17. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 473-503

Cersei

News of the capture of the Shield Islands has reached King's Landing, and Margaery Tyrell is upset, to say the least, waking the council and Cersei to demand that something be done about it. Cersei, naturally, is torn between annoyance at Margaery's demands and a secret delight at the Tyrells' plight, though she also recognizes that Euron Greyjoy's attack is a threat to the Iron Throne as well. She decides to put forth the idea that Stannis is somehow complicit in the attack, which only muddles things further.

When Cersei refers to the Shield Islands as "these rocks," Margaery gives a gasp: "Did Your Grace say rocks?" But Loras Tyrell calms his sister and explains their strategic importance in the defense of Highgarden. Cersei suggests that Highgarden "hire sellsails from beyond the narrow sea," which only puts Ser Loras's back up: "The scum of the Free Cities?" he says, contemptuously. "I beg Your Grace send word to Dragonstone and command Lord Redwyne to raise his sails at once."

Aurane Waters protests this plan, and the suggestion to end the siege of Storm's End, and Cersei agrees: "Storm's End is a hundred times more valuable than the Shields, and Dragonstone ... so long as Dragonstone remains in the hands of Stannis Baratheon, it is a knife at my son's throat." So Ser Loras strides forth and asks, "Your Grace, let me take Dragonstone." He vows to accomplish the task "within a fortnight."

No one had given Cersei such a lovely gift since Sansa Stark had run to her to divulge Lord Eddard's plans. She was pleased to see that Margaery had gone pale.... "Let Sweet Cersei carry our Knight of Flowers to Dragonstone at once. Ser Loras, the command is yours. Swear to me that you shall not return until Dragonstone is Tommen's."

Pycelle accompanies Cersei as she leaves the throne room, and expresses his misgivings about Loras's rash decision, but she is full of visions of the outcome: "If Loras took the castle, Stannis would suffer a grievous blow, and the Redwyne fleet could sail off to meet the ironmen. If he failed, she would see to it that he had the lion's share of the blame. Nothing tarnishes a hero as much as failure." And of course, there was always the possibility that he would be killed.

Lady Taena is in Cersei's bed when she returns, and Cersei tells her what has taken place. Cersei begins to have thoughts about what it might be like to have sex with Lady Merryweather, remembering the unpleasantness of sleeping with Robert Baratheon, but her reveries are interrupted by another knocking at the door. It is Lady Falyse Stokeworth, who needs to see her urgently. Cersei dresses and meets her in her solar, where she finds Lady Falyse with a bruised and swollen face, a split lip, and torn and soiled clothing.

Ser Balman has challenged Bronn to single combat, and has been killed. Cersei is furious: "I asked you to arrange a hunting mishap. An arrow gone astray, a fall from a horse, an angry boar ... there are so many ways a man can die in the woods. None of them involving lances." When Falyse went to her husband's aid, Bronn struck her in the face, and told her to leave Stokeworth. And when she appealed to the guard, they said she must do as "Lord Stokeworth" ordered. Moreover, Ser Balman confessed to the plot, including Cersei's role in it.

"You have to help me," Falyse begs. "Where am I to go? What will I do?" Cersei suggests that she join the silent sisters in prayer and contemplation, but then says she can stay in the castle. While Falyse is consoling herself with win, Cersei sends for Qyburn and says, "I cannot have Falyse spreading tales about the city. Her grief has made her witless." She is to be taken to the black cells.

She goes back to her room, where she tries to make love to Taena Merryweather. "But it was no good. She could not feel it, whatever Robert felt on the nights he took her." She brings Taena to a climax, but when Taena offers to return the favor, she refuses. "It would be morning soon, and all of this would be forgotten. It had never happened."

Jaime

His cousin, Ser Daven Lannister, the Warden of the West, arrives, and tells him that the siege of Riverrun is still dragging on. "The Blackfish sits inside the castle, we sit outside in our camps. Bloody boring, if you want to know the truth." Ryman Frey is trying to persuade the Blackfish to yield the castle by erecting a gibbet and taking Edmure Tully there at dawn, threatening to hang him. And Lord Emmon Frey, who is married to Daven and Jaime's aunt, wants Edmure hanged because Riverrun will be his when it's taken. On the other hand, Lord Gawen Westerling doesn't want Edmure hanged because his wife and three daughters, including Robb Stark's widow, are inside the castle.

Jaime asks if they can starve the castle into submission, but Daven tells him, "The Blackfish expelled all the useless mouths from Riverrun and picked this country clean. He has enough stores to keep man and horse alive for two full years." Meanwhile, the troops besieging the castle are living on the fish they can take from the rivers, but it's difficult finding fodder for the horses. Troops are beginning to desert, or to be found hanged by outlaws.

Jaime asks if attempts have been made to treaty with Brynden Tully, but is told that the Blackfish says "he would not waste fair words on foul men." Jaime intends to try, however: "If he could end this siege without bloodshed, then it could not be said that he had taken up arms against House Tully." After parting from Daven, Jaime goes to find Ser Ilyn for his ritual combat. "He liked to believe that he was getting better, but the improvement was slow and not without cost. Underneath his steel and wool and boiled leather Jaime Lannister was a tapestry of cuts and scabs and bruises."

When they reach Riverrun, Jaime sees the tall gallows that has been erected, with Edmure Tully on top of it with a rope around his neck. The castle itself flies the banners of House Tully, except for the highest tower, which flies "a long white standard emblazoned with the direwolf of Stark." He gives orders to send a message to the Blackfish that he wants a parley with him at first light tomorrow.

His aunt, Genna Lannister, and her husband, Emmon Frey, come to his tent. She asks if it is true that Tyrion killed Tywin, "Or is that some calumny your sister put about?" He admits that it's true. Then she asks about the death of of their son, Cleos. Jaime lies and says he died fighting the outlaws, and that he was buried by a stream, though in fact the Bloody Mummers had left him for the crows. He assures his aunt that he will return his bones to Casterly Rock when the war is over. "Bones were bones; these days, nothing was easier to come by."

Lord Emmon wants Jaime's assurance that Riverrun won't be destroyed, and pulls out the decree naming him lord of the castle, but his wife snaps, "So long as the Blackfish sits inside Riverrun you can wipe your arse with that paper for all the good it does us." And Jaime points out that although the paper gives him the lands and incomes of Riverrun, it "will be subject to the rule of Harrenhal" under Petyr Baelish. Finally, Genna sends her husband out so she can have a long talk with Jaime, and the first thing she asks is whatever Tywin Lannister was thinking when he made Emmon lord of Riverrun.

They discuss various matters of inheritance, and she asks, "why would Cersei permit the Faith to arm again?" Jaime hasn't given the matter much thought, but Genna has: "The Sword and Stars troubled even the Targaryens." She describes the ongoing conflict between the crown and the Faith, and Jaime admits that he has forgotten most of it. "You and your sister both," she says. She doesn't have kind words for his sister: "Cersei has put some bastard on the council too, and a kettle in the Kingsguard. She has the Faith arming and the Braavosi calling in loans all over Westeros. None of which would be happening if she'd had the simple sense to make your uncle the King's Hand." Jaime reminds her that Kevan refused, but she insists, "Kevan always did what was asked of him. It is not like him to turn away from any duty. Something is awry here, I can smell it."

Jaime thinks, "He knows about us," but he doesn't dare say that to his aunt.

Then they speak about Tywin, and she says, "Who will protect us now?" Jaime says, "He left a son." She replies, "Aye, he did. That is what I fear the most." For as handsome and brave as Jaime is, she says, "Tyrion is Tywin's son, not you. I said so once to your father's face, and he would not speak to me for half a year. Men are such thundering great fools. Even the sort who come along once in a thousand years."

9. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 226-254

Jaime

Lord Tywin's body is leaving King's Landing with a splendid honor guard, and Jaime rides out to say farewell to his uncle. But Kevan observes that Cersei has not done likewise. Any rift between them is her doing, he tells Jaime. Kevan is off to see his son Lancel married at Darry, and Jaime is reminded once again of Tyrion's claim: "...fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know." Kevan is in no mood to be nice to his nephew, and when Jaime brings up the spurned offer to be Tommen's Hand, he replies, "Your sister knows my terms. They have not changed. Tell her that, the next time you are in her bedchamber." He rides off.

Jaime is stung by his awareness that Kevan knows about his incest with Cersei, though he had hoped she had been mistaken about that. He worries that Cersei may try to kill Kevan: "When sons were killing fathers, what was there to stop a niece from ordering an uncle slain? An inconvenient uncle, who knows too much." As Lancel passes by, he congratulates him on his coming marriage, and makes a bawdy joke, which gets only a pious reply from Lancel and a disapproving look from the septon accompanying him. Jaime decides, "The Imp was lying. Cersei would sooner have Robert's corpse between her legs than a pious fool like Lancel."

With the Tyrell contingent gone, and the Lannister forces waiting for ships to take them to attack Dragonstone, the city seems empty. He goes to Cersei's solar, where she is with Tommen, Lady Merryweather, and Grand Maester Pycelle. He observes that Cersei is, as usual, drinking. Pycelle has received news from Lady Tanda that Lollys has given birth to a son and named him Tyrion. Cersei blames it on Lollys's husband, Bronn, who is no doubt "smirking at his little insolence."

Jaime asks if he may speak with his sister privately, and the others leave. He comments on her friendship with Lady Merryweather, and Cersei says she "may be a serpent, but she is far from stupid. She knows I can do more for her than Margaery, so she makes herself useful to me." He tells her that Kevan mentioned her absence from his departure, and she expresses contempt for her uncle. When he asks about the position of Hand, she suggests that she might give it to Lord Merryweather, which surprises him: "Is this about pleasing some Myrish whore? Here I thought it was about governing the realm."

She replies that she governs the realm, and he thinks,

Seven save us all, you do. His sister liked to think of herself as Lord Tywin with teats, but she was wrong. Their father had been as relentless and implacable as a glacier, where Cersei was all wildfire, especially when thwarted. She had been giddy as a maiden when she learned that Stannis had abandoned Dragonstone, certain that he had finally given up the fight and sailed away to exile. When word came down from the north that he had turned up again at the Wall, her fury had been fearful to behold. She does not lack for wits, but she has no judgment, and no patience.

He says he has heard that she plans to make Aurane Waters master of ships, and objects that he is too young. She says Tommen needs "some young men about him in place of all these wrinkled greybeards. Aurane is strong and vigorous." Once again, Jaime remembers Tyrion's taunt about Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy. He suggests Paxter Redwyne instead, but Cersei objects to him as one of Tyrell's bannermen. Then he criticizes her dependence on Qyburn: "gods be good, Cersei, he rode with Vargo Hoat. The Citadel stripped him of his chain!" But she says Qyburn is "useful" and "loyal, which is more than I can say of mine own kin."

He begs her to come to her senses and to realize that neither he nor Kevan is her enemy. "The crows will feast upon us all if you go on this way, sweet sister," he thinks. But she orders him out. "I am sick of looking at that ugly stump of yours," she says, and throws her wine cup at him.

Later, in the common room of the tower of the Kingsguard, he is reading in the White Book when Ser Loras enters and observes, "Lord Renly always said that books were for maesters." Jaime defends book-learning, and suggests that Loras should be more familiar with the history of some of the Kingsguard, such is "Criston Cole, who served the first Viserys and the second Aegon.... They called him Kingmaker."

Cersei

She receives three ugly, unwashed, ragged men, who claim to have Tyrion's head. But when they produce the rotting item from a sack it has a nose, she observes, "A rather bulbous one." (Like the dwarf Brienne met in Duskendale.) She sends them away. "This was the third head that had been delivered to her. At least this one was a dwarf. The last had simply been an ugly child."

She has dreamed again of Maggy the Frog, the prophet she had gone to in Lannisport when she was a girl, and she is in a foul mood. She leaves for her council on Qyburn's arm and asks him if he has finished preparing the head to send to Prince Doran. He tells her it has taken a long time for the beetles to clean the flesh off the skull, and that he has prepared a box of ebony and silver lined with felt for the presentation. Outside the bells are ringing for the death of the High Septon, the one she suspected of being in league with Tyrion. Qyburn assures her that the bells will stop at sunset, and she thinks again of how Varys had been thought irreplaceable. "It was teh silver all along, not the Spider. Qyburn will serve us just as well."

She enters the council chamber and introduces him as Lord Qyburn, which immediately gets the surprised reaction she wanted from Pycelle, who calls him "unfit." She turns on Pycelle and says, "Do not presume to speak to me of fitness. Not after the stinking mockery you made of my lord father's corpse." Qyburn takes his seat at the table between Orton Merryweather, Cersei's new justiciar, and Gyles Rosby, the treasurer. Aurane Waters is the new grand admiral, and Ser Harys Swyft the Hand. They have all been chosen for their loyalty to her. Swyft's daughter is married to Cersei's uncle. "So long as she had Ser Harys in hand, Kevan Lannister must needs think twice about opposing her."

The king is not there: "His Grace is still too young to comprehend affairs of state," she explains. And "Ser Jaime is at his armorer's being fitted for a hand. I know we were all tired of that ugly stump." She calls for some wine, and asks for a report on events in Dorne. Pycelle informs them that Prince Doran has imprisoned the Sand Snakes, and that he is still awaiting Gregor Clegane's head. She says she is sending Ser Balon Swann to Sunspear. Ser Harys Swyft hasn't been informed of the Mountain's death, and she says that he "perished of his wounds, just as Grand Maester Pycelle foretold."

She asks Ser Harys what he was talking about when she entered, and he says it was the sparrows, the religious pilgrims who are arriving every day. "Their leaders preach of doom and demon worship." Cersei sips her wine and says, "What would you call this red god that Stannis worships, if not a demon? The Faith should oppose such evil." She had been reminded of that by Qyburn. The talk turns to the successor to the High Septon, which bores Cersei, who is contemplating Aurane Waters's good looks. But she puts an end to the talk about septons by saying that whoever takes the position "must pronounce an anathema upon the Imp."

She turns to Pycelle, who has a declaration from the lords of the Vale about their plans "to remove Littlefinger as Lord Protector of the Vale, forcibly if need be." She observes that Littlefinger doesn't seem at all concerned about it, and tells Pycelle to tell the lords not to harm Littlefinger and that the crown is willing to let them sort it out among themselves. Then they discuss the rebuilding of the fleet, and Merryweather wonders if they could make an alliance with the ironmen. There is brief talk of who will succeed Balon Greyjoy, but no one seems very well informed about that, to Cersei's irritation: "Varys would have known," she thinks.

When they talk about how they can pay for the rebuilding of the fleet, Lord Gyles is seized with a fit of coughing, so Cersei declares that they will defer repaying what they owe the church and the Iron Bank of Braavos until after the war. Pycelle worries about the reaction of the Iron Bank, but she says Braavos is "far across the sea" and "A Lannister pays his debts."

Ser Harys says that Lord Frey has made some demands, and Qyburn notes that there is suspicion that the crown may have had something to do with the Red Wedding. The sparrows, he says,  have called it "an affront to all the laws of gods and men, ... and those who had a hand in it are damned." Cersei says Lord Walder is very old, and that it has nothing to do with them, but Qyburn suggests that "it would also be useful if someone were to by punished for the Red Wedding. A few Frey heads would do much to mollify the north."

Aurane Waters says he has heard that Stannis is hiring ships from across the sea, but Cersei is unperturbed.

