33. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 860-886

Tyrion

Tyrion is signing a stack of promissory notes, promising the bearer a hundred golden dragons, as the price of joining the Second Sons. He knows the notes will be good only if he ever goes back to Westeros and claims the fortune of Casterly Rock. The notes at the bottom of the stack are for a thousand golden dragons, then ten thousand each for Kasporio the Cunning and Tybero Istarion. As a Second Son, his duties will be to work for Tybero, who is known as Inkpots, "Keeping books, counting coin, writing contracts and letters."

The final note is for "One hundred thousand golden dragons, fifty hides of fertile land, a castle, and a lordship." This one is for Brown Ben Plumm. Tyrion signs it, then adds his name to the roll book of the Second Sons, signing just below Jorah Mormont. He then returns to the tent he shares with Penny, who is grieving over the loss of the dog and the pig. He tells her that they need to find some armor to fit her -- she is to pose as a boy.

They are led to the armorer's by a boy named Kem, whose accent reveals to Tyrion that he is from King's Landing. When they reach the wagons full of odds and ends of armor, Jorah Mormont is there, dressed in mismatched pieces scavenged from the heaps in the wagons. He has recovered from his beatings, but his face is disfigured by a branded demon's mask on his right cheek, the sign of "a dangerous and disobedient slave." Tyrion and Penny sort through the pieces looking for something that will fit, and Tyrion finds a dirk that he likes.

Mormont observes that they will be fighting for the wrong side: "The Yunkai'i have lost this war, though it may take them some time to know it." Meereen has the Unsullied, as well as dragons: "Three of them, once the queen returns. She will. She must." Tyrion agrees:

"The Second Sons are on the losing side. They need to turn their cloaks again and do it now." He grinned. "Leave that to me."

The Kingbreaker

Barristan and Skahaz are meeting to discuss their next move. The Shavepate is convinced that Hizdahr planned to kill not only Daenerys but also her dragons, as a way of leaving the city defenseless when the Volantene fleet arrives. Skahaz wants to attack the Yunkai'i and end things, but Selmy argues that Daenerys signed the peace treaty, so they must not be the ones to break it. They must overthrow Hizdahr, he says, then form a council to present terms to the Yunkai'i, demanding the return of the remaining hostages and the withdrawal of their armies. "Should they refuse, then and only then will we inform them that the peace is broken, and go forth to give them battle."

Selmy says that Skahaz's way is "dishonorable." Skahaz replies that Barristan's way is "stupid." Their men are ready to fight, he says. Barristan admits that this is true, but they had agreed at the outset to do it his way. The Shavepate gives in, very reluctantly. They will overpower the two guards Hizdahr keeps at his bedchamber, both of them pit fighters who have been pressed into service as guards and were already bored at the routine of their duties. Skahaz will see to it that the Brazen Beasts support him.

Barristan wants to free their hostages, the Unsullied known as Hero, Daenerys's bloodrider Jhogo, and Daario Naharis, all of whom are deeply loyal to their queen. Skahaz argues that they are all expendable, particularly Daario. Barristan agrees that things would be simpler if Daario were out of the way, eliminating an impediment to Daenerys's marriage to someone who might aid in the conquest of Westeros, but he still argues for Hero and Jhogo. The Shavepate counters that if their hostages are killed, they can kill the ones they hold, the children of noble families. Barristan has come to know them, however, and balks at killing children, remembering the murder of Prince Rhaegar's children.

Despite their differences, the two agree to make their move that night at the hour of the wolf. He finds Missandei in the queen's chambers, reading, and warns her not to leave them that night, no matter what she sees or hears. The rest of the day he spends remembering events in his past that might have changed the course of his life one way or another. As the time draws near, he bathes and dresses all in white, then puts on the gilded armor and the long white cloak that Daenerys had given him. He decides not to wear his helmet, which impedes his vision.

He meets the Shavepate, who is accompanied by six Brazen Beasts wearing identical masks: locusts. The men in masks follow him as he goes to the king's chamber, guarded outside by the pit fighter known as Steelskin. Barristan says he needs to speak to Hizdahr and is told that he may enter but the Brazen Beasts must remain behind. In the chambers one of the cupbearers goes to wake the king, who appears, yawning.

Hizdahr asks if there has been news of Daenerys, but Barristan tells him no. Is there trouble in the city, then? Again, the answer is no. Finally, Barristan says he has come "To ask a question. Magnificence, are you the Harpy?" Hizdahr is startled, and seems to realize for the first time that Barristan is wearing armor. Barristan then asks, "Was the poison your work, Magnificence?" Hizdahr accuses Quentyn of poisoning the locusts: "They're all poisoners, these Dornish. Reznak says they worship snakes."

As Barristan persists, Hizdahr grows more agitated and confused in his denials, and tries to shift the blame to Daario Naharis: "Perhaps it was her precious captain who tried to poison her, for putting him aside." Barristan says, "If you are not the Harpy, give me his name," and draws his sword. Hizdahr calls out for the other guard, Khrazz, who emerges from his chamber sleepily, but with his weapon, a Dothraki arakh, drawn. Barristan observes that the weapon is not made for close combat, and tells Khrazz to throw it down. He is there for Hizdahr, and not to harm him.

Khrazz attacks. He is forty years younger than Barristan, and much heavier, but Barristan is wearing armor. The pit fighter is unprepared to do battle with an armored man, and when Barristan sees the opportunity, he kills Khrazz. He finds Hizdahr cowering behind a tapestry in the bedchamber and takes him into custody.

The king's cupbearers are standing there terrified, but one of them speaks up to tell Hizdahr that Reznak needs to see him, urgently. Skahaz was supposed to take the seneschal into custody, Barristan thinks, and wonders if something has gone wrong. He asks the cupbearer, "Where does the seneschal want His Grace to go?" The boy stammers that they should go outside to the terrace:

"The dragons have been loosed, ser."

28. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 741-768

The Iron Suitor

Victarion Greyjoy set out from the Shield Islands with ninety-three ships, and picked up half a dozen more along the way. Only about half of them remain as they draw near their goal. In Volantis, he had seen how the fever to conquer Daenerys had taken hold, and he is now determined to reach her before the Volantene fleet does. He is hoping that the storms will be as destructive to the Volantenes as they were to his ships.

He knows that Euron plans to claim Daenerys as his own, but Victarion has decided to defy his brother and take her for himself: "They had sailed too far and lost too much for Victarion to turn west without his prize." In his cabin he is tended to by Euron's gift, a "dusky woman" whose tongue Euron had cut out before presenting her to Victarion. The young maester, known as Kerwin, also arrives to dress the wound he had suffered to his hand in a swordfight. The wound is gangrenous, but in no uncertain terms Victarion rejects Kerwin's suggestion that he may have to amputate the hand.

As the dusky woman is binding the wound again, he gets word that the captain of the ship Grief has come on board with a man reputed to be a wizard. It is Moqorro, the red priest on the Selaesori Qhoran, thought to be dead after the storm that attacked the ship. He has been rescued, clinging to a spar after ten days adrift -- a claim that Victarion rejects as impossible. When Moqorro reveals himself as a priest of R'hllor there is much mockery and a call to "Send him down to the Drowned God before he brings a curse upon us." But Victarion thinks that perhaps the Drowned God sent Moqorro to them for a reason.

Victarion asks why they think he's a wizard, and is told that Moqorro claimed Victarion would die unless he agreed to see the priest. A spasm of pain from his hand makes Victarion stagger and almost fall, and he decides to have Moqorro taken to his cabin. When they enter, the dusky woman turns toward them and then hisses like a snake at the sight of Moqorro. Victarion knocks her down with his good hand.

Moqorro tells Victarion that he has seen him in the flames, "stern and fierce" but "blind to the tentacles that grasp you at wrist and neck and ankle, the black strings that make you dance." Victarion scoffs at the vision, but when Moqorro asks to see the wounded hand he shows it to him. Moqorro  tells him that he can heal it.

"I will need a blade. Silver would be best, but iron will serve. A brazier as well. I must needs light a fire. There will be pain. Terrible pain, such as you have never known. But when we are done, your hand will be returned to you." 

Victarion submits to the treatment, and the crew hears strange sounds of laughter, singing, and wailing coming from the cabin. At sunset Victarion comes out on deck, raises "a charred and blackened hand," and orders them to cut the throat of Maester Kerwin and throw him overboard. When they do that, he says, they will have fair winds all the way to Meereen. He bases that on what Moqorro has seen in his fires. Moqorro had also seen Daenerys's marriage in the fires, but Victarion isn't bothered by that: "She would not be the first woman Victarion Greyjoy had made a widow."

Tyrion

Yezzan zo Qaggaz is dying of "the pale mare," a dysentery-like disease that has been decimating the Yunkai'i. The slavemaster Nurse has already died, though with help from the poison mushrooms Tyrion has carried with him since Pentos.  Tyrion is now trying to figure out a way of escaping, but is hindered by the slave collar with its tinkling bells.

When Sweets, the hermaphrodite, sends them to fetch water for Yezzan, Tyrion tells Penny that Yezzan has nephews who will inherit his slaves, and that they may decide to put them on the auction block again. But the nephews have disappeared when the disease showed up in Yezzan's camp. Tyrion orders Scar, the sergeant of Yezzan's guard, to fetch the water, but is backhanded for his request. This gives him the opportunity to explain that he and Penny are too weak to carry the water Yezzan needs, so Scar suggests that they get their "bear," Jorah Mormont, to assist them.

Mormont is in terrible shape, having resisted at every opportunity that presented itself, but he follows Tyrion and Penny to the well. As they walk, Tyrion observes the preparations that are being made in case of the dragon's return, the weapons being trained at the sky. From his own studies of dragon lore, Tyrion knows the futility of these preparations: The only real vulnerability a dragon has is its eyes; the scales of the belly are too tough.

