16. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 445-472

Jaime

Jaime and his troops reach Darry, where Lancel is now lord, and find that things are on their way to recovery: the fields are being tilled and the damages to the castle are being repaired. Within the castle, Jaime is annoyed to observe "several bearded men with red, seven-pointed stars sewn onto ragged, filthy tunics. More bloody sparrows. Where do they all come from?"

He is welcomed to Darry not by Lancel, but by a maester, who expresses their surprise, because they had heard he was headed for Riverrun. Jaime says Darry was on the way, which is not exactly true. He asks about his uncle Kevan, and is told that he left after Lancel's wedding. But Lady Amerei is preparing a feast for Jaime and his "chief knights and captains" -- they can't afford to feed the rest of the entourage. As for Lancel, "He is at his prayers. His lordship has commanded us never to disturb him when he is praying."

Maester Ottomore shows Jaime to his lodgings, which turn out to be the chambers of the lord of the castle: "Lord Lancel has been sleeping in the sept," he tells Jaime. The furnishings are new and spartan, but a bath is provided for him. He goes down to the feast well-dressed and wearing his new golden hand. He finds Lancel's chair empty, and Lady Amerei tells him that Lancel is fasting and mourning for the late High Septon. "He wondered what Ser Kevan might have had to say about his son's new fervor. Could that be the reason for his uncle's abrupt departure?"

Amerei is the daughter of Merrett Frey, who had been hanged by outlaws, as her mother, Lady Mariya, explains to Jaime, so Amerei tends to weep frequently. Jaime, however, knows that Merrett was a braggart and liar, so he proposes only a noncommittal toast, "'To Merrett's memory,' he said. It was easier to drink to the man than to talk to him." He asks if it was Beric Dondarrion's band who killed him, but Lady Mariya says the peasants "spoke of a one-eyed man and another who wore a yellow cloak ... and a woman, cloaked and hooded." Amerei begs Jaime to stay and help kill the outlaws, but he ducks the request. "My place is with the king, my lady."

Talk turns to the atrocities attributed to the Hound at Saltpans, but Jaime wonders about them: "What they were describing sounded more like Gregor's work than Sandor's. Sandor had been hard and brutal, yes, but it was his big brother who was the real monster in House Clegane." One of the knights, however, insists that the man who raped and butchered at Saltpans was wearing the Hound's helmet. Nevertheless, he promises to hunt down the Hound after finishing things up at Riverrun. Then he excuses himself and goes to look for Lancel.

The sparrows were eating around cookfires in the yard, and Jaime wonders how Lancel intends to feed them once winter sets in. He finds the sept, but his entrance is barred by three sparrows, who say he can't disturb Lancel, and make a show of their clubs and an axe. But Lancel himself comes to the door and admits him. He is thin and barefoot and dressed in a tunic of undyed wool. The crown of his head has been shaved, and Jaime asks if he has lost his wits.

Lancel insists that he has found his faith, and explains that he sleeps each night beneath the altar of a different god, and that they send him visions. "I dreamed that you would come In the dream you knew what I had done. How I had sinned. You killed me for it." Jaime opines that he should be eating and sleeping with his wife instead. "You need a son with Darry blood if you want to keep this castle." But Lancel expresses indifference to the "pile of cold stones," and that it's more important for him to atone for his sins.

"What do you know of sin, coz?" Jaime asks. "I killed my king." Lancel replies, "The brave man slays with a sword, the craven with a wineskin. We are both kingslayers, ser." Jaime is aware of Lancel's complicity in drugging Robert Baratheon's wine on the hunt, but asks, "What else did you do to require so much atonement?" Lancel's tears are the answer that Jaime articulates: "You killed the king, ... then you fucked the queen." Lancel pleads in mitigation that his coitus with Cersei was interruptus: "It is not treason unless you finish inside." Jaime "wondered what his cousin would say if he were to confess his own sins, the three treasons Cersei had named Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella." Then Lancel reveals that he had confessed his sins to the High Septon -- the recently deceased one -- and Jaime wonders "if his cousin had any notion what fruit his words had borne."

Moreover, Lancel tells him, he is renouncing his lordship and his marriage: "On the morrow I will return to King's Landing and swear my sword to the new High Septon and the Seven. I mean to take vows and join the Warrior's Sons." And so Jaime hears for the first time of Cersei's repeal of Maegor's law about a militant clergy: "His High Holiness writes that King Tommen has given his consent. I will show you the letter, if you like."

Lancel asks Jaime to pray with him, but Jaime says he should pray for both of them. Then he goes to find Ser Ilyn. As they fight, he tells his mute opponent that this is where Arya's wolf attacked Joffrey, and Cersei had wanted her to lose a hand. Cersei and Robert had a fight about it, and Robert passed out after drinking too much. So Jaime went to bed with Cersei while Robert was asleep on the floor. "As I was fucking her, Cersei cried, 'I want.' I thought that she meant me, but it was the Stark girl that she wanted, maimed or dead." And the phrase comes to him that he spoke when he pushed Bran Stark from the window: "The things I do for love."

In response to this story, Ser Ilyn makes his clacking sound.

He is laughing at me, realized Jaime Lannister. "For all I know you fucked my sister too, you pock-faced bastard," he spat out. "Well, shut your bloody mouth and kill me if you can." 

Brienne

They reach a septry on an island across the bay from Saltpans. It is known as the Quiet Isle because penitents come there "to atone for their sins through contemplation, prayer, and silence," Septon Meribald tells them. To reach it they have to dismount and follow Meribald across the mudflats, a tortuous route past patches of quicksand.

Finally they reach their goal and are greeted by Brother Narbert, a proctor who is allowed to speak one day out of seven. He is taken aback to find that Brienne is a woman, and suggests that they speak to the Elder Brother. When they stable their horses, they notice a big black stallion, and are told that he is a trial for them, having broken one brother's leg and bit off the ear of another.