"Only a blind man could fail to see our war is all but won. Lord Tyrell has Storm's End invested. Riverrun is besieged by the Freys and my cousin Daven, our new Warden of the West. Lord Redwyne's ships have passed through the Straits of Tarth and are moving swiftly up the coast. Only a few fishing boats remain on Dragonstone to oppose Redwyne's landing. The castle may hold for some time, but once we have the port we can cut the garrison off from the sea. Then only Stannis himself will remain to vex us." 

Pycelle observes that Janos Slynt has reported that Stannis "is trying to make common cause with the wildlings," but no one thinks that an alliance with what Merryweather calls "Savages in skins" is much of a threat. Cersei thinks, "One day she must light a candle to the Stranger for carrying Renly off and leaving Stannis."

The subject of Sansa Stark comes up, but Cersei's anger puts an end to discussion. She notes that the faux Arya Stark is to marry Ramsay Bolton. "Another problem has arisen on the Wall, however. The brothers of the Night's Watch have taken leave of their wits and chosen Ned Stark's bastard to be their Lord Commander." She thinks, "Catelyn Tully was a mouse, or she would have smothered this Jon Snow in his cradle. Instead, she's left the filthy task to me." She proclaims Jon a traitor for giving "lands and castles" to Stannis. "The bastard boy has written us to avow that the Night's Watch takes no side, but his actions give the lie to his words. He has given Stannis food and shelter, yet has the insolence to plead with us for arms and men." A general outrage is expressed by all, but Qyburn has an idea: Send a hundred men to the Wall, all pledged to remove Jon Snow as Lord Commander. Cersei is delighted with the idea.

Finally, Aurane Waters hesitantly brings up the rumor of dragons that sailors from the east have been spreading. Cersei laughs it off and says, "Come back to me when you hear talk of dwarfs, my lord," and calls an end to the meeting.

Back in her chambers, Lady Merryweather and Cersei's maids are laughing over the fact that the Redwyne twins have fallen in love with Lady Margaery. Cersei muses on what might happen if either of them were found in Margaery's bed, and tells the maid Dorcas to fetch Ser Osney Kettleblack. When he arrives, she dismisses the women and begins to seduce him, letting him feel her breasts and giving his erection a squeeze through his breeches. Then she asks, "Tell me true. Do you think our little queen is pretty?" His erection begins to wilt as she unfolds her plot: He will seduce Margaery and get caught. She will lose her head and he will be sent to the Wall. There he will kill Jon Snow, the king will pardon him, and he'll be made a lord. "Bed a girl and kill a boy and I am yours," she says.

When he is gone, she preens herself on her cleverness. "Even Mace Tyrell would not dare defend his darling daughter if she was caught in the act with the likes of Osney Kettleblack, and neither Stannis Baratheon nor Jon Snow would have cause to wonder why Osney was being sent to the Wall." That night she sends for Taena Merryweather and involves her in the plot, having her tell Margaery that she has a secret admirer. Then she goes to sleep and dreams that the head the men had brought her had been Tyrion's. "She had it bronzed, and kept it in her chamber pot."

29. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 996-1026

Jaime

King Tommen is signing official documents as his council watches. Jaime is bored and sore, he has tried to use his left hand in a sparring match with Ser Addam Marbrand and got soundly beaten. Now he worries that Ser Addam will get drunk and spill the news that he beat the Kingslayer soundly in three matches.


Most of the papers Tommen is signing have to do with the aftermath of the death of Robb Stark: retribution against the Tullys, rewards for the Boltons, pardons for the Westerlings. Finally, Jaime leaves the signings in the supervision of his uncle, Kevan. Outside, he meets Steelshanks Walton who is accompanying "a skinny hollow-eyed girl wrapped in a heavy cloak." She greets him and says that perhaps he doesn't remember him, but they met "at Winterfell when King Robert came to visit my father Lord Eddard.... I'm Arya Stark."


It seems to Jaime that this girl is much older than the Arya Stark he met, but he doesn't comment on it. He says he hears that she is to be married, and she says her husband-to-be is Lord Bolton's son, who used to be Ramsay Snow, but Tommen has just signed a paper legitimizing him as a Bolton. As she departs, he wonders if she looks much like the real Arya who "was buried in some unmarked grave in Flea Bottom in all likelihood. With her brothers dead, and both parents, who would dare name this one a fraud?"


He passes the place where Gregor Clegane killed a stableboy in his duel with Prince Oberyn, and thinks that Clegane is paying the price for it, howling in agony as his wounds are being treated. Grand Maester Pycelle can't identify the poison Oberyn must have tipped his spear with when he wounded the Mountain. Tywin has ordered Pycelle to cure him, whatever it takes. He has promised Prince Doran of Dorne that Gregor will die, "But it must be seen to be the sword of the King's Justice that slays him, not a poisoned spear." News has also come from Dragonstone that Stannis has left the island with only a token guard, and that the Lyseni ships have left with most of Stannis's army. Tywin suspects that they are headed for Storm's End to try to rally support there, so he needs to keep the Dornishmen on his side.


Jaime goes to his quarters, where he finds Cersei waiting. She is upset because Tywin has dismissed her from the council and wants to send her to Casterly Rock, far away from Tommen, who is now to be married to Margaery. Jaime has no problem with the marriage: "Tommen's been lonely since Myrcella went to Dorne. He likes having Margaery and her ladies about." Cersei reminds him that Tommen is his son, too, and wants Jaime's support. He says he has always supported her, to the extent that he tried to kill Bran Stark. She replies that she didn't tell Jaime to throw Bran from the window. "If you'd gone hunting as I begged you, nothing would have happened. But no, you had to have me, you could not wait until we returned to the city."


Jaime takes this opportunity to ask Cersei if she was the one who sent the assassin to Bran's room, but she denies it. She says that even Robert Baratheon thought that Bran's death "would have been for the best. 'We kill our horses when they break a leg, and our dogs when they go blind, but we are too weak to give the same mercy to crippled children,' he told me." Her own children were present when he said it, she remembers, and jokes, "Perhaps Myrcella sent this man with the dagger, do you think so?" Jaime suddenly has the same realization that Tyrion had had: "Not Myrcella. Joffrey."


Cersei is puzzled, but Jaime explains that Joffrey had always wanted approbation from the man he thought was his father. "Tyrion almost died because of this bloody dagger," Jaime says. Perhaps he killed Joffrey to get even for that. But Cersei doesn't care why Tyrion killed Joffrey. The fact is, he's dead, and her daughter is in Dorne. "Tommen's all I have left. You mustn't let Father take him from me." She begs him to intercede with Tywin, telling him, "unless you stop him, Father is going to force me to wed again!"


Jaime's answer to this is to suggest she go tell their father that the only person she wants to be with is Jaime. She rejects this as insane: "Would you have us ripped apart, as Mother did that time she caught us playing?" The Targaryens married brothers and sisters, he insists, why not the Lannisters?  "We are not Targaryens!" she yells at him, and he tells her to quiet down. She insists that they can still do it, and begins to try to untie his breeches, but he stops her: not in the Lord Commander's chambers, he says, even though, as she points out, they did it in the sept.


She turns on him when he pushes her away, impugning his masculinity and saying, "You lacked the courage to avenge Joffrey, why would I think that you'd protect Tommen?" What if Tyrion had killed all three of their children? Would he have acted then? His reply only makes her more angry: "Tyrion is not going to harm Tommen or Myrcella. I am still not certain he killed Joffrey." She calls him a "great golden fool" and suggests that Ser Ilyn should give him Tyrion's head as a keepsake.


She should go, he says; she's making him angry. And she retorts, "Oh, an angry cripple. How terrifying." It's too bad that their father never had a real son: "I could have been the heir he wanted, but I lacked the cock." And she mocks his own, hanging from his breeches. When she has gone, he thinks, "I've lost a hand, a father, a son, a sister, and a lover, and soon enough I will lose a brother. And yet they keep telling me House Lannister won this war."