They find a line a quarter of a mile long at the well. Tyrion takes the opportunity to listen to the gossip, which is of course about Daenerys's disappearance and presumed death. He and Penny are recognized as the dwarfs who had jousted for the queen, and are pressed for information about her. But Tyrion had been more surprised to find her escorted by Barristan Selmy. He had almost tried to make contact with Barristan, but he was uncertain how he might have been received by the old knight. Unfortunately, they were being chained up after their performance while the dragon was making its appearance, so they have nothing to tell about it.

On their way back with the water, Tyrion and Penny carrying two pails and Mormont carrying four, Tyrion claims to know a shortcut. He has grown used to playing on Penny's innocence, and has even kept secret from her what he has learned: that they were going to set the lions loose on them. He figured it out when he and Penny returned from the pit and saw the look on Nurse's face: "Nurse did not expect us back. He had looked around at other faces. None of them expected us back. We were meant to die out there." And then he overheard an animal trainer talking about how hungry the lions were.

But it is Penny's turn to catch on: They are going the wrong way. They are heading for the camp of the Second Sons. Mormont warns him, "If you think to find help there, you don't know Brown Ben Plumm." But Tyrion assures him that he does. Penny frets about the dog and the pig, but Tyrion assures her that Sweets will take care of them, knowing full well that if he does anything Sweets will eat them. He and Mormont set off for Plumm's camp, and Penny reluctantly follows.

One of the men at the camp recognizes Tyrion and Penny as the dwarfs Plumm had tried to buy, so he lets the three of them enter. When they are taken to Plumm, Tyrion explains that Yezzan is dying, and that he has taken the opportunity to join him.

"House Plumm is sworn to Casterly Rock, and as it happens I know a bit of its history. Your branch sprouted from a stone spit across the narrow sea, no doubt. A younger son of Viserys Plumm, I'll wager. The queen's dragons were fond of you, were they not?"

Plumm is amused by Tyrion's self-assurance, as the dwarf goes on to warn him that if he takes his head and sends it to Cersei, she will deny that it's his and withhold his reward. He "was born a second son," he tells Plumm, and wants to join up. When one of Plumm's men says they need fighters, not mummers, Tyrion says he's brought a fighter, and indicates Mormont, whose "face might have been unrecognizable in its battered state, but his voice was unchanged." Plumm recognizes Mormont when he speaks, but it is Tyrion who takes charge of the situation, challenging Plumm to a game of cyvasse and asking for some wine: "My throat is dry as an old bone, and I can see that I have a deal of talking to do."

23. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 605-631

Let's see, where were we...?

A Ghost in Winterfell

The body of one of Ramsay Bolton's men is found, buried in the snow at the base of the inner wall, with a broken neck. Though the consensus is that the death was accidental, it stirs talk that Stannis may have already found a way to get his men inside Winterfell. The snowstorm has raged for days, making it impossible to see what is happening outside the walls. Ramsay is merciless in prosecuting dissent, including suggestions that Stannis is anything but starving and frozen out there in the wilderness beyond Winterfell. But as supplies dwindle, morale worsens.

One evening, as Theon is finishing his meager ration of porridge, a woman named Holly, one of the "washerwomen" accompanying the singer Abel, accosts him and asks to see the crypts. Theon suspects that Abel is looking for a way to get out of the castle, and since Theon is known to have found his way in to conquer Winterfell, he surely must know the escape route. He tells Holly to leave him alone.

He goes outside, and decides to take a look from the walls where Bolton had punished one of the dissenters by having him thrown off into a snowbank. The man broke a leg and was shot by a bowman, left to freeze to death. Theon thinks briefly of jumping, of taking his chances, but knows that Ramsay would hunt him down and inflict worse torments.

The next day, another man is found naked and frozen to death, and then a crossbowman is found with his head bashed in. The former death is attributed to drink, the latter to a kick from a horse, but Theon has his doubts. And the deaths begin to unnerve Bolton's lords, who argue that they should stop waiting for Stannis and go out to meet him, while others argue the opposite, pointing out that the scouts they have sent to reconnoiter have all disappeared. Lord Wyman Manderly even seems to go out of his way to pick a fight with Ser Aenys Frey, and when Roose Bolton is forced to make peace between them, Theon thinks he sees a glint of something like fear in Bolton's eyes.

That night, the roof of the stable collapses under the weight of snow, killing twenty-six horses and two men. Lord Bolton orders the remaining horses brought inside the Great Hall, compounding the stench and filth. And when the men have finished digging out the dead horses and butchering them for food, another body is found.

This one could not be waved away as some drunken tumble or the kick of a horse. The dead man was one of Ramsay's favorites, the squat, scrofulous, ill-favored man-at-arms called Yellow Dick. Whether his dick had actually been yellow was hard to determine, as someone had sliced it off and stuffed it in his mouth so forcefully they had broken three of his teeth.

Roose Bolton tries to hush this death up, but the story spreads, and Ramsay Bolton vows to flay the murderer and have him eat his own skin.

Escaping from the stench of the hall and the taunts of Ramsay's men, Theon goes outside into the snow, walking the pathways cut through snowbanks that now loom chest high. There he encounters a man in a hooded cloak who addresses him as "Theon Turncloak. Theon Kinslayer." Theon denies the epithets: "I'm not. I never ... I was ironborn." The man persists in his denunciation, and all that Theon, who wonders if this might be the murderer stalking Winterfell, can offer in his defense is that he is at Ramsay Bolton's mercy now: He shows the man his maimed hand and says, "Lord Ramsay is not done with me." The man laughs and says he will leave Theon to him.

Theon climbs to the battlements and looks out on the nothingness, thinking,

The world is gone. King's Landing, Riverrun, Pyke, and the Iron Islands, all the Seven Kingdoms, every place that he had ever known, every place that he had ever read about or dreamed of, all gone. Only Winterfell remained. He was trapped here, with the ghosts. The old ghosts from the crypts and the younger ones that he had made himself, Mikken and Farlen, Gynir Rednose Aggar, Gelmarr the Grim, the miller's wife from Acorn Water and her two young sons, and all the rest. My work. My ghosts. They are all here, and they are angry. He thought of the crypts and those missing swords.

When he returns to his chambers, he is summoned by Lord Bolton, whom he finds with Lady Dustin, Roger Ryswell, and Aenys Frey. Roose Bolton comes to the point: Theon has been seen wandering the castle. Theon explains that he can't sleep, and that he is familiar with Winterfell from childhood. When Bolton points out that someone has been killing his men, Theon says he wouldn't do such a thing. Then Lady Dustin asks him to remove his gloves. He hesitates, but shows them that his left hand is missing two fingers and his right one. Aenys Frey observes that Theon could still hold a dagger with his right hand, but Lady Dustin scoffs, "He hardly has the strength to hold a spoon." Ryswell agrees that Theon isn't the killer, and Roose Bolton is inclined to agree.

They proceed to discuss who might be behind the murders, including Lord Wyman Manderly. Lady Dustin and Ryswell point out that almost everyone in the north, their own houses included, has a grudge against the Freys for the Red Wedding. Finally, Roose dismisses Theon, who goes out to walk the walls some more, trying to get tired enough to sleep.

Suddenly there is the sound of a horn, followed by the beat of a drum. But no one can see through the veil of falling snow. When one of the Freys suggests they ride out and meet the enemy -- everyone assumes the horn and drum have been sounded by Stannis -- Theon hopes they will: "Ride out into the snow and die. Leave Winterfell to me and the ghosts." Then he hopes that Roose Bolton will give him a sword and let him fight: "Then at least he might die a man's death, sword in hand."

Theon makes his way to the godswood, where the hot springs have continued to melt the snow. He can hear the drumming, but he also hears the leaves of the trees whispering his name. He kneels and begs to be allowed to "die as Theon, not Reek." A leaf falls and brushes his face: "It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. '...Bran,' the tree murmured." The face carved in the tree suddenly seems to be Bran's, and he begins to plead aloud that it hadn't been Bran and Rickon that he killed. "They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water."

Then someone speaks: "Who are you talking to?" He turns around and sees three of the washerwomen: Holly, Rowan, and an older woman whose name he doesn't know. They repeat the words he has spoken, his confession that he needed two heads to prove that he had captured Bran and Rickon, because otherwise he would have been laughed at. He sees that Holly has a knife, and he asks her to kill him. He realizes that they are the killers.

Rowan says, "You prayed, and the gods sent us. You want to die as Theon? We'll give you that. A nice quick death, 'twill hardly hurt at all.... But not till you've sung for Abel. He's waiting for you."

Tyrion

Tyrion and Penny are being sold at slave auction as "A pair of dwarfs, well trained for your amusement." The dog and the pig are being thrown in as part of the deal. When the bidding for them slows, they are ordered to put on a show for the bidders, and Tyrion takes a pratfall from the back of the pig that renews the competition. Finally, they are sold to an enormously fat man in yellow.

They are in the Yunkish camp within sight of the walls of Meereen. The overseer tells them that they are now "the property of the noble and valorous Yezzan zo Qaggaz, scholar and warrior, revered amongst the Wise Masters of Yunkai." The overseer himself, says that they should call him "Nurse," because he looks after the "special treasures" of Yezzan the way a nurse does the children under her charge.

Then Jorah Mormont is brought to the block, struggling against the handlers. He has been so badly beaten that he is almost unrecognizable, and the auctioneer suggests he should be bought as a contender in the fighting pits which were being reopened after Daenerys's marriage to Hizdahr. The bidding is not going well -- no one seems to want the obviously untamed Ser Jorah -- and he is about to be sold to an old woman who buys up fighters cheaply when Tyrion decides to intervene. He tells Nurse that Jorah is part of the act: He plays a bear in an act in which Tyrion is a knight who saves the fair maiden Penny. "I dance about and hit him in the balls. Very funny." So Nurse goes to tell Yezzan, who offers the winning bid.

