't think that could be an explanation for the magic working so much better.

Then he meets with Jacelyn Bywater, who says that Prince Tommen is happy at Rosby. "He has adopted a fawn some of my men brought home from a hunt. He had one once before, he says, but Joffrey skinned her for a jerkin." Tyrion asks what arrangements have been made for Tommen's safety if Stannis should be victorious, and Jacelyn replies, "You commanded me to tell no one, my lord." Tyrion is pleased with the answer: If King's Landing falls and he's taken alive, he'd rather not know where Joffrey's heir is.

Finally, Varys brings him a list of wealthy men who have been discovered to be plotting against Joffrey and intend to go over to Stannis during the attack. Tyrion orders their arrest.

Theon

Even though he is sleeping in Eddard Stark's bed with a tavern wench named Kyra, Theon is restless and hears noises. He goes to the window and looks out, but there are no unusual sounds. Then he realizes that the wolves aren't howling as they usually do. He sends one of his men to check on them, and then wakes his squire, Wex, and tells him to see if Bran and Rickon are in their beds. Wex returns first, shaking his head in a no, then his man returns to say the wolves are gone too.

Theon orders the castle awakened and summoned to the yard. Then he learns that the two men who were guarding the Hunter's Gate, which opened onto fields and forests, have been killed. One of them seems to have been savaged by wolves, while the other has been found with his pants down, as if he was with a woman who killed him.

In the yard, he confronts the residents of the castle, and asks how many of them are missing. Reek tells him that six are gone: "Both Starks, that bog boy and his sister, the halfwit from the stables, and you wildling woman." No horses are missing, so Theon assumes they are on foot, with Bran on Hodor's back and Rickon being carried by Osha.

He decides to search when it gets light, and orders the kennelmaster, Farlen, to ready some hounds for the search. Farlen asks, "And why would I care to hunt down my own trueborn lords, and babes at that." Theon reminds him that he is the one who rescued Palla, the girl who works in the kennels, from the rapists among his men, and punished the men as well, indicating that he might not be so protective next time, so Farlen backs down. He also orders Maester Luwin to go along because he doesn't trust the maester not to send messages with ravens while he's absent. One of the Freys also volunteers because he wants a "wolfskin cloak."

They follow the tracks of the wolves and the people on foot into the wolfswood, which makes Theon uneasy. As they ride, Maester Luwin makes a case for sparing the lives of Bran and Rickon, arguing that they have value as hostages, and pleads for mercy for Hodor. Theon says he'll consider it, but he won't spare Osha. "She swore me an oath, and pissed on it."

The dogs find a dead elk, which appears to have been killed by the wolves, but not butchered to feed the humans. But they lose the scent when they reach a brook. And the footprints at the brook are only those of the wolves. Theon realizes, "Osha must have turned aside back of us. Before the elk, most likely. She sent the wolves on by themselves, hoping we'd chase after them." But he decides to follow the wolves along the stream, knowing that eventually they will return to the boys. He sends a small party back to where they lost the trail.

By noon, there is no more sign of the wolves, and Theon fears that the boys have found a village that will shelter them. When all of the search parties reunite, they have no news to report. By dusk, they have to give up the search. But then Reek comes up with a suggestion. He remembers an old mill that the party bringing him as a captive to Winterfell had stopped at. Theon knows the mill, but doesn't understand why Reek should single it out. Then Reek takes him aside and shows him something he has brought with him: "a wolf's-head brooch, silver and jet." Theon suddenly understands what Reek is suggesting. He calls some of the men he trusts and sends the rest of the search party, along with the hounds, back to Winterfell, telling them, "I know where Bran and Rickon are hiding now."

Before he leaves, Maester Luwin reminds Theon of his promise to be merciful. "'Mercy was for this morning,' said Theon. It is better to be feared than laughed at. 'Before they made me angry.'"

Jon

The scouting party led by Qhorin Halfhand also includes, in addition to Jon, the rangers Squire Dalbridge, Ebben, and Stonesnake. They have spotted a campfire on the side of a mountain, "Half a mile ahead and two thousand feet up, Jon judged, and perfectly placed to see anything moving in the pass below." They are surprised to see the fire, which gives away the wildlings' position, since they have been careful not to light any fires themselves.

Stonesnake volunteers to make the climb, and Jon follows. Qhorin suggests that Ghost stay behind: "White fur is seen too easily by moonlight." When they reach the wildlings and capture or kill them, they are to throw down a brand from the fire as a signal to join them.

The Skirling Pass was really a series of passes, a long twisting course that went up around a succession of icy wind-carved peaks and down through hidden valleys that seldom saw the sun. Apart from his companions, Jon had glimpsed no living man since they'd left the wood behind and begun to make their way upward. The Frostfangs were as cruel as any place the gods had made, and as inimical to men.

As he makes his way up the mountain, Jon thinks, "Bran used to love to climb. I wish I had a tenth part of his courage."