They pass a brother who is digging a grave for Brother Clement, who "died of wounds he got at Saltpans. He had taken some of our mead to the market there, on the day the outlaws descended on the town." But the war has not come to the Quiet Isle because of its natural defenses: the mudflats and the tides.

Brother Narbert leads them to a cave with a door at its entrance, known as the Hermit's Hole. The Elder Brother, a tall, vigorous man, meets them. He tells them more of the destruction of Saltpans, where everything was burned except the castle. The townsfolk curse Ser Quincy Cox, "who barred his gates when the outlaws entered the town and sat safe behind stone walls as his people screamed and died." Septon Meribald observes that Ser Quincy is an old man, with only grandsons and daughters to protect him. "What could he have done, one man against so many?" But Brienne is not willing to forgive him, and even the Elder Brother says to Meribald, "When you cross to Saltpans, no doubt Ser Quincy will ask you for forgiveness. I am glad that you are here to give it. I could not."

After supper they are shown to their quarters, with Brienne in one of the women's cottages. As her squire, Podrick insisted on staying with her, but Brother Narbert explained that it was the custom of the septry for men and women to stay in separate quarters. The Elder Brother accompanies them, and he asks Brienne why she is going to Saltpans. She describes the girl he is looking for, and recognizes her as Sansa Stark. Privately, he tells Brienne that the girl reported to be with the Hound was not Sansa but Arya, and that he doesn't know what happened to her: "She may have been amongst the children slain at Saltpans."

And then there is more news: Sandor Clegane, he says, is dead. He buried the Hound himself, and covered his grave with stones, placing the helmet on the cairn as a marker. Someone stole it, he says. "The man who raped and killed at Saltpans was not Sandor Clegane, though he may be as dangerous." The only thing that kept the Hound going, he says, was hatred for his brother and "the hope of seeing his brother's blood upon his blade ... and even that was taken from him, when Prince Oberyn of Dorne stabbed Ser Gregor with a poisoned spear."

Brienne observes that it sounds as if the Elder Brother pitied the Hound, and he admits that he did. He had found him dying of fever by the Trident, and did what he could to give him ease: "He begged me for the gift of mercy, but I am sworn not to kill again." He mentions that the black stallion in the stables was Clegane's horse Stranger. "A blasphemous name. We prefer to call him Driftwood, as he was found beside the river. I fear he has his former master's nature."

The Elder Brother then reveals that he was once a knight, who fought for Prince Rhaegar at the Battle of the Trident. He was wounded and his horse was killed, and as he was searching for a horse he was knocked unconscious. He woke up on the Quiet Isle, having been carried there by the tide. Then he urges her to give up her quest.

"The Hound is dead, and in any case he never had your Sansa Stark. As for this beast who wears his helm, he will be found and hanged. The wars are ending, and these outlaws cannot survive the peace. Randyll Tarly is hunting them from Maidenpool and Walder Frey from the Twins, and there is a new young lord in Darry, a pious man who will surely set his lands to rights. Go home, child. You have a home, which is more than many can say in these dark days." 

But when he urges her to return to the father who loves her, and "would sooner have a living daughter than a shattered shield," her history comes back to her: "I am the only child the gods let him keep. The freakish one, not fit to be a son or daughter." He experiences pour forth "like black blood from a wound," and she insists that she must keep her vow to Jaime: "Oathkeeper, he named the sword. I have to try to save her ... or die in the attempt."

4. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 87-115

Arya

She is aboard the Titan's Daughter, heading for Braavos, which the captain's son tells her is home.

But that was stupid. Her home was gone, her parents dead, and all her brothers slain but Jon Snow on the Wall. That was where she had wanted to go. She told the captain as much, but even the iron coin did not sway him. Arya never seemed to find the places she set out to reach. Yoren had sworn to deliver her to Winterfell, only she had ended up in Harrenhal and Yoren in his grave. When she escaped Harrenhal for Riverrun, Lem and Anguy and Tom o' Sevens took her captive and dragged her to the hollow hill instead. Then the Hound had stolen her and dragged her to the Twins. Arya had left him dying by the river and gone ahead to Saltpans, hoping to take passage for Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, only....

Only now she was going to Braavos, which might not be so bad, she guesses, since Syrio Forel and Jaqen H'ghar had been from Braavos.

She has a new name: Salty, because she had come aboard at Saltpans. And now they are approaching the colossus, the Titan of Braavos, which she had heard about in Old Nan's stories, except in them it was a living giant, and in fact it's only a statue. The thought of Old Nan reminds her of Winterfell, but she puts it out of mind: "All men must die," she tells herself, remembering the Braavosi phrase Valar morghulis, which had gained her passage on the ship. She has learned a few more Braavosi words and phrases on the ship, some of them from Denyo, the captain's youngest son.

She asks Denyo if the Titan is the god of Braavos, and he tells her, "All gods are honored in Braavos," where there are temples of various religions. But for Arya, none of the gods have any meaning, since they didn't protect her family from harm. In her mind she recites once again the list of people she wants dead, but there are only six left, now that Joffrey and Polliver and the Tickler are dead, and she had left the Hound dying without giving him the coup de grâce he had asked for.

As they get closer to Braavos, the gigantic statue bestriding the entrance to the harbor becomes visible. Suddenly it gives out "a mighty roar," startling Arya. The ship sails between its legs and she looks up to see faces peering out of the murder holes above it. They pass by what Denyo tells her is "The Arsenal of Braavos," which is "bristling with scorpions, spitfires, and trebuchets," and pass countless ships and docks and quays. She is surprised that the city has no walls, but Denyo tells her, "Our galleys are our walls. We need no other."