Mormont is brought to the cart and thrown in with Tyrion and Penny, but he is no longer struggling. "All the fight went out of him when he heard that his queen had wed, Tyrion realized." They are taken to Yezzan's pavilion in the Yunkish camps, which form a crescent around the city of Meereen. Ships had brought the lumber for six giant trebuchets that tower over the camps. But Tyrion also sees evidence of the disease that has spread through the camps: "Disease could wipe out an army quicker than any battle, he had heard his father say once," and he resolves to try to escape as soon as possible.

Tyrion and Penny are housed inside Yezzan's vast pavilion, which is covered with lemon-colored silk. They are fitted with collars around their necks, and Penny cries because hers is so heavy. There are also bells attached to the collars. Mormont is chained to a stake outside the tent. Tyrion and Penny join "Yezzan's other treasures: a boy with twisted, hairy 'goat legs,' a two-headed girl out of Mantarys, a bearded woman, and a willowy creature called Sweets who dressed in moonstones and Myrish lace," and who demonstrates her private parts for them: "I'm both, and master loves me best." She warns them that Nurse "is the only true monster here." As for their master, Yezzan, he is slowly dying, and anyone who can make him forget that elicits his generosity.

That night they are called on to entertain Yezzan and his guests who include Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, the Yunkish supreme commander, and Brown Ben Plumm, whom Tyrion had seen at the auction. Plumm had in fact bid on the dwarfs against Yezzan, and although Tyrion knew that Plumm might be planning to take him back to Westeros and to Cersei, he figured he would rather take his chances with him than with Yezzan.

The act goes over well, and afterward the dwarfs are called on to serve the guests, Tyrion pouring wine and Penny water. Then someone mentions that Tyrion had boasted of his prowess at cyvasse, and he winds up playing against Brown Ben Plumm, who first wagers that if he wins, Yezzan should give Tyrion to him. But Yezzan says that if he can defeat Tyrion, he will pay Plumm the price he paid for him, in gold. Tyrion wins easily, but Yezzan has fallen asleep. Nevertheless, he was pleased by their performance, Nurse tells them. "To celebrate the signing of the peace, you shall have the honor of jousting in the Great Pit of Daznak. Thousands will come see you! Tens of thousands! And, oh, how we shall laugh!" 

20. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 524-548

Tyrion

He has given in, and is riding the pig, whose name is Pretty, jousting against Penny on the deck of the Selaesori Qhoran. The ship has been becalmed in the Gulf of Grief for twelve days, and the crew is restless and looking for a scapegoat. Penny has begged him to help her entertain the crew, lest they turn on them. But Tyrion has also decided that he and Penny will perform the jousting act as a means to approach Daenerys.

Ser Jorah scoffs at this idea: "Daenerys Targaryen is no silly child to be diverted by japs and tumbles. She will deal with you justly." But Tyrion, who knows the history of Jorah's relationship with Daenerys, asks how he intends to approach her. "You think Daenerys will execute me and pardon you, but the reverse is just as likely. Maybe you should hope on that pig, Ser Jorah."

Jorah gives him a blow that knocks him across the deck, and tells Tyrion to stay away from him for the rest of the voyage. Tyrion is rinsing the blood out of his mouth when he feels the ship move: The wind has come up. But when he goes on deck he looks to the west and thinks, "I have never seen a sky that color." Moqorro joins him and says it is "God's wroth."

Banished from Jorah's presence, Tyrion joins Penny in her cabin as the storm begins to hurl the ship about. To his surprise, Penny kisses him. He has no desire for her, and when he looks at her he realizes that she really has none for him. She tells him that she was afraid they would drown, and she has never kissed a man before. In case she is hoping for more, he tells her he is married. The excuse works because, he realizes, she is "still young enough to believe such blatant lies."

The storm lasts into the night, sweeping three members of the crew overboard, blinding the cook when hot grease is tossed in his eyes, and breaking both of the captain's legs when he falls from the sterncastle to the main deck. When it dies down, Tyrion goes to the deck and discovers that they are in the eye of the storm. The wind returns and this time it splits the mast. Tyrion clings for life to a rope, as splinters from the mast stab him in the neck and the thigh.
The
When the storm is over, the ship is just barely afloat, and nine men have died, including Moqorro, who had been on deck praying to R'hllor. The next day the captain dies and three days later the cook. They drift for nineteen days until a ship is sighted. Unfortunately, Ser Jorah informs him, it's a slaver.

The Turncloak

Snow begins to fall heavily at Winterfell, which puts Stannis's troops at a severe disadvantage, as Roose Bolton cheerfully announces. Theon has been considering escape, now that his usefulness to the Boltons is over, but he has no place to go. "The nearest thing to a home that remained to him was here, amongst the bones of Winterfell. A ruined man, a ruined castle. This is my place."

Jeyne/Arya hasn't been seen in the hall since the wedding, but Theon goes in every night to help her bathe, since she has no handmaids. He has seen the bruises Ramsay has left on her, and would like to help her escape, but he knows that when Ramsay tires of tormenting his wife, he will turn on Theon again.

He eats by himself, since no one cares for the company of Theon Turncloak. But one evening a woman sits down by him. She is one of the women accompanying the singer Abel. She asks him to tell her how he captured Winterfell, and if he had a secret way to get in. He doesn't tell her anything, but she persists, telling him her name is Rowan. Instantly he suspects that this is one of Ramsay's tricks: "He wants me to run, so he can punish me." So he gets up and leaves.

He walks through the ruins of Winterfell and finds his way to the battlements on the inner wall where he sees the snow piling up everywhere. "Stannis Baratheon is out there somewhere, freezing," he thinks. He makes his way to the godswood, where the hot springs keep the snow from accumulating. Even though they are not his gods, he finds himself praying but he isn't sure for what: "Strength? Courage? Mercy?" He hears the sound of a faint sobbing, and thinks it must be Jeyne: "Who else could it be? Gods do not weep. Or do they?" There must be ghosts in Winterfell, and he is one of them.

In the kitchen, cooks are making stew and the dogs are gathered for the scraps. He has some stew, and listens in the hall as Roose Bolton's scouts report that Stannis's march has slowed. Then Lady Barbrey Dustin enters and calls for him. She wants to know how to get to the crypts. He leads her there, and on the way he recognizes the place where Bran Stark had fallen. He had been hunting that day, and when they returned they were told that Bran wasn't expected to live. He thinks, "The gods could not kill Bran, no more than I could."

It takes half an hour for Lady Dustin's men to uncover the entrance to the crypts and to batter down the frozen door with an axe. As he descends into the crypts, Lady Dustin comments that Lady Arya is weeping. Theon tells himself to be careful of another trap, but she says, "Roose is not pleased. Tell your bastard that." The northmen "love the Starks," she says, and they haven't forgotten how Ramsay Bolton's previous wife ate her fingers to keep from starving. "What do you think passes through their heads when they hear the new bride weeping? Valiant Ned's precious little girl."

Theon keeps silent until they reach the first level of the crypts. She asks if he knows the names of the lords buried there, and he recalls some of them. She asks for Ned Stark's tomb, and he tells her it's at the end. As they pass one tomb she notices that the king buried there is missing his sword. Theon is "disquieted" at this fact: "He had always heard that the iron in the sword kept the spirits of the dead locked within their tombs."

Suddenly he finds himself asking, "My lady, why do you hate the Starks?" She replies, "For the same reason you love them." He stumbles trying to answer, protesting that he took their castle and had Bran and Rickon killed, but she persists, "Why do you love the Starks?" And he admits, "I wanted to be one of them." And she replies, "We have more in common than you know."

When they reach Lord Rickard's tomb, she observes that his sword is missing too. And he points out that Brandon's is gone as well. "He would hate that," she says, and then tells Theon that Brandon, Ned's brother, had taken her virginity. She had hoped to marry him, but Rickard Stark pledged him to Catelyn Tully, ambitious to unite his house with one in the south. Her father had though she would marry Eddard, but after Brandon's death, he married Catelyn. So she married Lord Dustin, but he died when Ned Stark called out his banners in support of Robert Baratheon's rebellion.

"He told me that my lord had died an honorable death, that his body had been laid to rest beneath the red mountains of Dorne. He brought his sister's bones back north, though, and there she rests ... but I promise you, Lord Eddard's bones will never rest beside hers. I mean to feed them to my dogs."

Theon doesn't understand, and she explains that Catelyn had Eddard's bones sent north, but when Balon Greyjoy took Moat Cailin, their progress to Winterfell had been interrupted. "I have been watching ever since. Should those bones ever emerge from the swamps, they will get no farther than Barrowton."

When they return from the crypt, she warns him that he must repeat nothing of what she has said. He says, "Hold my tongue or lose it." And she replies, "Roose has trained you well."

16. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 420-447

Reek

Bolton is returning with his fellow hunters, and the hounds almost knock Theon off his feet as he hurries, as fast as his fetters will allow him, to greet his master. Bolton comments on how bad Reek smells, and he apologizes. But then Bolton says he has brought him a gift and throws him a rotting, maggot-covered head.

He is left to take care of Ramsay Bolton's horse, and Little Walder commands him to do the same for his and his cousin's horses. But Big Walder (actually the smaller of the two) says he can take care of his own: "Little Walder had become Lord Ramsay's best boy and grew more like him every day, but the smaller Frey was made of different stuff and seldom took part in his cousin's games and cruelties."