He sends for Ser Loras Tyrell and Brienne. Loras admits that, after talking with her, that Renly's death may have happened as she says. He dismisses Loras and asks Brienne to stay. He compliments her dress, saying the blue matches her eyes and thinking, "She does have astonishing eyes." She returns the compliment about his white cloak. Then he tells her about the false Arya Stark being sent to wed Ramsay Bolton, saying he wanted to prevent her from "galloping off to rescue her." She worries about what will happen when Bolton discovers the truth, but he thinks he already knows: "Lannisters lie, remember? It makes no matter, this girl serves his purpose just as well" since all the rest of her family is dead except for Sansa, who has vanished.


Brienne says she doesn't believe that Sansa killed Joffrey, and from Jaime's responses she realizes that he doubts that Tyrion did it either. He smiles. "See, wench? We know each other too well. Tyrion's wanted to be me since he took his first step, but he'd never follow me in kingslaying." He
thinks Sansa did it and Tyrion is protecting her. When she insists on Sansa's innocence, he says, "There's the stubborn stupid wench that I remember." As always, she starts to correct him: "My name is...." "Brienne of Tarth," he finishes for her, and then says he has a gift for her.


It is the magnificent sword of Valyrian steel. He order her to take it, and to call it Oathkeeper. But, he adds, it "comes with a price." He wants her to find Sansa and keep her safe. "How else are the two of us going to make good our stupid vows to your precious Lady Catelyn?" She stammers in surprise, having expected anything but this from Jaime, "I ... I though...."

"I know what you thought." Suddenly Jaime was sick of the sight of her. She bleats like a bloody sheep. "When Ned Stark died, his greatsword was given to the King's Justice," he told her. "But my father felt that such a fine blade was wasted on a mere headsman. He gave Ser Ilyn a new sword, and had Ice melted down and reforged. There was enough metal for two new blades. You're holding one. So you'll be defending Ned Stark's daughter with Ned Stark's own steel, if that makes any difference to you." 

She starts to apologize, but he cuts her off and tells her to do whatever she wants. "I don't want to look at you anymore." She says, "Jaime...." But he cuts her off: "'Kingslayer,' he reminded her." She persists, trying to ask why he would protect someone who killed Joffrey. He thinks, "Because Joff was no more to me than a squirt of seed in Cersei's cunt. And because he deserved to die." But he says, "Sansa Stark is my last chance for honor," and dismisses her.


When she is gone, he opens the White Book and brings his entry up to date, including the loss of his hand and his rescue by Brienne.


Jon


Jon is in a literal cage, buffeted by winds, suspended over nothingness, after four days "in a cell five by five by five, too low for him to stand, too tight for him to stretch out on his back." Ser Alliser had told him he would die there in one of the rooms carved out of the base of the Wall and originally designed to store food. But Maester Aemon had informed Janos Slynt that he couldn't hang Jon, and had written to Cotter Pyke, who testified that Jon wasn't a turncloak. So he and Alliser Thorne have decided to send Jon to parley with Mance Rayder, who has requested the meeting.


Jon realizes that he has no choice: Rayder is likely to kill him, but so are Thorne and Slynt if he refuses the assignment. Jon asks what terms they are attempting to reach with Rayder, but Janos Slynt says, "Janos Slynt does not make terms with lawless savages, Lord Snow. No, he does not." Ser Alliser is more direct: "We're not sending you to talk with Mance Rayder.... We're sending you to kill him." So now, as the cage is being lowered, Jon realizes, "With Maester Aemon insisting on Jon's innocence, Lord Janos had not dared to leave him in the ice to die." But he knows that even if he kills Mance Rayder, or just attempts to kill him, the others of the free folk would take his own life.


He walks through the corpses at the foot of the Wall toward the camp, and sees a rider coming out to meet him. It is Tormund, who offers him a ride. Jon says he'd rather walk, and as they go Tormund congratulates him on the fight the Watch had put up. He asks about Jon's limp, and Jon tells him that it was from one of Ygritte's arrows. Tormund drinks from his waterskin to Ygritte's memory, which he offers to Jon, who swallows the fiery mead it contains and repeats Tormund's tribute: "To Ygritte, kissed by fire!" He thinks of Ygritte, "You died brave in battle, storming the castle of a foe. I'm going to die a turncloak and a killer."


Rayder is waiting outside his tent, and says, "You must be very brave or very stupid, Jon Snow, ... to come back to us wearing a black cloak." Harma Dogshead is with him and says they should kill him and send his body back up and ask for someone else. The skinchanger adds that he "can soar above the Wall, and see with eagle eyes," which, as Rayder says, means that they know how undermanned and ill-provided the Watch is. He tells Jon to come inside the tent and for everyone else to remain outside.


Dalla is lying under a pile of furs inside, attended by Val. Jon tells her he was sorry when Jarl fell from the Wall, and she replies, "He always climbed too fast." Mance says they will stay, as they know what he has to say. Jon realizes that he will have to kill him in front of them, just as Mance and Dalla's child is about to be born. Rayder is wearing his sword, but no armor, and Jon looks around at the other weapons stored there.


Then he spots "A warhorn, a great bloody warhorn." And Rayder confirms that it's "The Horn of Winter, that Joramun once blew to wake giants from the earth." He has had it all along. Jon asks, "If this horn is all the songs say, why not just sound it and be done?" It is Dalla who replies:

"We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."

And Rayder says that he had hoped not to use it, that his attacks would succeed. But even now, he says, "The truth is, you are too few and we are too many." He could continue the fight and eventually prevail, attacking on all fronts, he says, "but you'd bleed me, and my people have bled enough." But now there's something else to be considered: "You saw the Fist of the First Men. You know what happened there. You know what we are facing." The Others are growing stronger. He has brought his people to the Wall ostensibly to attack it, but in fact, "I've come with my tail between my legs to hide behind your Wall." If he sounds the Horn of Winter, the Wall may fall, and plenty of his followers want him to do that. But if the Wall falls, Dalla says, "what will stop the Others?"


So Mance Rayder asks the Night's Watch to open the gate and let them settle on the other side of the Wall. "If they do, I will give them the horn, and the Wall will stand until the end of days." Jon ponders the consequences of such a massive influx of people into the Seven Kingdoms and asks, "If we let your people pass, are you strong enough to to make them keep the king's peace and obey the laws?" But Rayder says they will make their own laws. "We will not kneel to you."

Jon knows that there is no way to persuade Slynt and Thorne to accept the offer. Rayder says that if it's refused, Tormund "will sound the Horn of Winter three days hence, at dawn." Jon also knows that if he returns without killing Rayder, Slynt and Thorn will take it as proof that he is a turncloak. He is pondering the options, which include destroying the horn here and now, when he hears the sound of another horn. He and Rayder go outside to see what it means.

Something is coming from the east. Jon asks if it's the Others, but Mance says they never come during daylight. He calls for his horse and his armor, and Varamyr the skinchanger summons up second sight to report that an army is approaching: "Men. Men on horses. Men in steel and men in black." Mance turns angrily to Jon, who vows that he has no idea what is happening. All around them people are preparing to fight. Jon reaches for Longclaw and then sees rangers emerging from the woods. "They wore black mail, black halfhelms, and black cloaks." They begin their attack on the wildling camp, as Jon assures Mance that he had no knowledge of it.

Mance admits that Jon may be telling the truth: "Those look like Eastwatch men. Sailors on horses." And then a scout rides in to tell him that more, "a host of iron men," are arriving.  Mance leaves Varamyr to look after Dalla and to keep an eye on Jon. "The skinchanger was a head shorter than Jon, slumped and soft, but that shadowcat could disembowel him with one paw." It blocks Jon's way into the tent, where the Horn of Winter is.

But suddenly the skinchanger is screaming in agony, and Jon looks up and sees his eagle on fire. The shadowcat runs away, and Varamyr's wolves are fighting each other. Val runs from the tent to see what has happened, and asks where Mance has gone. Dalla has gone into labor, she says. There are war trumpets all around, and Jon knows that the wildlings have only horns, not trumpets. An army is emerging from all sides, and Jon sends Val back into the tent to care for Dalla.