The captain, Ternesio Terys, appears and tells her that a boat will take her ashore. She had wanted to stay with the ship, but he has no need for her on the crew. So she finds herself in a boat gliding among the many islands that compose the city, along canals crossed by bridges. "They have no trees, she realized. Braavos is all stone, a grey city in a green sea." In the distance she sees "a massive  grey stone roadway of some kind, supported by three tiers of mighty arches marching away south into the haze." The boatman, Yorko Terys, explains that it is an aqueduct that "brings fresh water from the mainland."

They pass by a variety of temples, including one to R'hllor, with whom Arya is familiar from her encounter with Thoros of Myr.  Finally Yorko deposits at a dock with steps leading to a temple with a black tile roof. Bidding her "Valar dohaeris," he rows away. She tells herself, "I am a wolf, and will not be afraid," pats the hilt of Needle, and takes the steps two at a time to the doors at the top. The left-hand door is pale weirwood that reminds her of the heart tree at Winterfell. The right-hand door is ebony, and in the center of each is a carved moon face. She tries to open them, but they don't budge, then pounds on them. Finally she takes out the iron coin and says "Valar morghulis," and the doors open.

When the doors close behind her, it takes a while for her eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness. She hears whispering and weeping and other sounds, including water. Statues of all sorts of gods surround her. When she reaches the center of the temple she finds a pool of water ten feet across, and a young man weeping by it. He dips his fingers in the water and sucks them. She decides he must be thirsty, so she takes a stone cup, dips it in the pool, and gives it to him. He says, "Valar morghulis" and she replies, "Valar dohaeris." Then he drinks from the cup and stands up, revealing a blood stain below his belt. "You're stabbed," she says, but he doesn't answer. He goes to an alcove in the wall, and she realizes that there are people in other alcoves who are dead or dying.

She startles when someone touches her, then realizes it's a small girl with hollow cheeks, who speaks to her in a language she doesn't recognize. Arya asks if she knows the Common Tongue and a voice behind her says, "I do." It is a tall man in a hooded robe like the one the little girl is wearing: the right side is black and the left side is white. He tells her she is in the House of Black and White. She says she is looking for Jaqen H'ghar, but he doesn't know the name. Then he asks for hers. When she says "Salty," he says, "No.... Tell me your name." She tries Squab, and Nan, and Weasel, and Arry, but he knows they aren't her real name. Finally she says, "I am Arya, of House Stark."

He accepts that as her real name, and says, "the House of Black and White is no place for Arya, of House Stark." She has no place to go, she says. "Do you fear death?" he asks, and when she says no, he lowers his cowl. "Beneath he had no face; only a yellowed skull with a few scraps of skin still clinging to the cheeks, and a white worm wriggling from one empty eye socket." He croaks, "Kiss me, child."

Arya decides not to be frightened, so she kisses him where his nose would be, then takes the worm and starts to eat it. It fades away before she can put it in her mouth. "The yellow skull was melting too, and the kindliest old man that she had ever seen was smiling down at her." He says no one has ever tried to eat the worm before and asks if she is hungry.

"Yes, she thought, but not for food."

Cersei

She and Tommen are on their way to Tywin's funeral. She is fussing at him for wanting to ride his horse and throw pennies to people, for opening the curtains to the litter, for not sitting up straight, and then getting annoyed because he is so obedient: "A king had to be strong. Joffrey would have argued." He observes that there aren't many people in the street, and she blames it on the rain though she knows that there was no love for Tywin Lannister in the city.

There aren't many mourners at the Great Sept of Baelor, either. The morning service is for the aristocracy, and Cersei knows she will have to return for the evening service for the common people, "so that the smallfolk might see her mourn. The mob must have its show. It was a nuisance. She had offices to fill, a war to win, a realm to rule. Her father would have understood that."

The elderly High Septon meets them, wearing the crystal-and-gold crown that Tywin had given him to replace the one that was lost when the mob tore the previous High Septon to pieces on the day Myrcella sailed for Dorne. Cersei realizes to her annoyance that this High Septon had been appointed by Tyrion. She examines his expression to try to discover what Tyrion might have told him about her.

At least I will not be expected to don mourning for Tyrion. I shall dress in crimson silk and cloth-of-gold for that, and wear rubies in my hair. The man who brought her the dwarf's head would be raised to lordship, she had proclaimed, no matter how mean or low his birth or station. Ravens were carrying her promise to every part of the Seven Kingdoms, and soon enough word would cross the narrow sea to the Nine Free Cities and the lands beyond. Let the Imp run to the ends of the earth, he will not escape me. 

Jaime is standing vigil at the head of Lord Tywin's bier. She leads Tommen up to kneel by the body, telling him, "Weep quietly.... You are a king, not a squalling child. Your lords are watching you." The body is dressed in splendid armor, but Cersei is bothered by the expression on her father's face: "The corners of her father's lips curved upward ever so slightly, giving him a look of vague bemusement." She blames Pycelle for the preparation of the corpse. "He had been a great man," she thinks. "I shall be greater, though. A thousand years from now, when the maesters write about this time, you shall be remembered only as Queen Cersei's sire."

Tommen interrupts her thoughts by asking her, "What smells so bad?" She thinks, "My lord father," but she says, "Death." Tommen begins to fidget and her knees begin to ache as the service goes on. She sees her Uncle Kevan kneeling with his son Lancel beside him, and thinks Lancel looks worse than her father does. Lord Gyles is coughing and covering his nose with a red silk handkerchief, and she realizes that he can smell it, too. Pycelle's eyes are closed, and she vows to have him whipped if he has fallen asleep. She sees Margaery Tyrell, Tommen's future wife, and notices how much like her brother, the Knight of Flowers, she looks. She wonders "if they had other things in common," and reflects on how many ladies she has in attendance on her. This is yet another glance at Loras Tyrell's homosexuality, but also a segue into Cersei's wondering which of Margaery's attendants she can recruit to spy on her.