In the stables, Theon asks Big Walder whose head it was. He is told it had belonged to an old man driving some goats on the road, and Bolton had killed him because he called him "Lord Snow," a reminder of his bastard name.

A feast is being held after the sixteen-day hunt, and Reek is kept chained outside the hall because his smell would spoil the feasters' appetites. He is able to watch Ramsay through the doors. The dogs have the run of the hall, however. He has been told that the dogs are "all named after peasant girls Ramsay had hunted, raped, and killed back when he'd still been a bastard, running with the first Reek."

In the middle of the feast, Roose Bolton arrives and orders everyone out. Ramsay orders Reek unchained and taken out, but Roose says for him to stay. He is left alone in the hall with Bolton father and son, and listens as they discuss the coming wedding, and Wyman Manderly's slow progress toward it. Ramsay complains that the feast he had been holding "should have been in Barrow Hall, not this pisspot of a castle," which belongs to a petty lord named Harwood Stout. But his father reminds him that Barrow Hall belongs to Lady Dustin, who "cannot abide" Ramsay. He has to stay on the good side of Barbrey Dustin, and he is concerned about what might happen if Bran or Rickon Stark is discovered.

Hearing of this last possibility, Theon struggles to think like Reek:

Ned Stark's sons are all dead, Reek thought. Robb was murdered at the Twins, and Bran and Rickon ... we dipped the heads in tar.... His own head was pounding. He did not want to think about anything that had happened before he knew his name.

But Ramsay and Roose Bolton know the truth, and are determined to conceal it and to make sure that Theon continues to be blamed for the murder of the Stark boys. Roose also warns his son to try to act like a Bolton: "Tales are told of you, Ramsay. I hear them everywhere. People fear you." Ramsays says, of course, "Good," but Roose insists that he conceal his cruelties better: "A peaceful land, a quiet people. That has always been my rule. Make it yours."

Then he delivers his news: Stannis has taken Deepwood Motte and restored it to the Glovers, and the mountain clans have joined in supporting him. Ramsay is delighted to hear of this opportunity to crush their foe, and urges his father to let him attack Deepwood. Roose says he must marry first, and Ramsay wants to proceed with it: "We have a girl, we have a tree, and we have lords enough to witness. I'll wed her on the morrow, plant a son between her legs, and march before her maiden's blood has dried."

But Roose wants the wedding to take place at Winterfell. That will get Stannis's attention, and that of the clansmen who are following him, who "will not abandon the daughter of their precious Ned to such as you." They will march on Winterfell, and the Boltons will conquer them there. And Roose wants to take Reek from him: "if you have not ruined him beyond redemption, he may yet be of some use to us."

Ramsay reluctantly unchains Theon and rides with Roose to Barrow Hall, which is less than a mile away. As they ride, Roose Bolton comments on Reek's stench, and tells him, "I knew the first Reek. He stank, though not for want of washing. I have never known a cleaner creature, truth be told.... The smell was something he was born with." Ramsay's mother had asked for a servant for her son, and he had given him Reek as a joke, "but he and Ramsay became inseparable. I do wonder, though ... was it Ramsay who corrupted Reek, or Reek Ramsay?"

He tells Theon the story of Ramsay's conception: Roose had been hunting a fox and come upon the beautiful young wife of an old miller. He hanged the miller for getting married without his permission, and raped the wife "beneath the tree where he was swaying." A year later she appears at the Dreadfort with the baby, saying that her husband's brother had turned them out of the mill. So he cut the brother's tongue out and gave her the mill. Roose also tells Theon that he had a legitimate son, Domeric, but that Ramsay poisoned him. Theon observes that Roose has a new wife, Walda Frey, who could give him sons, but Roose predicts that Ramsay will kill them, too.

Theon asks why Roose wanted him. "I'm not even a man, I'm broken and ... the smell." Roose says he'll smell better after a bath and change of clothes, but this terrifies Theon: "I have ... wounds, I ... and these clothes, Lord Ramsay gave them to me, he ... he said that I was never to take them off, save at his command." Roose says, "I mean you no harm, you know. I owe you much and more." Theon thinks, "This is a trap, he is playing with you, the son is just a shadow of the father," but he can't help asking what Roose owes him, and gets a reply: "The north. The Starks were done and doomed the night that you took Winterfell."

When they reach Barrow Hall, Roose takes him inside and introduces him to its mistress, Lady Barbrey Dustin, who is appalled at the smell. Roose tells her, "He has been with Ramsay. Lady Barbrey, allow me to present the rightful Lord of the Iron Islands, Theon of House Greyjoy." Terrified that Ramsay will hear this, Theon falls to his knees:

"I'm not him, I'm not the turncloak, he died at Winterfell. My name is Reek." He had to remember his name. "It rhymes with freak." 

Tyrion

He and Ser Jorah have booked passage on the Salaesori Qhoran, and so has the dwarf Penny, along with her dog and her pig. Jorah has removed his chains as long as they are on the ship, whose passengers include a red priest, Moqorro, who holds sway over most of the crew.

Penny has stayed below for a week, and when Tyrion spots her peeking out at the deck where Moqorro is holding a service to R'hllor, she shies away. Though the crew thinks rubbing a dwarf's head is good luck, they also think having a woman on board is bad. Tyrion pities her because of the fate visited on her brother, being mistaken for him and having his head chopped off, but she keeps her distance from him.

When Moqorro finishes his services, Tyrion goes to talk to him. The high priest, Benerro, had specially chosen Moqorro as a kind of missionary to Daenerys. Tyrion asks him what he sees in the flames, and Moqorro tells him, "Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all." Tyrion is flattered by being important enough to be part of Moqorro's visions.

He asks Moqorro about the ship's name, and the priest tells him that "Qhoran" is the title of a counselor or steward, and that "selaesori" means "fragrant." So the ship's name means "fragrant steward." (Tyrion is unaware, of course, of Quaithe's warning to Daenerys, "Beware the perfumed seneschal.") 

When he goes below, he tells Jorah that he had caught sight of Penny, whose name Tyrion hates because she and her brother, Oppo, had taken as their stage names the two smallest coins, Penny and Groat. But Jorah reveals to us that it was Tyrion who insisted that they bring Penny with them, afraid of what might befall her if she stayed in Volantis. Otherwise, Jorah is indifferent to her fate, and tells Tyrion that she is his responsibility. Tyrion thinks, "The man is cold, brooding, sullen, deaf to humor. And those are his good points." But he has learned of Jorah's passion for Daenerys, and feels some sympathy for him.

Life on the open sea bores Tyrion, who hates to sleep because of his bad dreams. He thinks of ending it all by jumping overboard, "But what if there is a hell and my father's waiting for me?" There is nothing to do but read and reread the three books on board, and he's rereading one of them, "about the erotic adventures of a young slave girl in a Lysene pillow house," at his table in the galley where he dines, when Penny enters.

He asks her to sit down and eat with him, but she apologizes for interrupting and starts to leave. He asks, "Do you mean to spend your whole life running away?" This causes her to get angry, and to say that he is the reason she and her brother had to run away. If he had obeyed Joffrey's command and jousted with them at the wedding feast, she says, thinks might have turned out differently. When he says that people would have laughed at him, she retorts, "My brother says that is a good thing, making people laugh." But speaking of her brother makes her cry.

Tyrion's apology only makes her angrier. She says that they fled King's Landing because her brother had been afraid they would be blamed in Joffrey's death. They went to Tyrosh, where they knew a juggler, another dwarf, but he had been murdered and his head taken too. Tyrion apologizes again, but she insists, "His blood is on your hands."

It is Tyrion's turn to get angry, and he says, "His blood is on my sister's hands, and the hands of the brutes who killed him." He admits that he has "killed mothers, fathers, nephews, lovers, men and women, kings and whores. A singer once annoyed me, so I had the bastard stewed. But I have never killed a juggler, nor a dwarf, and I am not to blame for what happened to your bloody brother." Penny picks up a cup of wine and throws it in his face, then leaves.

Days pass without seeing her again, but then a storm comes up. Remembering the misery of being below in his cabin during the stormy crossing of the narrow sea, he determines to stay on deck. "If the gods wanted him, he would sooner die by drowning than choking on his own vomit." He winds up soaked but exhilarated, especially when he goes to the cabin and finds Jorah Mormont lying in a pool of vomit. After drinking a good deal of rum and playing several games of cyvasse with the ship's cook, he goes on deck where he finds Penny.

He turns to leave her alone, but she speaks to him and apologizes for throwing the wine in his face and for her accusations that he killed her brother and the man in Tyrosh. She says that she thought she wanted to die, but the storm made her realize that she wanted to live. He thinks, "I have been there too. Something else we have in common."

She asks if he really did stew a singer. He says he doesn't cook, but she asks why he wanted him dead. "He wrote a song about me," he says, remembering the words. He asks about her family, and she says that her mother was not a dwarf but her father was. They're dead now, and she has no family left. She worries about what will happen to her now. "I have no trade, just the jousting show, and that needs two."

Tyrion flinches from what he perceives to be a suggestion that he might team with her in the act. But she continues to reminisce, telling about how the Sealord of Braavos once "laughed so hard that he gave each of us a ... a grand gift." He asks if Cersei had found them in Braavos, but she says it was a man, "Osmund. No, Oswald. Something like that." He came to them in Pentos. He tells her that now they're going to Meereen. She corrects him, "Qarth, you mean. We're bound for Qarth, by way of New Ghis." No, he insists, she will be performing for the dragon queen in Meereen. He assures her that Daenerys is kind-hearted and will find a place for her at court. "And you will be there too," she says. He agrees, "I will."

They strike up a friendship, and she introduces him to her pig, Pretty. They start taking meals together. He tries, and fails, to teach her cyvasse. And finally she asks him "if he would like to tilt with her." He turns her down, and later wonders if she meant something else by "tilt." He would have turned her down for that, too, "but he might not have been so brusque."