As more and more men appear, "not only knights now but freeriders and mounted bowmen and men-at-arms in jacks and kettle helms," Jon tries to make out the banners they are carrying. Many of them are "yellow banners with a red device," and he doesn't recognize the arms. He sees Mance's horse on her hind legs as a spear penetrates her chest, and Mance disappears from sight. Someone is waving Harma's head on a pole. Then Jon begins to be able to make out the banners, "a yellow one with long pointed tongues that showed a flaming heart, and another like a sheet of beaten gold, with a black stag prancing and rippling in the wind."

For a moment Jon thinks of Robert Baratheon, but then he hears the name the soldiers are crying: "Stannis! Stannis! STANNIS!"

26. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 894-926

Tyrion

He is informed that he will be tried and judged by Mace Tyrell, Oberyn Martell, and his own father, but he can also choose a trial by combat. But Ser Kevan, his uncle, informs Tyrion that Cersei has named Gregor Clegane as her champion, which causes him to have second thoughts about that option. Bronn had succeeded as his champion at the Eyrie, but probably won't be persuaded to go against the Mountain.

In the meantime, he is under house arrest, which makes locating witnesses on his behalf somewhat difficult. He will be allowed access to his squire, Podrick, however. So when Podrick arrives Tyrion sends him in search of Bronn. Podrick is so long in returning, that Tyrion turns his mind to other things, such as figuring out who did poison Joffrey. He decides that it must have been Sansa, though he can't imagine who her accomplice might be in locating the poison, and sends word to his uncle that she should be found.

Podrick finally returns the next day with Bronn, who reveals that he is to marry Lollys, Lady Tanda's daughter, who is pregnant from being raped during the riots. When Tyrion points out to Bronn that Lollys is not the heir to Stokeworth, since she has a married elder sister, Falyse, Bronn point out that Falyse has been married for ten years without giving birth. Besides, Falyse could always die before Lady Tanda does. "Tyrion wondered whether Cersei had any notion of the sort of serpent she'd given Lady Tanda to suckle." Bronn turns down the offer to fight Gregor Clegane: "Either the Mountain spills my guts, or I kill him and lose Stokeworth. I sell my sword, I don't give it away."

When Bronn leaves, Podrick tells Tyrion he's sorry. But Tyrion replies, "Why? Is it your fault that Bronn's an insolent black-hearted rogue? He's always been an insolent black-hearted rogue. That's what I liked about him."

The day of the trial arrives, and Tyrion is ushered to the packed Throne Room. The first witness against him is Ser Balon Swann, who testifies about Tyrion's bravery at the battle of the Blackwater, and says, "I will not believe he did this thing," which surprises Tyrion. But Ser Balon also recalls that Tyrion "knocked the king to the ground and began kicking him" on the day of the riot. And Meryn Trant follows Balon to the stand to recall the same incident, as well as the time Tyrion stopped Joffrey's humiliation of Sansa, reminding him of "what had happened to Aerys Tergaryen. And that when Ser Boros Blount defended the king, Tyrion "threatened to have him killed." Ser Boros confirms the story.

The three Kettleblacks testify next, recalling Tyrion's threats to Cersei. "He said he would wait for a day when she was happy, and make her joy turn to ashes in her mouth," Osney testifies, without mentioning that Tyrion was protesting the whipping of Alayaya. Ser Osmund claims that Joffrey had told him to guard him against Tyrion, "for my uncle loves me not. He means to be king in my place." Tyrion can't restrain himself and shouts, "Liar!" but is admonished by his father. Cersei begs him to put Tyrion in chains, but is turned down.

On the second day, the maesters who conducted the autopsy say they found no sign of choking on the pigeon pie and that Joffrey was killed by poison. Grand Maester Pycelle is shown a number of poisons and tells the court that Tyrion had stolen them from his chambers when he had Pycelle imprisoned. Tyrion asks if any of them caused the kind of choking that Joffrey experienced, and Pycelle admits that they don't, and that you need a poison known as "the strangler." Tyrion asks if any of it was found, and Pycelle replies no, "You used it all to kill the noblest child the gods ever put on this good earth." The characterization so infuriates Tyrion that he blurts out, "Joffrey was cruel and stupid, but I did not kill him." Once again, Tywin warns him to keep quiet. Then there is a parade of witnesses to what happened at the wedding, including the detail of Tyrion emptying the chalice onto the floor after Joffrey began choking.

That evening, Tyrion's uncle, Ser Kevan, tells him, "If you were to admit your guilt before the throne and repent of your crime, your father would withhold the sword. You would be permitted to take the black." Tyrion recalls that "Those were the same terms Cersei offered Eddard Stark. We all know how that ended." But Kevan reminds him that Lord Tywin was not involved in that betrayal, which Tyrion has to admit. He tells his uncle he will think about the offer, and spends the night trying to decide whether to trust his father. He is aware of the consequences of confessing: "They will call me kinslayer till the end of my days. For a thousand years or more, if I am remembered at all, it will be as the monstrous dwarf who poisoned his young nephew at his wedding feast."

The next day, Varys is called to testify. He tells of Tyrion's scheme to separate Joffrey from the protection of Sandor Clegane, and of his talking with Bronn about "the benefits of having Tommen as king." Varys has notes on all of Tyrion's movements and threats that confirm Tyrion's malice toward Joffrey. The weight of the evidence is seriously prejudicial, particularly as it is so meticulously documented. At the end of it Tywin asks Cersei if all the witnesses have been produced, and she tells him there is one more. Tyrion feels a kind of gratitude that it's almost over: "After this farce of a trial, execution will almost come as a relief."

That night, Prince Oberyn pays him a surprise visit. He tells Tyrion that Cersei "needs another husband, and who better than a prince of Dorne? Ellaria believes I should accept. Just the thought of Cersei in our bed makes her wet, the randy wench." Of course, Cersei won't consent unless he agrees to convict Tyrion. But he has no love for Cersei.

"To be sure, I have much to thank your sister for. If not for her accusation at the feast, it might well be you judging me instead of me judging you." The prince's eyes were dark with amusement. "Who knows more of poison than the Red Viper of Dorne, after all? Who has better reason to want to keep the Tyrells far from the crown? And with Joffrey in his grave, by Dornish law the Iron Throne should pass next to his sister Myrcella, who as it happens is betrothed to mine own nephew, thanks to you."

Dornish law doesn't apply in King's Landing, Oberyn admits, but that doesn't mean that civil war couldn't result from the claim. When Tyrion says that his father would never support Myrcella over Tommen, Oberyn replies, "Your father ... may not live forever." And Tyrion remembers that Oberyn suspects Tywin of having ordered the rape and murder of Elia, Oberyn's sister: "He wants the head that spoke the words, not just the hand that swung the sword."

Tyrion presses the point: "It was Ser Gregor Clegane who smashed Prince Aegon's head against a wall and raped your sister Elia with his blood and brains still on his hands." But when Oberyn asks if Tywin gave the order, Tyrion can't bring himself to admit it. Oberyn recognizes it as "a very feeble lie," but says he might be able to save Tyrion. He is only one of the three judges, Tyrion says. How could Oberyn save him?

"Not as your judge. As your champion."

Jaime

He has moved into the Lord Commander's quarters, and is spending his days at Tyrion's trial. Tyrion has given no sign that he has seen him, and perhaps hasn't even recognized him. Cersei has kept her distance since the day they had sex in the sept, so Jaime is estranged from his whole family.

He has at his side an enormous book formally known as The Book of the Brothers, but usually called the White Book. It is a history of the Kingsguard, into which each member records his deeds. The records need updating, and Jaime decides he will take care of that once he learns to write with his left hand. He reads through the entry for Ser Barristan Selmy, and observes that his own entry is slender in comparison.