By the time the service ends the smell has grown stronger, and she thinks she hears someone say "privy," but can't locate the offender. Lady Falyse approaches her outside and says that her sister Lollys has gone into labor and that her mother wants to name the child, if it's a boy, Tywin. Cersei is furious at the idea: "Your lackwit sister gets herself raped by half of King's Landing, and Tanda thinks to honor the bastard with my lord father's name? I think not." Falyse looks like she has been slapped.

Then she encounters the aged-looking Lancel, and comments on his coming marriage to one of the Freys, but he is unhappy. "It is cruel, Cersei. Your Grace knows that I love--." She cuts him off and finishes the sentence, "--House Lannister." Lancel goes on about how the High Septon had helped him when he was ill, and how he said Lancel was spared "for some holy purpose, so I might atone for my sins." Cersei wonders, "What has this mewling fool told the High Septon? And what will he tell his little Frey when they lie together in the dark?" She regrets having slept with Lancel, but not so much that he will talk about it -- she could always denounce it as a lie, "the braggadocio of a callow boy smitten by her beauty" -- as that he'll talk about having gotten Robert Baratheon drunk on drugged wine before the hunt in which he was killed.

She gets some good news from Lady Merryweather, who is from Myr, and tells her that she has written to her friends in the Free Cities, telling them so seize Tyrion if he should appear there. Cersei is intrigued by the beautiful and voluptuous woman. "This one is ambitious, and her lord is proud but poor." She calls her by her first name, Taena, and says, "I know that we shall be great friends." But they are interrupted by Mace Tyrell, who says, "We shall never see his like again." Cersei thinks, "You are looking at his like, fool." And then he tells her that Tywin had promised the office of master of coin to his uncle Garth, and that he's on his way to take up the position. She puts a stop to this quickly, telling him, "I have asked Lord Gyles Rosby to serve as our new master of coin, and he has done me the honor of accepting." Tyrell is taken aback, and sputters that "your lord father assured me...." But his mother, Lady Olenna, the Queen of Thorns," intervenes:

"It would seem that Lord Tywin did not share his plans with our regent, I can't imagine why. Still, there 'tis, no use hectoring Her Grace. She is quite right, you must write Lord Leyton before Garth boards a ship. You know the sea will sicken him and make his farting worse." Lady Olenna gave Cersei a toothless smile. "Your council chambers will smell sweeter with Lord Gyles, though I daresay that coughing would drive me to distraction. We all adore dear old uncle Garth, but the man is flatulent, that cannot be gainsaid. I do abhor foul smells." Her wrinkled face wrinkled up even more. "I caught a whiff of something unpleasant in the holy sept, in truth. Maybe you smelled it too?" 

Cersei lies and says she didn't, and vows to get rid of Lady Olenna as soon as possible. She retrieves Tommen and asks Lord Gyles to share the litter with them. When she offers him the job of master of coin that he has supposedly already accepted, "he began coughing so violently that she feared he might die right then and there." After he accepts, she tells him, "should the question arise, you joined the council yesterday." He coughs "into a square of red silk, as if to hide the blood in his spittle. Cersei pretended not to notice." She can get someone else when he dies, and perhaps recall Littlefinger, who is already having trouble with the lords of the Vale.

Back in her rooms, she is visited by Qyburn, who tells her that when Tyrion and Varys disappeared, a jailer named Rugen also vanished. She knows this, but he adds that under Rugen's chamber pot there was a loose stone that covered a hiding place for valuables. The hole was empty, but Qyburn dug in it and finds an old gold coin bearing "the sigil of House Gardener," the precusor of Highgarden. Cersei wonders if this indicates that Mace Tyrell had been secretly plotting with Tyrion. She warns Qyburn not to tell anyone about it, and pockets the coin.

Qyburn has more news: "The poison on the Viper's spear was manticore venom from the east." Cersei says that Pycelle ruled that out because manticore venom kills instantly. But Qyburn says the poison had been "thickened somehow, so as to draw out the Mountain's dying." It may have been the result of a spell. Cersei scoffs at the idea of magic, but Qyburn proceeds, saying that Ser Gregor's "veins have turned black from head to heel, his water is clouded with pus, and the venom has eaten a hole in his side as large as my fist. It is a wonder that the man is still alive, if truth be told." Cersei complains that his screaming frightens Tommen and wakens her sometimes. She thinks they should call in Ilen Payne to put an end to him. But Qyburn wants to move Ser Gregor to the dungeons, where his screaming won't be so troublesome, and he can "tend to him more freely." In short, he wants to know more about this poison.

Cersei gets the point, and asks why the Citadel took away his chain. Qyburn calls the archmaesters "craven" and cites Marwyn, the ones the novices referred to as the Mage, as calling them "The grey sheep." Qyburn wanted to do some unconventional experimentation:

"For hundreds of years the men of the Citadel have opened the bodies of the dead, to study the nature of life. I wished to understand the nature of death, so I opened the bodies of the living. For that crime the grey sheep shamed me and forced me into exile ... but I understand the nature of life and death better than any man in Oldtown." 

Cersei is, to say the least, "intrigued." She lets Qyburn take charge of the Mountain, reminding him that she needs the head to send to Dorne. She tells him she will provide him with the finances he needs and that he should buy some new robes. "Need I say that it will go ill for you if any word of your ... labors ... should pass beyond these walls?" Her secrets are safe with him, he assures her.