That night he can't sleep and goes on deck. The sky is red in the northeast, and he asks Moqorro why. "The sky is always red above Valyria," Moqorro tells him. They are closer than the crew would like to the volcanic region where the ancient kingdom had been destroyed. Tyrion's uncle Gerion Lannister had sailed for Valyria when Tyrion was eighteen, and never returned.

There is supposedly a curse on the Valyrian coast that afflicts any ship that sights it. But Moqorro tells Tyrion that he has ordered the captain to sail the shortest course: "Others seek Daenerys too." Tyrion wonders if Griff has changed his plans about sailing west, and asks Moqorro if he has seen them in his fires.

"Only their shadows," Moqorro said. "One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood." 

It sounds like the kraken, the sigil of Euron and House Greyjoy.

13. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 332-371

The Wayward Bride

At Deepwood Motte, which Asha Greyjoy had conquered, she receives a message sent by raven from Ramsay Bolton. "A scrap of leather" falls out of it. Bolton has taken Moat Cailin, she reads. Bolton also warns her, "I send you a piece of prince. Linger in my lands, and share his fate." She burns the piece of her brother Theon's skin in a candle, and thinks, "If my father still lived, Moat Cailin would never have fallen."

Her uncle Euron is not interested in any of the conquests her father, Balon, had inspired. If Moat Cailin has fallen, Torrhen's Square will be next, and then Deepwood Motte. She takes her mind off of the problem by having rough sex with her lover, Qarl, but afterward the reality returns: "My father's dead, my mother's dying, my brother's being flayed, and there's naught that I can do about it. And I'm married. Wedded and bedded ... though not by the same man." The one possibility that comes to her is some sort of alliance with Stannis, who had conquered Balon during his first rebellion against the Iron Throne but is now the enemy of her enemy, Bolton.  

Euron had forced her to marry Erik Ironmaker, known as the Anvil-Breaker, who is ruling the Iron Islands while Euron went off on his quest for Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons. "With one stroke, Euron had been turned a rival into a supporter, secured the islands in his absence, and removed Asha as a threat." She had been married by proxy, and the union had not been consummated.

She leaves Qarl asleep and goes to the kitchens to find something to eat. The sound of the wind in the trees unnerves her -- she is used to waves crashing. Tristifer Botley, a former lover, finds her there. He had sailed away from Euron's fleet and followed her to Deepwood, which means he can never return to the islands. He urges her to run away with him and become a trader. She can't go back to the islands either, he tells her, unless she wants to submit to Erik.

She tells him she could return to Pyke and find her uncle Aaron Damphair, join forces with him and retake the islands. Her uncle had disappeared after Euron was crowned. But Tris believes Damphair is dead, killed by Euron. Erik Ironmaker is supposedly searching for him, and has imprisoned and killed the Drowned Men, Damphair's followers. Tris thinks "Ironmaker's search is just to make us believe the priest escaped. Euron is afraid to be seen as a kinslayer."

Tris comments that it's too bad Asha participated in the kingsmoot that selected Euron. Otherwise she could declare it unlawful, as an ancient king named Torgon the Latecomer did. He succeeded in overthrowing the illegitimate king and then ruled for forty years. Asha kisses Tris for reminding her of this, but then hears a warhorn sounded by the watch. "The Drowned God loves me after all," she tells him. "Here I was wondering what to do, and he has sent me foes to fight."

She finds the guards with two northmen, one dead and the other dying. The guards tell her they killed three others. She questions the dying man and he tells her there are thousands more behind him. She kills him, and thinks of what the maester at Deepwood had told her, that "the mountain clans were too quarrelsome to ever band together without a Stark to lead them. He might not have been lying. He might just have been wrong."

She sends for Lady Glover and the maester, then addresses the ironmen preparing to do battle. The warhorn sounds again. She goes to the watchtower and sees the woods moving toward the castle: The northmen have cloaked themselves with branches. Some of the men propose that they stand and fight, but Asha knows they can't win. She says, "Let the wolves keep their gloomy woods. We are making for the ships." Tris says the enemy may already have taken the ships, and Asha replies, "at least we'll die with our feet wet. Ironborn fight better with salt spray in their nostrils and the sound of the waves at their backs."

A battering ram attacks the north gate, so she orders the south gate opened and they ride out. She hears the sound of trumpets, which puzzles her, but keeps going. The ships are to the north of them, and Asha commands them to ride west, then turn north. She sends scouts ahead to find the position of the northmen. They find a place to camp and wait for the dawn, but the head of one of the scouts is flung into their midst before the northmen attack.

"Somewhere in the ebb and flow of battle, Asha lost Qarl, lost Tris, lost all of them." She is fighting with a northman when her feet get tangled in the roots of a tree and he lands a glancing blow on the side of her head. Before she passes out, she hears a trumpet. "She dreamt of red hearts burning, and a black stag in a golden wood with flame streaming from his antlers."

Tyrion

Tyrion's captor is, of course, Ser Jorah Mormont, who has lashed him to a saddle and ridden to Volantis. Mormont tells him, "I have done things I am not proud of, things that brought shame onto my House and my father's name ... but to kill your own sire? How could any man do that?" Tyrion shrugs the question off, however. He still has the poison mushrooms hidden in his boot, and thinks of eating them himself: "Cersei will not have me alive, at least," he thinks, still under the impression that Mormont is taking him back to Westeros.

As they ride through the city, they see crowds of slaves moving in one direction. When Tyrion asks where they're going, Mormont tells him that there are sunset services at the Temple of the Lord of Light, where the High Priest Benerro will be speaking. They have to pass the temple, which Tyrion estimates to be three times the size of the Great Sept of Baelor. Benerro is on the steps, and the plaza in front of it is jammed as Mormont guides his horse through the throng.

Tyrion asks what Benerro is saying, and Mormont interprets: "That Daenerys stands in peril. The dark eye has fallen upon her, and the minions of night are plotting her destruction." Tyrion thinks that the prophecy doesn't bode well for Prince Aegon. They make their way to a stable, where Mormont sells the horse and saddle. Then he takes Tyrion to a smithy, where he is cut loose from his bonds and fitted with heavy iron manacles.

He clumsily follows Mormont across the Long Bridge over the Rhoyne to a place called the Merchant's House, the city's biggest in. Tyrion is glad to see this, hoping that he'll run into Griff and the others, who will set him free. They go to one of the cheap rooms on the top floor, the fourth, where Mormont chains him to an iron ring set in the wall. Tyrion takes this opportunity to tell Mormont that he knows who he is, and that they are both acquainted with Varys, who had sent him on this journey. Mormont doesn't care: "I took the Spider's coin, I'll not deny it, but I was never his creature. And my loyalties lie elsewhere now." He leaves to get some food.

When Mormont returns with a roast duck and two tankards of ale, Tyrion asks if some sort of festival is going on. Mormont says it's the third day of the city's elections, which go on for ten days. He tells Tyrion that he had spent most of a year here after he was exiled from Westeros, first going to Lys to please his second wife, who got so deeply in debt that he was threatened with being sold into slavery. She had taken a lover, and he fled to Volantis.

He tells Tyrion that he will look for a ship tomorrow, and falls asleep. Tyrion is unable to lie down on the floor because of his chains, but finally succumbs to fatigue. In the morning they go down to the common room, where Tyrion sees another dwarf. When the dwarf reacts with surprise, Tyrion realizes that he has been recognized. As they eat, Mormont says, "Last night the talk here was all of Westeros. Some exiled lord has hired the Golden Company to win back his lands for him." It is Tyrion's turn to be surprised, and he wonders if Mormont knows about Connington and Aegon, and whether Aegon has taken his advice about returning to Westeros instead of pursuing Daenerys.

A serving girl comes to their table and tells Mormont "The widow will see you next, noble ser." When Tyrion asks, Mormont says she is "The widow of the waterfront," and points out a woman sitting in the corner of the courtyard. She has a "vulpine" and "reptilian" look to her, and thin white hair. Mormont tells her, "We need swift passage to Meereen." Tyrion is startled: "Deliver me to the queen, he says. Aye, but which queen? He isn't selling me to Cersei. He's giving me to Daenerys Targaryen. That's why he hasn't hacked my head off. We're going east, and Griff and his prince are going west, the bloody fools."

She comments that all the other ships are going west, and suspects that he is in quest of dragons: "I have heard it said that the silver queen feeds them with the flesh of infants while she herself bathes in the blood of virgin girls and takes a different lover every night." Mormont suppresses his anger and tells her she shouldn't "believe such filth."

Tyrion is distracted by voices behind him and turns to see two men and the dwarf, "who was standing a few feet away staring at him intently. He seemed somehow familiar." He turns back to listen to Mormont and the widow, but when he glances back at the dwarf again he has moved closer and seems to have a knife in his hand. The widow wants to know why Mormont is going to see Daenerys, and he says, "To serve her. Defend her. Die for her, if need be." She laughs at this, and asks if he is taking the dwarf to please her. Then she says she knows who Tyrion is: "Kinslayer, kingslayer, murderer, turncloak, Lannister." When she asks Tyrion what he offers Daenerys, he replies, "I will lead her armies or rub her feet, as she desires. And the only reward I ask is I might be allowed to rape and kill my sister."

She smiles at his honesty, but tells Mormont she has no help to offer him. Then all of a sudden there is a scream and Tyrion sees the dwarf rushing toward him. "She's a girl, he realized all at once, a girl dressed up in man's clothes. And she means to gut me with that knife." Tyrion grasps a flagon of wine and throws the contents into her face, then falls to the floor, where he rolls to avoid her knife. Mormont grabs her and lifts her into the air, and snatches the dagger from her hand.