They find the wildlings' camp "in a shallow depression above the narrowest part of the pass, with a sheer drop below and rock behind to shelter them from the worst of the wind." Stonesnake and Jon climb to just a few feet above them. One of them is asleep, another is feeding the fire, and a third, who wears a horn, is looking out into the pass. Jon is surprised to find that there are three of them, but at least one is asleep.

Stonesnake points at the one with the horn, indicating that he belongs to Jon.  Stonesnake leaps down first, and Jon draws Longclaw and follows. The wildling reaches for his horn to sound the alarm, but Jon knocks it from his hand with the sword. The man then grabs a burning stick from the fire and thrusts it at Jon, but Jon takes hold of his sword with both hands and cuts him down. The falling man grabs the sword from Jon's hand, just as the sleeper awakes. Jon pulls out his dirk and grabs the now-awake man by the hair, putting the point under his chin -- and then realizes that it's not a man but a girl. "A wildling," Stonesnake says. "Finish her."

Jon is reminded of Arya, and asks if she will yield. She says she does, but Stonesnake says, "Qhorin said nothing of taking captives." Jon replies, "He never said not to." Jon asks her name and she says it's Ygritte. When he tells her his name is Jon Snow, she says, "An evil name." He tells her he is the bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell. Stonesnake says, "It's the captive supposed to tell things, remember?"

Ygritte says they should burn the men they killed, and Jon realizes why, remembering the undead who attacked at the Wall. Instead, Stonesnake flings the bodies over the edge of the cliff. Jon realizes that Ygritte is older than he thought, perhaps twenty. He asks if they were sent to watch them, and she says, "You, and others." Stonesnake asks what's beyond the pass, and she says, "The free folk.... Hundred and thousands." But when they ask what is in the Frostfangs that Mance Rayder wants, and whether they plan to march on the Wall, and whether she knows anything about Benjen Stark, she remains silence.

There is the sound of the growling of a shadowcat, then another, but she says they won't attack them. They were attracted by the smell of blood and will seek out the bodies. As they sit there, she tells them the story of Bael the Bard, who "was King-beyond-the-Wall a long time back." The Stark in Winterfell "called Bael a craven who preyed only on the weak," so Bael climbed over the Wall and walked into Winterfell posing as a singer named Sygerrik of Skagos. "Sygerrik means 'deceiver' in the Old Tongue, that the First Men spoke, and the giants still speak."

Bael entertains Lord Stark with his songs, and is told he can name his reward. Bael says he wants "the fairest flower that blooms in the gardens o' Winterfell." So Stark has a rare winter rose brought to Bael. "But when morning come, the singer had vanished ... and so had Lord Brandon's maiden daughter. Her bed they found empty, but for the pale blue rose that Bael had left on the pillow where her head had lain."

Jon asks which Brandon this was, but Ygritte asks if he wants to hear the story, so he tells her to go on. She says that Lord Brandon had no other children, so he sent searchers out for his daughter. They couldn't find her, however, and it looked like the line of Starks had reached its end. But on his deathbed he hears a baby cry, and he finds his daughter in her chamber with a baby at her breast. She had been hiding in the crypt beneath the castle and "the boy grew to be the next Lord Stark. So there it is -- you have Bael's blood in you, same as me."

Jon says, "It never happened." Ygritte replies, "Might be it did, might be it didn't. It is a good song, though." The song ends with the baby being found,  she says, but the story goes on. Thirty years later, Bael had become King-beyond-the-Wall and met his son, Lord Stark, in battle. And Stark killed Bael, who "would not harm his own son when they met sword to sword." But, she adds, "the gods hate kinslayers, even when they kill unknowing." Stark returned to Winterfell with Bael's head, and when his mother saw it, she jumped from the top of a tower. And one of Stark's lords flayed him and wore his skin for a cloak.

Jon says Bael was a liar, but Ygritte insists "a bard's truth is different than yours or mine."

At dawn, they are joined by Qhorin and the others. Ghost runs to meet Jon, and he plays the game he and the direwolf play, in which the wolf closes his jaw around Jon's wrist and tugs his hand back and forth. Ygritte watchs "with eyes as wide and white as hen's eggs." Jon explains that she yielded to him, but Qhorin says there isn't enough food for her and they can't spare anyone to guard her. He tells Jon that since she yielded to him, he "must do what needs to be done."

The others leave Jon with Ygritte, who says, "You never killed a woman before, did you?" and asks if he will burn her body afterward. When he says he can't risk the smoke being seen, she says, "Well, there's worse places to end up than the belly of a shadowcat." She bares her neck and kneels before him. He raises Longclaw to strike, but then lowers it and says "Go." She does.

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

Daenerys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


Tyrion


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

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

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

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


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


Davos


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


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


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


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


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

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


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

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

Davos thinks, "Something is wrong here."


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Two, thought Tyrion."

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arya

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

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

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

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

Davos

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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