Her mind goes back to the gold coin from Highgarden and what link it might have to her father's death. She wonders if Tyrion has anything to do with the swift decomposition of Tywin's body, and if there's a possibility that he influenced Pycelle or the High Septon to bring it about. But her suspicions are interrupted by the arrival of her uncle Kevan to dine with her. Before she can ask him to become the Hand, he anticipates the offer, noting that Jaime has refused the job. She needs someone older anyway, she says, and he points out that Mace Tyrell is older. "Never," she says, adding, "The Tyrells overreach themselves." He admits that Tyrell would be a bad choice as hand, but cautions her against making an enemy of him. He has heard about the encounter over the position of master of coin, and says she was "unwise to shame him in front of half the court."

But as for the matter of becoming the Hand, he will do it only "so long as you name me regent as well as Hand and take yourself back to Casterly Rock." Tywin had told him of his plans to send her "back to the Rock and find a new husband for you." Her anger grows, but she controls it. He persists: "Open your eyes and look about you, Cersei. The kingdom is in ruins. Tywin might have been able to set matters aright, but...." She says she will set it aright with his help, but he persists, and the argument rages until she shouts "The king is my son!" and he replies, "from what I saw of Joffrey, you are as unfit a mother as you are a ruler."

She flings a cup of wine in his face. He rises with "a ponderous dignity" and asks her leave to go, warning, "You would be wise not to take me lightly, Your Grace ... and wiser still not to make of me a foe." She asks if this is a threat, and he says he is counseling her. "If you will not yield the regency to me, name me your castellan for Casterly Rock and make either Mathis Rowan or Randyll Tarly the Hand of the King." Both of them are bannermen for the Tyrells, which only adds to Cersei's suspicions. But he makes the point that by making either of them hers, she strengthens herself and weakens Highgarden. At the same time he realizes that his advice is futile: "You may make Moon Boy your Hand for all I care. My brother is dead, woman. I am going to take him home."


She wonders how much Mace Tyrell had paid him. And as he leaves, he reveals that he knows that Jaime is Tommen's father.

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

Daenerys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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

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

Arya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joffrey is hustled away, and Lord Tywin takes charge.

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 299-340

Tyrion

As he approaches Cersei's chamber, Tyrion hears a singer, but the music stops when he enters. The singer is Ser Lancel Lannister, who used to be King Robert's squire, but was knighted after his death. He is sixteen years old. Ser Lancel leaves grudgingly when Tyrion says he wants to speak to Cersei privately.

He has news for her: "Lord Stannis has sailed from Dragonstone." Immediately Cersei is on him about making preparations to defend the city, but he is laughing so hard that for a moment he can't quite get the rest of it out: "He hasn't sailed against us," he tells her. "He's laid siege to Storm's End. Renly is riding to meet him."

Cersei is so delighted by this news that she even hugs Tyrion. When she is finished laughing, she asks if there is a chance the Baratheon brothers will decide to join forces instead of fighting each other, but Tyrion insists, "They are too different and yet too much alike, and neither could ever stomach the other."

He suggests that they drink to "brotherly love," and while he's pouring the wine he manages "to sprinkle a pinch of fine powder" into Cersei's cup. She is so beautiful when she smiles as they toast Stannis and Renly that "He almost felt sorry for poisoning her."

The next morning, word comes to him that Cersei is "indisposed." "Not able to leave her privy, more like," he thinks, and he goes to the meeting in the throne room with Ser Cleos regarding Robb's peace terms without her. As Hand, he has the right to sit in the Iron Throne, which at least gives him the opportunity to look down on the people in audience.

He calls for Ser Cleos and rejects Robb's terms, then presents his own:

"Robb Stark must lay down his sword, swear fealty, and return to Winterfell. He must free my brother unharmed, and place his host under Jaime's command, to march against the rebels Renly and Stannis Baratheon. Each of Stark's bannermen must send us a son as hostage. A daughter will suffice where there is no son. They shall be treated gently and given high places here at court, so long as their fathers commit no new treasons." 

As expected, Cleos says that Robb will never agree to those terms. Tyrion continues, telling him that an army is massing at Casterly Rock that will march on him from the west while Tywin's army marches on him from the east. He can't expect support from Stannis and Renly because they are at war with each other, or from the Prince of Dorne, because he "has consented to wed his son Trystane to the Princess Myrcella."

He offers an exchange of prisoners, and the return of Ned Stark's bones "as a gesture of Joffrey's good will." But when Cleos says that Robb asked for the return of his sisters and of his father's sword, Tyrion replies that he can have Ice when he concludes a peace with them and his sisters when "he frees my brother Jaime, unharmed." Until then, "they shall remain here as hostages. How well they are treated depends on him." Silently, he hopes that they can find Arya before Robb finds out that she's missing.

Then he calls on Vylarr, the head of the Lannister household guards, and tells him that he and the rest of the Lannister guards are to accompany Cleos back to Riverrun. Astonished, Grand Maester Pycelle rises to protest that "your father, Lord Tywin himself, he sent these good men to out city to protect Queen Cersei and her children." Tyrion replies that the Kingsguard and the City Watch are sufficient protection. Then he asks if anyone else has anything to bring forward.

From the back of the hall, Ser Alliser Thorne pushes forward to demand a hearing. Tyrion feigns surprise that Alliser had come to court. Alliser insists that he must speak to the king. "The matter is too grave to be left to servants." Tyrion explains that Joffrey was "playing with his new crossbow" -- which Tyrion had given him to keep him occupied -- and says, "You can speak to servants or hold your silence."

Alliser reluctantly agrees, and begins to tell the story of the attack on the Watch and the Lord Commander by the undead rangers. The story sounds so preposterous that someone sniggers, and Tyrion begins to suspect that a trick is being played on him by Varys or Littlefinger or Pycelle. "A dwarf enjoyed at best a tenuous hold on dignity. Once the court and kingdom started to laugh at him, he was doomed." But at the same time he remembers the sense of dread he had felt when he stood on top of the Wall with Jon and his wolf and looked out at the lands beyond the Wall.