Tyrion asks the girl what he did to her, and she says sailors from the Seven Kingdom had seen her and her brother jousting and they took him and cut his head off. Suddenly Tyrion realizes that she was one of the dwarfs performing at Joffrey's wedding. He asks if she rode the pig or the dog. "'The dog,' she sobbed. 'Oppo always rode the pig.'" He tells Jorah to put her down, but she continues to urge someone to kill Tyrion because of what happened to her brother.

The widow asks the girl what her name is, and she says it's Penny. Then she tells the landlord to take her to her rooms and find some clothes for her. And she looks at Tyrion and says, "I think I had best help you after all. Volantis is no safe place for dwarfs, it seems." She tells them to go to the Selaesori Qhoran which is sailing for Qarth by way of New Ghis. Mormont says that Qarth isn't their destination, but she tells him, "She will never reach Qarth. Benerro has seen it in his fires." And if they see Daenerys, she says, touching the scar where her slave tattoo had been removed, "Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon."

28. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 960-995

Tyrion

He is becoming used to the idea of taking the black, but it's the thought of confessing, especially to something he didn't do, that stands in his way. "He almost wished he had done it, since it seemed he must suffer for it anyway."

He follows the gold cloaks to the trial and is confronted with the last witness: Shae. She testifies that Tyrion and Sansa plotted it, that he was going to kill Cersei and his father next, so he could be Hand for Tommen, whom he would kill and seize the throne. When Prince Oberyn asks how she knows this, she says, "On the morning of the wedding, he dragged me down where they keep the dragon skulls and fucked me there with the monsters all around. And when I cried, he said I ought to be more grateful, that it wasn't every girl who got to be the king's whore."

Ser Oswald Kettleblack laughs when Shae says that Tyrion made her call him "My giant ... my giant of Lannister," and the laughter spreads to the entire courtroom. "I saved this vile city and all your worthless lives," Tyrion thinks bitterly. Everyone is laughing except his father, who shouts, "MY LORDS!" in an attempt to silence them, and raises his hand, finally gaining quiet. Tyrion then speaks up: "Get this lying whore out of my sight ... and I will give you my confession."

The gold cloaks escort Shae from the room, and Tyrion wonders whether it is shame or fear that he sees on her face, and what Cersei had promised her for her testimony. Then he turns to the judges and asks if they expect him to confess his guilt. He has a different confession to make:

"Of Joffrey's death I am innocent. I am guilty of a more monstrous crime." He took a step toward his father. "I was born. I lived. I am guilty of being a dwarf, I confess it. And no matter how many times my good father forgave me, I have persisted in my infamy."

Tywin dismisses the confession as irrelevant and asks if he has anything to say in his defense. 

"Nothing but this: I did not do it. Yet now I wish I had.... I wish I had enough poison for you all. You make me sorry that I am not the monster you would have me be, but there it is. I am innocent, but I will get no justice here. You leave me no choice but to appeal to the gods. I demand a trial by battle."

Tywin is astonished and angered by the decision, but Cersei is delighted, and announces that Gregor Clegane will be Joffrey's champion. When Mace Tyrell asks Tyrion if he has one, Prince Oberyn of Dorne rises and says that he will stand for Tyrion: "The dwarf has quite convinced me." The court erupts in a tumult.

Back in his cell, Tyrion gloats that he has at least thwarted his father's plans, and that the combat will inflame the tensions between Dorne and Highgarden. "It was almost worth dying to know all the trouble he'd made." He sleeps well and has a hearty breakfast, then goes to see Prince Oberyn, who is donning his armor. To Tyrion's surprise, the Red Viper intends to fight the Mountain with only a spear. Oberyn invites Tyrion to return with him to Dorne afterward, and makes the clear implication that he intends to incite a rebellion against the Lannisters. Tyrion wonders if he really could "take up arms against Tommen, against his own father? Cersei would spit blood. It might be worth it for that alone."

Oberyn now reminds Tyrion of his early story of his visit to Casterly Rock when Tyrion was an infant. His mother and Tyrion's had been friends, and Tyrion's mother had plans "to betroth Jaime to my sister, or Cersei to me. Perhaps both." But Tyrion's mother had died when Oberyn and Elia were on their way to Casterly Rock, and Tywin had refused the marriage, telling their mother that Cersei would marry Prince Rhaegar, and offering Tyrion instead of Jaime as a husband for Elia. When Elia, and not Cersei, married Rhaegar, Oberyn says, Tywin took it as an insult. And his revenge was the murder of Elia. Today, Oberyn says, she and her children will be revenged.

An enormous crowd has gathered to watch the combat. At the sight of the eight-foot-tall Gregor Clegane, Oberyn's mistress, Ellaria Sand, says, "You are going to fight that?" But Oberyn confidently says, "I am going to kill that." Tyrion has doubts when he sees how lightly armored Oberyn is, and can only hope that he can use it to his advantage: "Dance around him until he's so tired he can hardly lift his arm, then put him on his back."

Finally they face off, and Oberyn calls out to the Mountain, "Have they told you who I am?" And when he proclaims, "Princess Elia was my sister." But Clegane only answers, "Who?" "'Elia Martell, Princess of Dorne,' the Red Viper hissed. 'You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children.'" And he begins to chant: "You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children." Ser Gregor's sword is six feet long, but Oberyn's spear is two feet longer, enough to keep Clegane at a distance as Oberyn jabs at the joins in his armor.

Finally Oberyn's taunt gets on Clegane's nerves and he bellows "SHUT UP!" and charges. There are spectators behind Oberyn, and one of them is cut to pieces when the momentum of Clegane's charge carries him and his sword too close. Spectators push and shove to get away. Oberyn keeps up his taunt: "You raped her. You murdered her. You killed her children. Now say her name." The Mountain is covered with the spectator's blood, and grumbles, "You talk too much.... You make my head hurt."

Then the sun comes out from behind the clouds and Clegane moves to put it at his back. But Oberyn uses his shield to reflect the sun into Clegane's eyes and drives his spear into a gap in the Mountain's heavy armor. "Elia. Say it! Elia of Dorne!" he cries as he circles Clegane. Tyrion thinks that Clegane is about to fall when one knee buckles, and when Oberyn makes another spear thrust through the back of Clegane's knee, he does, collapsing face first, then rolling onto his back.

Oberyn turns and screams out his sister's name as he drives the spear down into the fallen Mountain and vaults over him. The shaft of the spear snaps, and Clegane is pinned to the ground with blood spreading all around him. But Oberyn is not finished with Clegane, and insists, "Say the name!" He has picked up Clegane's sword and puts his foot on his enemy's chest. But then Clegane grabs Oberyn and pulls him down.

Tyrion saw with horror that the Mountain had wrapped one huge arm around the prince, drawing him tight against his chest, like a lover. "Elia of Dorne," they all heard Ser Gregor say, when they were close enough to kiss. His deep voice boomed within the helm. "I killed her screaming whelp." He thrust his free hand into Oberyn's unprotected face, pushing steel fingers into his eyes. "Then I raped her." Clegane slammed his fist into the Dornishman's mouth, making splinters of his teeth.. "Then I smashed her fucking head in. Like this."

Tyrion vomits up his breakfast and is taken to the condemned cell.

Daenerys

Meereen has been taken, and Daenerys is ensconced atop the tallest of its pyramids, feeling like a lonely god. The entrance through the sewers had worked, as had devising battering rams from the wood of the ships. The streets of the city were piled high with dead when she made her entrance. She had then rounded up one hundred sixty-three of the city's leaders and "had them nailed to wooden posts around the plaza, each man pointing at the next." But although she tells herself "I did it for the children," she feels rather sickened by the act.

She meets with her bloodriders and her sellswords and with Grey Worm, the leader of the Unsullied, but she finds "herself wondering which of them would betray her next."

The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.

But she has learned that conquest and rule are not easy. She had left Astapor in charge of a council made up of "a healer, a scholar, and a priest," but an envoy from that city tells her that they have been charged with plotting to restore the slave masters to power and their heads were chopped off. The man they have chosen to rule them is a former slave who was a butcher. He now proposes to marry Daenerys and to join in war against Yunkai. "All my victories turn to dross in my hands, she thought. Whatever I do, all I make is death and horror."

Now, if she continues her march, not only will the cities she has conquered degenerate, but those who follow her on the campaign will experience hardship, starvation, and danger. She recalls Ser Jorah's warnings to that effect and tries to put him out of her mind. And another surprise comes  when she learns that many of the slaves she has liberated now want to sell themselves to a slaver who has appeared. They were leading comfortable lives as house slaves and now face uncertainty. So Daenerys gives in and says if they want to reenslave themselves they may do so, "But they may not sell their children, nor a man his wife." And on Missandei's advice she claims a tenth of the price for herself.

She now realizes that she needs the counsel of Ser Jorah and Ser Barristan, and has them brought to her. The latter enters proudly, and he has shaved off his beard, which makes him look much younger. But Ser Jorah is obviously weighed down with guilt for his deceptions. She tells them that when she sent them on their mission in the sewers, she was hoping she'd never see them again. "It seemed a fitting end for liars, to drown in slavers' filth." But she acknowledges that not only had they succeeded in helping take the city, but each of them had earlier saved her life.

She first asks Barristan to explain why, after serving as protector of her father, he abandoned Viserys and served Robert Baratheon. Barristan says that Robert was "a good knight" and "chivalrous, brave," whereas Viserys was not only just a boy, but he "oft seemed to be his father's son, in ways that Rhaegar never did." She protests the epithet "the Mad King" that Barristan reminds her was applied to her father, but Barristan stands his ground: "Why ask for truth ... if you close your ears to it." As for his deception, he not only wanted to conceal his identity from the Lannisters, but he also wanted to watch her to make sure that she was worth pledging his sword to, that she was not, in a word, "mad." Her father wasn't the first Targaryen demonstrate signs of madness, and he says her grandfather told him "that madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. Every time a new Targaryen is born, he said, the gods toss the coin in the air and the world holds its breath to see how it will land."