But he sets aside the book when the other members of the Kingsguard arrive, starting with Ser Osmund Kettleblack. There are six of them in all present, with Ser Arys Oakheart away in Dorne. In addition to Ser Osmund, there are Ser Boros Blount, Ser Meryn Trant, Ser Balon Swann, and Ser Loras Tyrell.

Jaime had served with Meryn Trant and Boros Blount for years, adequate fighters, but Trant was sly and cruel, and Blount a bag of growly air. Ser Balon Swann was better suited to his cloak, and of course the Knight of Flowers was supposedly all a knight should be. The fifth man was a stranger to him, this Osmund Kettleblack. 

He begins by pointing out that all five of them were present at the wedding feast, but Joffrey is dead anyway. He observes that this makes Tyrell angry and Balon ashamed, but the other three betray no emotion. And then he asks if Tyrion poisoned Joffrey. It is Meryn Trant who says he must have been the one to poison the wine, and Ser Boros says that spilling it demonstrates Tyrion's guilt. But Ser Balon says the dais was full of people, and that everyone was looking at the doves that flew from the pie. "No one was watching the wine cup."

It's the Knight of Flowers who speaks up to accuse Sansa, "who had reason to want Margaery dead, as well as the king." And she fled afterward. This gives Jaime some hope that Tyrion might be innocent, and he thinks about consulting Varys to find out how Sansa might have escaped. But for now his task is to manage the Kingsguard in protecting Tommen. The first thing he does is to order Ser Boros to "taste everything Tommen eats or drinks." Ser Boros is furious at the idea: "I am no food taster! I am a knight of the Kingsguard!"

But Joffrey knows how Boros yielded Tommen to Bronn. Cersei had stripped him of his white cloak because of it, but Tywin had restored it. He tells Boros that he "will find carrots and pease less threatening than" Bronn. "You should have died before you let Tommen be taken." Boros retorts, "As you died protecting Aerys, ser?" As a "cripple," Boros says, Jaime should be the one to taste the food. He reaches for his sword, and Jaime tells him to go ahead and draw it, "and we shall see how your two hands fare against my one." Boros spits at Jaime's feet and walks out -- to Jaime's relief, knowing that he is still no match for any of them with his left hand.

Then he turns to Ser Osmund and says he doesn't know him and asks where he served. Osmund's answer reveals that he had been a sellsword, and even the source of his knighthood -- "Ser Robert ... Stone. He's dead now, my lord" -- is questionable. Jaime wonders, "What was Cersei thinking when she gave this one a white cloak?" Jaime reflects that at least Kettleblack knows how to fight, so he tells him to go.

Next it's Meryn Trant's turn, and Jaime questions his role in helping Joffrey abuse Sansa. He asks him to point out in the White Book "where it is in our vows that we swear to beat women and children." Trant replies that he was just following the king's orders, and Jaime tells him to obey the Queen Regent, the King's Hand, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard from now own. Tommen "is eight. Our first duty is to protect him, which includes protecting him from himself.... If Tommen wants you to saddle his horse, obey him. If he tells you to kill his horse, come to me." He dismisses Ser Meryn.

Then he tells Ser Balon that he has seen him fight and "The Kingsguard is honored by your presence." Balon warily thanks him, and Jaime continues, "but Varys tells me that your brother rode with Renly and then Stannis, whilst your lord father chose not to call his banners at all and remained behind the walls of Stonehelm all through the fighting." Balon replies that his father is an old man, "Well past forty. His fighting days are done." As for his brother, he was wounded in the battle and afterward pledged fealty to Joffrey with the other captives. But Jaime says it's not his brother he's concerned with but Balon. What will he do if his brother joins with another usurper and Balon has to defend the king against him. Balon assures him, "that will never happen." But it happened to Jaime himself, he reminds Balon. Embarrassed, Balon says, "On my sword, on my honor, on my father's name, I swear ... I shall not do as you did."

The answer pleases and amuses Jaime, who tells Balon to return to his duties and tell his brother "to add a weathervane to his shield." This leaves only the Knight of Flowers. There is a spell of measuring up against each other: both had been called to the guard as young men, Loras at seventeen, Jaime at fifteen, and both had distinguished mentors. "He's me, Jaime realized suddenly. I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young." Then he reminds Loras that a member of the Kingsguard has no secrets from the Lord Commander and asks who was wearing Renly's armor in the Battle of the Blackwater. Loras hesitates before admitting that it was his brother, Garlan, and that the idea was Littlefinger's.

Loras goes on to say that he will defend King Tommen, but that Renly "was the king that should have been. He was the best of them." Jaime admires Ser Loras's loyalty, but he has a duty left for him: Brienne. Loras insists that she won her place in the Rainbow Guard with a trick. Jaime reminds Loras of the trick he used by riding "a mare in heat against a foe mounted on a bad-tempered stallion." But Loras insists that Brienne killed Renly. "Or let him die." Which brings them back to Joffrey's death: "There were five of you at the wedding feast.... How could Joffrey die? Unless you were part of it." When Loras says there was nothing they could have done, Jaime tells him that's exactly what Brienne said of Renly's death. "Show me how you'd fight a shadow. I should like to see that."

Ser Loras insists that Brienne's flight with Catelyn Stark is evidence of her guilt. But he admits that there is no way a sword could have pierced Renly's armor. "If not her, though ... how could it be a shadow?" Jaime tells him to go to Brienne in her cell, ask her questions and listen to her answers. "All I ask is that you judge her fairly, on your honor as a knight." He dismisses Loras, but the knight turns at the door and says, "if she's innocent, then Robar and Emmon...." But he can't finish the sentence, and Jaime is left to think, "The Knight of Flowers had been so mad with grief for Renly that he had cut down two of his own Sworn Brothers, but it had never occurred to Jaime to do the same with the five who had failed Joffrey."

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jaime

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

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

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

She rejects the latter offer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 75-104

Sansa

The marriage of Joffrey to Margaery Tyrell has relieved Sansa of one anxiety: having to be married to him, but not, as both Cersei and Ser Dontos warned her, of his power over her. So an invitation to dine with Margaery is not exactly welcome: "She's to be queen now, she's beautiful and rich and everyone loves her, why would she want to sup with a traitor's daughter?" She has paranoid thoughts that it's a trick being played by Joffrey to further humiliate her.

But she has to accept, feeling alone and unprotected now that the Hound has disappeared. She wishes she had accepted his offer to help her escape, and she has kept his white cloak as a remembrance of him. He is disgraced now, wherever he is, because of his apparent cowardice during the battle, though she knows the story of how his brother, Gregor, burned his face, and fully understands why the fire terrified him so.

On the night of the dinner, she is escorted to it by Margaery's brother, Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, now dressed in the white of the Kingsguard. He tells her that their grandmother, Lady Olenna, will be there too. "The Queen of Thorns, she's called," Sansa says. "Isn't that right?" He laughs and warns her not to use that name around her. She's embarrassed at having said it, but also charmed by the warmth of his laughter and by his beauty.

On the way, they see his brother, Garlan, practicing swordsmanship against three opponents. Loras tells her that Garlan is a better swordsman than he is, but that he's better with a lance, which gives her the opportunity to comment on the time she saw him unhorse Ser Robar Royce at a tourney. He had given her a rose after the victory. But he doesn't seem to remember, and instead he mentions that he killed Robar at Storm's End.

"That was when Lord Renly was killed, wasn't it? How terrible for your poor sister," she says, but his reaction is not what she expects: "'For Margaery?' His voice was tight. 'To be sure. She was at Bitterbridge, though. She did not see.'" She's puzzled by the reply, and although she apologizes for bringing up what is evidently a sad memory, he seems to cool to her. She admonishes herself and reminds her to keep her tongue from now on.