He saves face by making fun of Alliser and his story, especially when he reveals that the dead man's hand he brought with him has rotted away. And he tells Littlefinger to supply Alliser with a hundred spade to take with him on his return. "If you bury your dead, they won't come walking." The court laughs. He tells Ser Jacelyn Bywater to round up more prisoners to send to the Night's Watch, and when Alliser protests that "The Wall must be held," points out that he has done just that by ordering more men. He adds, "Give my warm regards to Lord Mormont ... and to Jon Snow as well."

Afterward, Varys expresses his admiration of Tyrion's tactics: "You appease the Stark boy with his father's bones and strip your sister of her protectors in one swift stroke. You give that black brother the men he seeks, rid the city of some hungry mouths, yet make it all seem mockery so none may say that the dwarf fears snarks and grumkins. Oh, deftly done." Littlefinger is less generous in his praise, and confesses, "I do not relish being played for a fool. If Myrcella weds Trystane Martell, she can scarcely wed Robert Arryn, can she?" Tyrion offers a mild apology, but Littlefinger leaves unappeased.

Tyrion asks Varys to walk with him. The eunuch says that Cersei will not part with her guard, but Tyrion says she will if he explains that it's part of his scheme to free Jaime. Varys says, "This would doubtless involve the four men your man Bronn searched for so diligently in all the low places of King's Landing. A thief, a poisoner, a mummer, and a murderer." Tyrion, unsurprised that Varys has sniffed this out, says that he has been looking for a way to get them into Riverrun, and by disguising them as guardsmen, "They'll ride in by the main gate, flying Lannister banners and escorting Lord Eddard's bones.... So I must send the true guardsmen as well as the false ... as you'll tell my sister."

Tyrion then finds his men Timett and Shagga and tells them to come to his chambers at midnight. Shortly after midnight, Shagga kicks down the door of Grand Maester Pycelle's room, and Timett tears the curtains from around the bed, revealing a naked serving girl and the naked Grand Maester. Pycelle protests, "I am an old man, your loyal servant...." Tyrion replies that it wasn't very loyal to send only one of the copies of the letter to Doran Martell and to give the other to the queen.

Pycelle tries to blame it on Varys, but Tyrion says that he told Varys he was sending Tommen to Prince Doran to foster. He told Littlefinger that he was going to marry Myrcella to Lord Robert. "I told no one that I had offered Myrcella to the Dornish ... that truth was only in the letter I entrusted to you." Pycelle persists in trying to blame first Varys and then Littlefinger, but Tyrion says, "Shagga, cut off his manhood and feed it to the goats."

Pycelle screams and wets the bed, and Shagga hacks off three-quarters of Pycelle's beard with his axe. "How long have you been spying for my sister?" Tyrion demands, as Shagga takes hold of what's left of Pycelle's beard. Pycelle confesses that he has always served Tywin Lannister, and surprises Tyrion by saying that it was he who told King Aerys Targaryeon to open the gates, leading to the Sack of King's Landing. He had hoped that Tywin would take the throne, he says, "but Robert was too strong, and Lord Stark moved too swiftly...."

Tyrion confronts Pycelle  about the poisoning of Jon Arryn.  "I saw the tears of Lys among your potions. And you sent away Lord Arryn's own maester and tended him yourself, so you could make certain that he died." Pycelle denies it, but when Shagga's blade draws blood from his throat he admits that he sent away Maester Colemon because he was trying to counteract the poison with purgatives. "It was not me who gave him the poison, though, I swear it.... Varys will tell you, it was the boy, his squire, Hugh he was called, he must surely have done it, ask your sister, ask her."

Tyrion orders Pycelle taken off to the black cells.

Arya

After eight days in the storehouse by the Gods Eye, Arya and the other prisoners have been marched to Harrenhal. Each day a prisoner was called out and questioned by a man known as the Tickler. The questions were always the same, centering on Lord Beric Dondarrion and his followers and helpers. "No one ever survived the Tickler's questioning; no man, no woman, no child. The strongest lasted past evenfall. Their bodies were hung beyond the fires for the wolves."

On the march, Arya loses all sense that she might be the "water dancer" that Syrio Forel had tried to teach her to become. "The direwolf was the sigil of the Starks, but Arya felt more like a lamb, surrounded by a herd of other sheep. She hated the villagers for their sheepishness, almost as much as she hated herself." She has lost Needle and her wooden sword was broken over the knee of one of the Lannister men. She has revealed herself as a girl when she has to urinate in sight of the others, surprising Hot Pie. Gendry had been spared because "smiths, even apprentice smiths, were too valuable to kill."

As they march, Arya begins compiling a list of hates: Dunsen because he has taken Gendry's helmet, Polliver because he has Needle, Chiswyck because he hides his cruelty behind a façade of jolliness, Raff the Sweetling because he killed Lommy, Amory Lorch for killing Yoren, Meryn Trant for killing Syrio, the Hound for killing the butcher boy Mycah, Ser Ilyn and Joffrey and Cersei for her father and all the others, including Lady, Sansa's wolf. She repeats their names every night as if praying.

Finally they reach Harrenhal, which is immense. Hot Pie doesn't want to enter it because he's heard that it's haunted, but Chiswyck gives him a choice: "Come join the ghosts, or be one." Inside they are made to strip and bathe. When they ask her name, she says it's Weasel, "naming the first girl she could think of." When they say she is being sent to work in the kitchen, she says she'd rather tend the horses, thinking she might be able to steal one and escape. But she gets slapped for insolence, and told that the grooms and squires take care of the horses. "The kitchens are snug and clean, and there's always a warm fire to sleep by and plenty to eat," but since she mouthed off, she's being assigned to Weese, the understeward for the Wailing Tower, who says, "I can smell defiance, I can smell pride, I can smell disobedience. I catch a whiff of any such stinks, You'll answer for it. When I sniff you, all I want to smell is fear."