Daenerys is taken aback to realize that Barristan knew her grandfather, and she realizes that he has the kind of wisdom and knowledge of Westeros that she needs. And he says that she is "the trueborn heir of Westeros," and that he will serve her however she needs him. She agrees and accepts his vows. Then she turns to Ser Jorah, knowing that this will be harder to deal with. He reminds her that he has constantly warned her against her enemies, but she retorts, "You warned me against everyone except yourself.... Trust no one but Jorah Mormont, you said ... and all the time you were the Spider's creature!" He insists that he had stopped sending reports after one at Qarth, but this isn't enough: "Dany had been hoping it had ended much earlier."

And then she realizes something: Jorah was the one who had reported to them that she was pregnant with Drogo's child. And Barristan supports her: "I was there when the eunuch told the council, and Robert decreed that Her Grace and her child must die." Jorah tries to defend himself, but ends up begging her forgiveness. She refuses, and he says, "I have loved you." This only reminds her of the prophecy: "Three treasons will you know. Once for blood and once for gold land once for love." And she banishes him, trying to control herself and not cry.

She returns to her quarters and tries to read, but her mind is torn. "I shouldn't have banished him. I should have kept him, or I should have killed him." She could still call him back or she could send Daario to kill him. She goes out on her terrace, where two of her dragons are, but the third, Viserion, is flying off in the far distance, hunting. On the terrace, Ser Barristan approaches her. She tells him to give her some peace, but he insists that "A knight of the Kingsguard is in the king's presence day and night." And he thought she might have more questions for him. She does, but the time is not right for the one question -- her father's madness -- uppermost in her mind, and she sends him away.

That night she sleeps with Irri, who gives her some release, though she tries to pretend that she is lying with Drogo and his face keeps turning into that of Daario. After falling asleep and being awakened by nightmares, she goes out looks over the sleeping city. Missandei wakens and joins her as the dawn comes. As she hears the city begins to awake, she makes a decision.

Later that morning she calls her captains together and tells them they are going to stay in Meereen. When Barristan says, "Meereen is not Westeros, Your Grace," she replies, "But how can I rule seven kingdoms if I cannot rule a single city?" She wants to take time for the people she has freed "to heal and learn. My dragons need time to grow and test their wings. And I need the same."

When Rakharo asks what she is going to do, she replies, "Stay.... Rule. And be a queen."

23. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 755-808

Bran

He has seen the deaths of Robb and Grey Wind in a dream when he was one with Summer, and he is trying not to think about it. He hasn't told Jojen or Meera either.

They have reached the Nightfort at the Wall, which Bran remembers as the scene of some of the scariest stories told by Old Nan. Maester Luwin had cautioned him not to put too much credence in her stories, but when he asked his uncle Benjen about them, he said only that the Nightfort had been abandoned by the Watch for two hundred years.

The place is full of noises that Bran doesn't like. "Even Summer was not at ease here. Bran slipped inside his skin, just for an instant, to get the smell of the place. He did not like that either." Still Jojen had had a green dream about the place, and was determined to check it out, even though there was no gate through the Wall there. It had been sealed when the Watch abandoned it.

Bran has argued that they should have followed Jon, whom he saw through Summer's eyes when the wolf attacked the wildlings and Jon escaped. "We should have found the kingsroad and gone to Castle Black." But Jojen insisted that that course was too dangerous. Summer had almost been killed during the attack on the wildlings: When an arrow struck the wolf, the pain had been so great that Bran was driven out of Summer's skin, and it had returned every time Bran tried to become the wolf again. He was afraid Summer was dying, but the wolf finally returned with an arrow in his leg that Meera drew and treated with some herbs. Summer still limped, but less each day.

Meera suggests that they should try another castle, but Bran points out that the only ones whose gates haven't been sealed are Castle Black and the two at the extreme ends of the Wall, Eastwatch and the Shadow Tower. So Meera proposes to climb to the top of the Wall and see if she can spot anything from there. The prospect of climbing the Wall only makes Bran regret his paralysis more.

Meera's climb is made easier by the steps that the Watch had carved into the Wall's side at the Nightfort, though the ice makes them treacherous and there are times when she has to get down on hands and knees to make the ascent. When she reaches the top and disappears from view, Jojen suggests that they explore the Nightfort.

It is full of rats, running through the cellars and tunnels. It was the oldest and largest of the castles at the Wall, and they spend half a day exploring the crumbling towers. "Sometimes Summer would hear sounds that Bran seemed deaf to, or bare his teeth at nothing, the fur on the back of his neck bristling," but none of the ghosts of Old Nan's stories made an appearance.

Meera returns as the sun is setting, and tells them that she saw the haunted forest and the hills beyond. "I even saw an eagle circling. I think he saw me too. I waved at him." But there is no way down the other side of the wall, and certainly no way for Bran to make it over. She asks Jojen again if he is certain this is the place he saw in his dream, and he assures her that there is a gate there. But the only one Bran knows of is blocked by rubble and ice.

As it gets dark, they decide to bed down in the ruins of the kitchens, an octagon with a broken dome and a weirwood growing up through the floor. "It was a queer kind of tree, skinnier than any other weirwood that Bran had ever seen and faceless as well, but it made him feel as if the old gods were with him here, at least." But he remembers Old Nan's stories about the Rat Cook who baked a prince in a pie.

Next to the weirwood there is a well, twelve feet in diameter, with steps going down the side into its depths. They can't see any water at the bottom. Hodor says his name into the well and is startled by the way the echo reverberates, then picks up a broken piece of slate from the floor and drops it in. Bran calls out for him not to do that, but too late. "You might have hurt something, or ... or woken something up."

Far, far, far below, they heard the sound as the stone found water. It wasn't a splash, not truly. It was more a gulp, as if whatever was below had opened a quivering gelid mouth to swallow Hodor's stone. Faint echoes traveled up the well, and for a moment Bran thought he heard something moving, thrashing about in the water. 

They cook and eat a fish that Meera had caught in the last stream they had crossed, then bed down for the night. Bran is unable to sleep, but makes himself close his eyes. Then he hears a noise that starts as a scuffling sound and then becomes footsteps. He doesn't want to wake Meera or Jojen because he thinks it might just be his imagination, stirred by memories of Old Nan's stories. But the sounds get louder and he realizes that they are coming from the well. And as they get louder he hears "a high thin whimpering sound, like someone in pain, and heavy muffled breathing."

Finally he drags himself across the floor and wakes Meera, who hears the sound too. She grabs her frog spear and her net and moves toward the well. Jojen and Hodor are still asleep, and Bran doesn't want Meera to fight the thing alone, and Summer is far away. He slips his consciousness into Hodor and tries to stand and grab Hodor's longsword. But the thing in the well starts to scream, and Bran loses control of Hodor and finds himself back on the floor.

The thing is caught in Meera's net and she is stabbing at it with her frog spear. The thing falls and calls out, "No, no, don't, please, DON'T...." In response to Meera's question, "'I'm SAM,' the black thing sobbed. 'Sam, Sam, I'm Sam, let me out, you stabbed me...." Jojen has fed the fire and the flames illuminate the room, revealing Sam Tarly struggling in the net, and Gilly and the crying baby bundled up, emerging from the well.

It's Bran who recognizes that Sam is wearing the black of the Night's Watch. Sam confirms it: "I'm a crow, please. Let me out of this." Bran asks, "Are you the three-eyed crow?" although he can't quite believe it. Sam says he doesn't think so, and Meera tells him to stop struggling with the net and she'll untangle him. Jojen asks Gilly who she is and where she comes from. She says, "From Craster's," and asks Jojen, "Are you the one?"

Gilly explains that Coldhands had said Sam wasn't "The one he was sent to find," and Sam, now untangling from the net and trying to catch his breath, says that he said there would be people in the castle. "I didn't know you'd throw a net on me or stab me in the stomach." He asks if he is bleeding, and Meera checks and says he's wearing mail. "I never got near your skin."

Bran asks if Sam is "really a brother of the Night's Watch," and Sam says he's only a steward who took care of the ravens, but lost them. "I got us lost too. I couldn't even find the Wall. It's a hundred leagues long and seven hundred feet high, and I couldn't find it!" Jojen asks how he got through the wall, and Sam says there's a gate: "A hidden gate, as old as the Wall itself. The Black Gate, he called it." The gate is at the bottom of the well, but it will open only for a member of the Night's Watch who has sworn his vow.

Jojen asks who "he" is, "This ... Coldhands?" Gilly explains that that wasn't really his name, just what she and Sam called him. "His hands were cold as ice, but he saved us from the dead men, him and his ravens, and he brought us here on his elk." Much confusion about the elk and the ravens ensues, but Sam finally clarifies that the man is waiting for them, and that he can't come through the Wall himself. And Jojen clarifies that it's Bran who is the one the man is waiting for.

Sam suddenly realizes that Bran is "Jon Snow's brother. The one who fell...." Jojen tries to deny it, but Bran just tells Sam to keep it secret. Sam tells him that Jon "was the best friend I ever had," but he has disappeared. Bran replies that Summer had seen Jon with some wildlings, but he escaped and probably went to Castle Black.

Summer appears then, frightening Gilly, but Bran reassures her. Sam is not afraid, because he knows that the Starks have wolves, and he has met Ghost. He pulls off a glove and lets Summer lick his fingers, which makes Bran decide that they should all go through the Black Gate with Sam.