When they reach the hall, Margaery comes to greet her graciously, and sends her brother away. She takes Sansa in to the room where a dozen women are seated and makes the introductions. There is her mother, Lady Alerie, several cousins, and other members of the Tyrell entourage. And finally, at the head of the table, there is a "wizened white-haired doll of a woman." Margaery says, "I am honored to present my grandmother the Lady Olenna, widow to the late Luthor Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, whose memory is a comfort to us all. 

Sansa is deceived by the old lady's scent of rosewater and her diminutive stature into thinking that "There was nothing in the least bit thorny about her." Lady Olenna tells Sansa to kiss her, and says that she knew her grandfather, Lord Rickard. She comments that Sansa has "had your share of grief, I know. We are sorry for your losses." Sansa turns to Margaery and express her condolences on the death of Lord Renly. "He was very gallant."

Lady Olenna gives a snort.

"Gallant, yes, and charming, and very clean. He knew how to dress and he knew how to smile and he knew how to bathe, and somehow he got the notion that this made him fit to be king. The Baratheons have always had some queer notions, to be sure. It comes from their Targaryen blood, I should think."

Margaery replies that "Renly was brave and gentle," and that her father and Loras liked him. She doesn't say anything about her own feelings for her late husband. And when Lady Olenna speaks somewhat scornfully of Loras and of his and Margaery's father, Mace Tyrell, it is Lady Alerie who protests, "Mother." Lady Olenna only reminds her that she is not her mother: "If I'd given birth to you I'm sure I'd remember. I'm only to blame for your husband, the lord oaf of Highgarden."

Margaery scolds her grandmother: "what will Sansa think of us?" Lady Olenna replies, "She might think we have some wits about us. One of us, at any rate." And she turns to Sansa to assert that the claim of Renly to his brother Robert's throne was "treasonous," as long as Robert had two sons and an older brother. After a long diatribe on the subject, she asks Sansa what she thinks, and Sansa can only come up with the observation that the Tyrells can trace their lineage to Garth Greenhand, which Lady Olenna dismisses with the assertion that any number of noble families could do so. "Garth liked to plant his seed in fertile ground, they say. I shouldn't wonder that more than his hands were green."

Lady Alerie tries to rescue Sansa by suggesting that they eat. Lady Olenna bids Sansa sit by her, and orders the fool Butterbumps in to entertain them. Her irreverent remarks about her son and her husband leave Sansa open-mouthed in astonishment, but not nearly so much as when Lady Olenna says, "I want you to tell me the truth about this royal boy.... This Joffrey." Sansa panics, knowing that she can't tell her the truth. But that is exactly what Lady Olenna expects of her, and she persists: "We have heard some troubling tales.... Is there any truth to them? Has this boy mistreated you?"

Frightened, Sansa looks around as Butterbumps is entertaining the other guests, but Lady Olenna is insistent: "I asked a question, I expect an answer. Have the Lannisters stolen your tongue, child?" Sansa tries to dissemble, but the old lady is having none of it. She asks if Sansa is frightened, and assures her, "Tell me the truth, no harm will come to you." When Sansa says, "My father always told the truth," Lady Olenna sees the point: Eddard Stark told the truth and got his head cut off for it. Sansa breaks down under the old woman's piercing gaze: "'Joffrey,' Sansa said. 'Joffrey did that. He promised me he would be merciful, and cut my father's head off.'" He took her up to the wall to force her to see her father's head, she says, and then stops, certain that she has already said too much.

But it is Margaery who intervenes and urges her, "Go on." This terrifies Sansa even more. "What if she tells him, what if she tells? He'll kill me for certain then, or give me to Ser Ilyn." When Margaery points out how frightened Sansa is, Lady Olenna orders Butterbumps to sing a song, and then says to Sansa: "Even when I was a girl, younger than you, it was well known that in the Red Keep the very walls have ears. Well, they will be the better for a song, and meanwhile we girls shall speak freely."

When Sansa mentions Varys, Lady Olenna tells Butterbumps to sing louder, and under cover of the song he bellows, Sansa answers her question, "What sort of man is this Joffrey, who calls himself Baratheon but looks so very Lannister?"

To her other side, Margaery was listening as well. A shiver went through her. "A monster," she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. "Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher's boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well."

Lady Olenna and Margaery exchange glances, and then Sansa realizes that if they call off the wedding, Joffrey will know that she told them about him. But they assure her that she needn't worry about that, and thank her for the truth. Then Margaery suggests she visit Highgarden, and describes its delights. "Once you see it, you'll never want to leave. And perhaps you won't have to." Sansa says she would love to visit, but Cersei would never let her go. But Lady Olenna says that the Lannisters are depending on their alliance to keep Joffrey on the throne, so Cersei can't refuse any request that Lord Tyrell makes -- and intimates that she will see to it that he makes the request. "Of course, he has no hint of our true purpose."

Sansa is puzzled about their true purpose. And Lady Olenna reveals that is is to see Sansa "safely wed ... to my grandson." Sansa immediately thinks that she means Ser Loras, and is thrilled at the idea. Margaery chimes in, "Oh, please say yes, please say that you will consent to marry my brother." Sansa bursts out happily that she would be delighted to marry Ser Loras, but Lady Olenna quickly disabuses her of that notion: "We were speaking of my grandson Willas. He is a bit old for you, to be sure, but a dear boy for all that. Not the least bit oafish, and heir to Highgarden besides."

Sansa is bewildered, and abashed. She doesn't know Willas, she says, and asks, "Is he ... is he as great a knight as his brothers?" Margaery says, "He has never taken vows," and Lady Olenna bluntly explains, "The poor lad is crippled, and that's the way of it." His leg was shattered in his first tourney. But Margaery assures her that Willas "has a good heart" and "You will love him as much as we do, Sansa." So it's arranged that Sansa will go to Highgarden with Lady Olenna after the wedding.

Jon

He has followed through with the plan to infiltrate the wildlings in the guise of a turncloak, which necessitated his killing Qhorin Halfhand, and now he is riding with Rattleshirt and the others on the way to meet the legendary King-beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder. Rattleshirt is no friend of his, but Ygritte, whose life Jon spared, assures him, "When Mance hears how you did for Halfhand, he'll take you quick enough" as one of them.

Among Rayder's outriders who come to meet them is "a fleshy blond man with watery eyes who bore a great curved scythe of sharpened steel." Jon recognizes that this must be the Weeper, one of the famous wildling leaders about whom the brothers of the Night's Watch told tales. When he's told how Jon killed Halfhand with the help of his wolf, the Weeper says to bring him to Mance.

Jon reminds himself of his mission, "to play the part of turncloak, and find whatever it was that the wildlings had been seeking in the bleak cold wilderness of the Frostfangs." As they ride, he observes that people are fashioning weapons and practicing fighting, and that a group of women were "fletching arrows. Arrows for my brothers, Jon thought. Arrows for my father's folk, for the people of Winterfell and Deepwood Motte and the Last Hearth. Arrows for the north." But there are also peaceful domestic scenes along the way.

When they make camp, Rattleshirt tells Ygritte and Longspear to come with him as they take Jon to Mance Rayder. Jon observes how huge the camp is, and how it's only one of more than a hundred camps, all of them undefended. "They had numbers, but the Night's Watch had discipline, and in battle discipline beats numbers nine times of every ten, his father had once told him."

Rayder's tent is three times as large as any of the others, with two guards posted at the entrance, one of whom says that Ghost must stay outside. Jon orders Ghost to stay, and he does. Rattleshirt tells Longspear to watch the direwolf as well, and motions Jon and Ygritte inside. There are six people already in the tent, including a young man and woman drinking mead, a pregnant woman grilling fowl over a brazier, and a man with gray hair playing a lute and singing. "Beside the brazier, a short but immensely broad man sat on a stool, eating a hen off a skewer." Another man, tall and lean, is studying a map. He is bald and might have been handsome if he had not lost both of his ears, "whether to frostbite or some enemy's knife could not tell." Jon assumes that one of these men, both of them evidently warriors, is Mance Rayder.