Daenerys

They have arrived at Qarth, which the warlock Pyat Pree acclaims as "the greatest city that ever was or ever will be." It is surrounded by three walls, the outer of red sandstone carved with figures of animals. The middle one is grey granite with scenes of battle, and the innermost is black marble covered with scenes of sexual coupling. She is greeted by small children scattering flowers in her path. The architecture of the city is rich and fanciful and the people are tall and pale and dressed in "linen and samite and tiger fur." The merchant prince Xaro Xhoan Daxos says that she can have anything she sees that takes her fancy.

Daenerys replies that all she wants is ships and swords to win back the red castle at King's Landing. Ser Jorah, who is riding at her side, advises her, "You would do well to avoid both these men, Your Grace." Daenerys tells him that she hopes to use Xaro's wealth and Pyat Pree's power to get her crown. But Jorah says, "I would not linger here long, my queen. I mislike the very smell of this place."

They show her to immense and opulent lodgings and take their leave. "Last of the three seekers to depart was Quaithe the shadowbinder. From her Dany received only a warning. 'Beware,' the woman in the red lacquer mask said." When Daenerys asks whom she should beware, Quaithe says, "Of all." Jorah agrees, though he says he doesn't like her any more than he does the others. It bothers Daenerys that she has never seen the woman's face, and she is reminded of the treachery of Mirri Maz Duur. She tells her bloodriders to keep watch, especially on the dragons. Then she sends Rakharo to check out the parts of the city they haven't been shown yet, and Jorah to the waterfront to find out about the ships and if there has been any news from Westeros.

She is feeding the dragons when Jorah returns with Quhuro Mo, a ship's captain who wears "a cloak of green and yellow feathers and had skin as black as polished jet." He was in Oldtown half a year ago and he tells Daenerys of the death of Robert Baratheon. Jorah adds that Joffrey has taken the throne, but the Lannisters are in charge. Quhuru Mo adds that Lord Stark has been seized for treason. "'Ned Stark a traitor?' Ser Jorah snorted. 'Not bloody likely. The Long Summer will come again before that one would besmirch his precious honor.'" But Daenerys is not willing to concede any honor to anyone who betrayed the Targaryens.

When Quhuru Mo takes his leave, she tells him, "Come to me in King's Landing when I am on my father's throne, and you shall have a great reward." But after he leaves, Jorah warns her not to broadcast her plans. And since Joffrey is on the throne, he thinks nothing has changed. She disagrees. She has "the blood of the dragon," she proclaims. He warns, "Even dragons can die." She admits that dragons die, then kisses him on the cheek: "But so do dragonslayers."

Bran

Bran watches Meera as she captures Summer with a net. When she releases the wolf, Bran calls him and they wrestle, with the wolf snarling and yapping. Meera asks if the wolf ever gets angry, and Bran says, "Not with me." Sometimes he tears Bran's clothes, but never draws blood. She says he would have drawn her blood if he'd gotten free of the net, but Bran insists that he wouldn't because "He knows I like you."

Meera and Jojen have stayed on at Winterfell and have become Bran's "constant companions," though they are both older than he is -- Bran has just turned nine, and Meera is almost sixteen. When Bran begins to struggle to sit up against a tree, Meera starts to help him, but he tells her not to, and finally rolls and pushes his way upright. He asks her if the master-at-arms at Greywater Watch taught her to fight with a net, but she says they don't have any knights, or a maester. When Bran asks who keeps their ravens, she says they don't have any because ravens can't find Greywater, "Because it moves." He asks if he could visit them, and she says he would be welcome, so he decides to ask Ser Rodrik when he returns from settling a dispute that has arisen.

Jojen says that it would be good if Bran left Winterfell soon. Meera tells Bran that Jojen "has the greensight.... He dreams things that haven't happened, but sometimes they do." Jojen protests against the "sometimes." Bran asks Jojen to tell him what's going to happen, but Jojen says he will if Bran will tell him about his dreams.

Bran denies that he has dreams, though of course he does. And Meera says, "All of Winterell knows you wake at night shouting and sweating, Bran." Jojen asks what frightens him so much, but Bran refuses to admit anything. So Jojen tells him, "I dreamed of a winged wolf bound to earth with grey stone chains.... It was a green dream, so I knew it was true. A crow was trying to peck through the chains, but the stone was too hard and his beak could only chip at them." Bran asks if the crow had three eyes, and Jojen says it did. "When I was little I almost died of greywater fever. That was when the crow came to me." Bran blurts out that the crow came to him after he fell.

"'You are the winged wolf, Bran,' said Jojen. 'I wasn't sure when we first came, but now I am. The crow sent us here to break your chains.'" They tell him that the crow is beyond the Wall, and that when Jojen told their father what he'd dreamed, he sent them to Winterfell. Bran asks how he can break the chains, and Jojen says he must open his eye: "You have three [eyes]. The crow gave you the third but you will not open it."

Bran decides not to pursue the subject any further, but Jojen persists: "Did you dream of a wolf?" Bran gets angry: "I don't have to tell you my dreams. I'm the prince. I'm the Stark in Winterfell." And when Jojen asks if the wolf in his dream was Summer, Bran yells, "Stop it!" Summer has grown agitated too, and is moving toward the weirwood, baring his teeth. Jojen continues, "When I touched Summer, I felt you in him. Just as you are in him now." Bran protests, but Jojen says, "I felt you. I felt you fall. Is that what scares you, the falling?"