Gilly stays behind with the baby as the others make the descent. As they get lower into the well, Bran can see the Black Gate, except it isn't black: "It was white weirwood, and there was a face on it." They reach the gate and Bran thinks of the face, "If a man could live for a thousand years and never die but just grow older, his face might come to look like that."

When Sam stands before it, the face opens its eyes, which are white and blind. It asks, "Who are you?" and Sam replies with the words of the oath of the Watch. The mouth of the door opens and admits them. As Hodor goes through with Bran on his back, he fails to duck enough: "The door's upper lip brushed softly against the top of Bran's head, and a drop of water fell on him and ran slowly down his nose. It was strangely warm, and salty as a tear."

Daenerys

They have moved on to a third city, Meereen, which is "as large as Astapor and Yunkai combined. The city's hero rides out in front of it, daring them to attack, and Daenerys's bloodriders are ready to take him on. She forbids it, however, saying that their place is at her side. Ser Jorah agrees with her: "Let the fool ride back and forth and shout until his horse goes lame. He does us no harm."

But Arstan Whitebeard is of another mind: "This hero builds courage in the hearts of his own men and plants the seeds of doubt in ours." Daenerys tells Arstan and Jorah to stop squabbling. She's aware of some problems: Though she has more than eighty thousand followers after the fall of the first two cities, less than a fourth of them are soldiers. "The rest ... well, Ser Jorah called them mouths with feet, and soon they would be starving." The Meereen had burned the fields in expectation of their arrival, leaving them with nothing to forage upon.

And they had done something that troubles her more: "they had nailed a slave child up on every milepost along the coast road from Yunkai, nailed them up still living with their entrails hanging out and one arm always outstretched to point the way to Meereen." The atrocity had made her the more determined to conquer the city.

Brown Ben Plumm, the new commander of the Second Sons, who had joined forces with her at Yunkai, says the champion of Meereen is Oznak zo Pahl, whose uncle is the richest man in the city. Daario Naharis now volunteers to take care of Oznak, but she holds him back. Instead, she sends for Strong Belwas, who had once been a slave in the fighting pits of Meereen. If he wins, it will embarrass Meereen, and if he loses it will not be such a great triumph. Besides, "Belwas was the man she could most easily spare."

Belwas dallies with Oznak, but in the end he is holding the champion's head aloft. Dario delights in the victory, but Ser Jorah calls it "without meaning.... We will not win Meereen by killing its defenders one at a time." Daenerys agrees, and turns her attention to ways to conquer the city. Ser Jorah says he hasn't seen any weaknesses in the landward walls, so she asks about attacking it by river or sea. They only have three ships, however.

Ser Jorah now offers a suggestion that he knows Daenerys will not like: "I say, let this city be. You cannot free every slave in the world, Khaleesi. Your war is in Westeros." They should simply pass the city by and march westward to Pentos, biding their time until the dragons are large enough to be useful in warfare. Even her bloodriders see the sense in the plan: Rakharo says, "when cowards hide and burn the food and fodder, great khals must seek for braver foes."

But Daenerys remembers the children mounted as signposts, and is unwilling to leave them unavenged. Finally, Brown Ben Plumm has an idea: They can attack the city through the sewers. He escaped from Meereen that way, though he has never forgotten the smell and is not about to volunteer to go back through them the other way.

She decides that she needs to think about it some more and sends them away. But what she really thinks about is Daario, who has captured her fancy by bringing her a flower every night when he made his report. "And Daario Naharis made her laugh, which Ser Jorah never did." The restlessness he stirs in her makes her have Missandei bring her her horse to go out riding. She is accompanied by Missandei and by Arstan, for whom she feels no sexual attraction.

They ride through the camps taking notice of the drilling of the Unsullied and of the freedmen, some of whom call her "Mother" and reach out to touch her. Then a tall man in ragged clothes grabs her wrist and pulls her from her saddle. He pulls out his sword and she recognizes Mero, the former captain of the Second Sons. She cries for help, but Mero cuts down the freedman who steps forward.

Then Arstan leaps from his horse, wielding his hardwood staff. He knocks Mero down and with moves too fast for her to follow, parries Mero's sword strikes until he breaks Mero's leg and then knocks him unconscious. Freedmen gather around the fallen man and attack him with knives and stones.

Arstan kneels and apologizes for being so slow to recognize Mero, who had shaved his beard and hair. They return to her tent, where Ser Jorah arrives with news of his reconnoiter along the river wall. But she scolds him for not letting her know that Mero had escaped, and tells him that Arstan killed him. She wants Arstan to be knighted, but to her surprise both men object. Arstan tells her that he "was a knight in Westeros." He hasn't lied to her, but he has withheld the truth. And then Ser Jorah recognizes him: "Mero shaved his beard, but you grew one, didn't you? No wonder you looked so bloody familiar." He tells Daenerys,

"I saw him perhaps a dozen times ... from afar most often, standing with his brothers or riding in some tourney. But every man in the Seven Kingdoms knew Barristan the Bold." He laid the point of his sword against the old man's neck. "Khaleesi, before you kneels Ser Barristan Selmy, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, who betrayed your House to serve the Usurper Robert Baratheon." 

Daenerys demands the full truth from Arstan, now Barristan, and he tells her that Jorah is correct. "I might be serving in King's Landing still if the vile boy upon the Iron Throne had not cast me aside, it shames me to admit." But Joffrey's conduct opened his eyes: "That was when I knew I must find my true king, and die in his service--" Jorah offers to provide that death now, but Barristan continues, saying that he had fought against Robert Baratheon at the Triden, at the time when Mormont was on Robert's side.

He disguised himself after leaving Westeros because Varys's spies were watching Viserys closely. And they are still watching her: "since the day you wed Khal Drogo, there has been an informer by your side selling your secrets, trading whispers to the Spider for gold and promises." When Daenerys turns to look at Mormont, Ser Jorah admits it, but he says, "it was only at the start, before I came to know you ... before I came to love...." She interrupts him furiously, and her dragons start emitting smoke and fire. "I should say the word and burn the two of them," she thinks. But instead she orders both Barristan and Ser Jorah out.

When she calms down a little, she thinks about how both of them had saved her life. And she decides what to do with them.

Tyrion

Tyrion has told Sansa about the deaths of Robb and Catelyn, and was surprised at the stoic way she received the news until he heard her sobbing by herself later: "Even her tears she hoards to herself." Now he sneaks down into the cellars where the dragon skulls are kept and Shae is waiting for hm. He has hired Shae to be one of Sansa's maids, but he still has to contrive to meet her in secret.

Sansa

She wakes from a dream that she was back in Winterfell with Lady and her family was safe and sound. Now she faces the reality, "All of them are dead but me. She was alone in the world now." Shae and Brella prepare her bath. The wedding is at noon in the Great Sept of Baelor and the feast, with seventy-seven courses, in the evening. But first she has to breakfast with the queen.

Tyrion arrives with Podrick Payne as she is dressing, and goes in to change too. Sansa braces herself for the ordeal and they go down to breakfast, where presents are presented to the groom. Joffrey receives them all graciously until Tyrion presents their gift: "a huge old book called Lives of Four Kings, bound in leather and gorgeously illuminated." Joffrey leafs through it and then pushes it across the table: "My father had no time for books.... If you read less, Uncle Imp, perhaps lady Sansa would have a baby in her belly by now." The court laughs because Joffrey laughs. Sansa worries that Tyrion will say something to anger the king, but he simply drinks another cup of wine.

Mace Tyrell presents Joffrey with a three-foot-tall golden chalice with seven sides, each ornamented with a different gemstone representing the seven great houses, including a pearl direwolf for House Stark. Joffrey remarks that they'll need to chip the wolf off, and Sansa pretends not to hear. The last gift is from Lord Tywin: a longsword. Joffrey decides that he will name it Widow's Wail, and he takes the sword and hacks the book Tyrion had given him to pieces. Ser Garlan Tyrell observes that there were only four copies of the book in existence. "Now there are three," Joffrey replies, and says, "You and Lady Sansa owe me a better present, Uncle Imp. This one is all chopped to pieces."

Tyrion says, "Perhaps a knife, sire. To match your sword. A dagger of the same fine Valyrian steel ... with a dragonbone hilt, say?" He is describing the dagger used in the attempt on Bran Stark's life, and he gets a "sharp look" from Joffrey, who says he would prefer "a gold hit with rubies in it. Dragonbone is too plain."

As Tyrion and Sansa are walking to the wedding, they meet up with Prince Oberyn and his mistress, Ellaria. Shae has told Sansa that Ellaria "was almost a whore when he found her, m'lady ... and now she's near a princess." Oberyn and Tyrion talk about the book Joffrey has destroyed. Oberyn thinks that the book was too kind to King Viserys, who "poisoned his own nephew to gain the throne and then did nothing once he had it."

When they reach their litter, Tyrion asks Sansa to draw the curtains. She protests that the day is lovely, but he says that the citizens are likely to throw things at them if they see him. She says she is sorry for Joffrey's destruction of the book, but perhaps the dagger would please him better. Tyrion says, "Joff quarreled with your brother Robb at Winterfell. Tell me, was there ill feeling between Bran and His Grace as well?" She doesn't think so, but he presses on: "Sansa, do you know what happened to Bran at Winterfell?" She says only that he fell, and "He was always climbing things." He starts to talk about Catelyn's accusation that Tyrion had tried to have Bran killed. "She accused me falsely. I never harmed your brother Bran. And I mean no harm to you." But she can't figure out why he is talking to her about these things, and when he says, "You have never asked me how Robb died, or your lady mother," she says she "would sooner not know. It would give me bad dreams."

"I know about bad dreams," Tyrion replies.