Bran admits to himself that he is afraid of the falling, and of "the golden man, the queen's brother, he scares me too, but mostly the falling." But he doesn't want to tell anyone. "If he didn't talk about it, maybe he would forget." Jojen asks, "Do you fall every night, Bran?"

Summer begins to growl and bare his teeth, stalking toward Jojen. Meera steps between the wolf and her brother, who tells Bran that it's his anger and fear that is animating Summer. "Part of you is Summer, and a part of Summer is you. You know that, Bran." Meera pleads with Bran to call Summer back. Bran calls, but gets no response. Then Shaggydog appears from the weirwood, responding to his brother's anger. Both wolves threaten the brother and sister, though Jojen remains calm. Meera calls to her brother to climb a tree, and they do so, as Shaggy snaps at her foot and Summer howls.

Bran calls for Hodor, and asks him to chase away the wolves. Shaggydog disappears into the wood and Summer comes back to Bran and lies down beside him. Meera and Jojen leave, though Jojen promises, "We'll talk again."

Bran has Hodor take him to see Maester Luwin, whom Bran tells, "Meera says her brother has the greensight.... You told me that the children of the forest had the greensight. I remember." Luwin admits that he did, but the children of the forest are gone. Bran tells him that Jojen has dreams that sometimes come true. Luwin says that's true of all of us, and reminds him that both he and his brother Rickon had dreamed of their father in the crypt before they knew that he was dead. But most dreams don't come true.

Then he talks about the maester's chain collar. Each link is forged from a different metal to represent the various disciplines the maester learns at the Citadel in Oldtown. "Black iron is for ravenry, silver for healing, gold for sums and numbers." He shows Bran the one of Valyrian steel. "Only one maester in a hundred wears such a link. this signifies that  have studied what the Citadel calls the higher mysteries -- magic, for want of a better word." He studied magic, and tried to practice it, but to no avail. "Sad to say, magic does not work."

But Bran objects that it does sometimes, as in the dream he and Rickon had. "And there are mages and warlocks in the east...." Luwin says that they call themselves that, but if there ever was real magic it has died out. "The dragons are no more, the giants are dead, the children of the forest forgotten with all their lore." He says, "Jojen Reed may have had a dream or two that he believes came true, but he does not have the greensight. No living man has that power."

Bran repeats what Luwin said to Meera that night, but she holds out the possibility that Luwin is wrong. Then she tells him about a dream Jojen had about Bran and the Frey brothers.

"You were sitting at supper, but instead of a servant, Maester Luwin brought you your food. He served you the king's cut off the roast, the meat rare and bloody, but with a savory smell that made everyone's mouth water. The meat he served the Freys was old and grey and dead. Yet they liked their supper better than you liked yours." 

Bran says he doesn't understand, but she says her brother says he will, and they'll talk again when he does. That night he persists in his conviction that Luwin is right: "'There's no magic, and the stories are just stories.' And he would never walk, nor fly, no be a knight."

Tyrion

It is midnight, and Lancel Lannister has come to see Tyrion with an order from Cersei to release Pycelle. Evidently Cersei has asked Ser Jacelyn Bywater to release the Grand Maester and he has refused, so she wants him arrested for treason. Lancel tries to threaten Tyrion by putting his hand on his sword and calling him "Imp," but Tyrion sees the threat and raises it: "One cry from me and Shagga will burst in and kill you. With an axe, not a wineskin."

The reference to the doped wine that Lancel, as squire, gave to Robert Baratheon during the boar hunt causes him to redden. And Tyrion goes further: "Tell me -- did Cersei have you knighted before or after she took you into her bed?" Tyrion can see from Lancel's reaction that what Varys had told him was true.

Lancel tries to bluff his way by telling Tyrion to "withdraw these filthy accusations," but Tyrion goes on: "Have you given any thought to what Joffrey will do when I tell him you murdered his father to bed his mother?" And Lance breaks down: "The queen gave me the strongwine! Your own father Lord Tywin, when I was named the king's squire, he told me to obey her in everything."

"Did he tell you to fuck her too?" Tyrion replies, and continues to rub it in. When he says, "Wait here. His Grace will want to hear this," Lancel falls to his knees and begs for mercy. He promises he will end the relationship with Cersei. But Tyrion, finding it "hard not to laugh," has other plans:

"My father told you to obey my sister? Very well, obey her. Stay close to her side, keep her trust, pleasure her as often as she requires it. No one need ever know ... so long as you keep faith with me. I want to know what Cersei is doing. Where she goes, who she sees, what they talk of, what plans she is hatching. All. And you will be the one to tell me, won't you?"

So Lancel swears he'll spy on Cersei for Tyrion. And Tyrion tells him he'll release Pycelle, but he won't restore him to the council. As for Ser Jacelyn, he tells Lancel to say he believes he can win him over to her from Tyrion's side. He also warns Lancel not to get Cersei pregnant: "I want no more nephews, that clear?"

When Lancel leaves, Tyrion regrets what he and Cersei are doing to the boy, who "was unlikely to live out the year." He summons Bronn and they ride to Chataya's brothel and the secret passage that takes him to Shae. On the way he thinks, "The only way to defeat my sister is to play her own game, and that was something the Lords Stark and Arryn would never do. Small wonder that both of them were dead, while Tyrion Lannister had never felt more alive."

When he sees Chataya, he reflects on her "elegance and dignity" even though she was a prostitute, and remembers that she regards herself as a priestess and not a whore. "Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it. Somehow that thought comforted him." And after having sex with Shae, he reflects:

It is real, all of it, he thought, the wars, the intrigues, the great bloody game, and me in the center of it ... me, the dwarf, the monster, the one they scorned and laughed at, but now I hold it all, the power, the city, the girl. This was what I was made for, and gods forgive me, but I do love it.... And her. And her.