The bald, earless man looks up from his map and listens as Rattleshirt explains who Jon is, and Ygritte tells him that he killed Qhorin Halfhand. This angers the man: "This boy? ... the Halfhand should have been mine." He asks Jon's name, and Jon tells him, adding, "Your Grace," having decided that this must be the King-beyond-the-Wall. This causes the shorter man to laugh "so hard he sprayed bits of chicken everywhere." He tells Jon to turn around, and when Jon does the gray-haired man who had been playing the lute and singing and introduces himself: "'I'm Mance Rayder,' he said as he put aside the lute. 'And you are Ned Stark's bastard, the Snow of Winterfell.'"

Jon is astonished, and asks how Rayder knew. Rayder puts off the answer and asks if it is true that he killed Qhorin Halfhand. Jon says yes, thinking, "Though it was his doing more than mine." Rayder asks if he should thank Jon for killing Halfhand or curse him, given that they had both been brothers of the Night's Watch. Jon finally says, "You ought to thank me for killing your enemy ... and curse me for killing your friend," which gets approval from the short, white-bearded man eating the chicken, and from Rayder as well.

Rayder identifies the earless man as Styr, Magnar of Thenn, and explains "Magnar means 'lord' in the Old Tongue." The "ferocious chicken-eater here is my loyal Tormund," who demands that Rayder enumerate his many titles: "Giantsbane, Tall-talker, Horn-blower, ... Breaker of Ice[,] Thunderfits, Husband to Bears, the Mead-king of Ruddy hall, Speaker to Gods and Father of Hosts." Tormund tells Jon, "I am fond o' wargs, as it happens, though not o' Starks." The woman at the brazier is Dalla, who is pregnant with Rayder's child, and the man and woman drinking mead are Jarl and Dalla's sister, Val.

In response to Rayder's questions, Jon tells him that the Lord Commander had sent him with Halfhand to be trained as a ranger. When Styr asks why they were in the Skirling Pass, Jon says that they had found all the villages deserted and they wondered where the people had gone. Rayder asks who told him where they had gone to, but Tormund says it must have been Craster, which irritates Rayder, who says he knew the answer but wanted to see if Jon would tell him. So he sends the others away, except for Dalla, so he can talk with Jon alone.

When Jon calls him "Your Grace," Rayder says that the free folk just call him Mance or "the Mance." Then he tells Jon how he knew him: He had seen his face before, once when Jon was a boy and he was still with the Watch. They had come to see Jon's father at Winterfell and caught Jon and Robb after a snowfall, waiting to push a mountain of snow off the wall onto the guard known as Fat Tom. Jon remembers that Rayder had promised not to spoil the surprise.

The second time was more recent: When Robert Baratheon came to Winterfell to persuade Ned Stark to become the Hand. Rayder had heard of the king's visit because Jon's uncle Benjen had been sent for, and word had spread from the brothers of the Watch to the wildlings. Rayder wanted to see the king for himself, so he scaled the Wall, bought a horse on the other side, and managed to mix in with the freeriders who had attached themselves to the procession. "The night your father feasted Robert, I sat in the back of the hall on a bench with the other freeriders," getting a good look at Jaime and Tyrion as well as the Stark children and their wolf pups.

"So tell me truly, Jon Snow. Are you a craven who turned your cloak from fear, or is there another reason that brings you to my tent?" Jon knows he has to be careful answering the question, so he decides to take advantage of Rayder's obvious pleasure in "the sound of his own voice," and says, "Tell me why you turned your cloak, and I'll tell you why I turned mine." The trick works, and Rayder says that he did it for a cloak: They were out on a ranging and had killed and were skinning an elk when they were attacked by a shadow-cat. It tore his cloak to ribbons as well as wounding him seriously. The brothers were afraid he would die before they got him back to the maester so they took him to a woman in a wilding village who was skilled in healing. She dressed his wounds and nursed him, meanwhile sewing up his cloak "with some scarlet silk from Asshai." It was a gift to him, because the scarlet silk "was the greatest treasure she had." But when he returned to the Wall, he was given a new cloak of solid black and was told that he couldn't wear the red-and-black one. "I left the next morning ... for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose."

So, having told his story, he asks for Jon's. "There is only one tale that he might believe," Jon realizes. And he asks if Mance remembers that at the feast for King Robert, his brothers and sisters were all seated along with Prince Joffrey, Prince Tommen, and Princess Myrcella "at the table just below where the king and queen were seated." Mance says he remembers.

"'And did you see where I was seated, Mance?' He leaned forward. 'Did you see where they put the bastard?'" Rayder replies, "I think we had best find you a new cloak." 

7. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 272-323

Eddard

References to "the Hand's tourney" keep bugging Ned, who insists it's "the king's tourney." Now he has to deal with an overstretched constabulary that's having to handle the influx of visitors for the event, and the accompanying criminal activity. He orders the Commander of the City Watch to add fifty men to the force, and then retires to his room to read the book that Jon Arryn had been reading before he died: The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, With Descriptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their Children. He hasn't yet figured out what connection, if any, it may have with Lord Arryn's death.

Jory Cassel arrives with reports on the remaining servants to Lord Arryn, none of which seem to have any significance. "The serving girl ... said Lord Jon had been reading more than was good for him, that he was troubled and melancholy over his young son's frailty, and gruff with his lady wife." A former potboy remembered kitchen gossip, including that Arryn and Lord Stannis, the king's brother, had been together to an armorer to order a new suit of plate. A former stableboy, now a watchman, told him that "Lord Jon was as strong as a man half his age. Often went riding with Lord Stannis, he says." Ned reflects that Stannis had never close to Arryn before, and and that Stannis now seems to have absented himself from court and the council on which he sits, staying at his home on Dragonstone, "the Targaryen island fastness he had conquered in his brother's name. And when Jory adds that the boy said Arryn and Stannis went to a brothel, Ned is incredulous: He has just come from a council meeting in which he was reminded that Stannis once tried to outlaw brothels.

Ned decides to visit the armorer, Tobho Mott, himself. He is welcomed effusively, but when he asks if Arryn had ordered work from him, Mott replies, "The Hand did call upon me, with Lord Stannis, the king's brother. I regret to say, they did not honor me with their patronage." Instead, he says, "They asked to see the boy." Ned has no idea who "the boy" might be, but asks to see him. He is taken to "a tall lad about Robb's age, his arms and chest corded with muscle," and told the boy's name is Gendry.

Joe Dempsie as Gendry and Andrew Wilde as Tobho Mott

 The boy shows Ned a helmet he made, but when Ned offers to buy it, he snatches it away. "'I made it for me,' the boy said stubbornly." Mott is embarrassed and apologizes for Gendry's rudeness, but Ned says it's fine. He wants to know what he talked about with Lord Arryn. Gendry says he asked about his mother, "Who shewas and what she looked like and all." He tells Ned, "She died when I was little. She had yellow hair, and sometimes she used to sing to me, I remember. She worked in an alehouse." But Stannis, he says, "just glared at me like I was some raper who done for his daughter."

Ned touched the boy's head, fingering the thick black hair. "Look at me, Gendry." The apprentice lifed his face. Ned studied the shape of his jaw, the  eyes like blue ice. Yes, he thought, I see it. "Go back to your work, lad. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

As he leaves, he asks Mott who paid Gendry's apprentice fee. At first the armorer claims he took him on without a fee, but Ned doesn't believe this for a second. He insists on the truth, and Mott admits that a lord came to see him, paid twice the usual fee, "and said he was paying once for the boy, and once for my silence." Ned listens to the description of the lord, and presses Mott still further for what he knows. The armorer stands his ground. "Why he was before he came to me, that's none of my concern."

Ned leaves, asking himself, "What had Jon Arryn wanted with a king's bastard, and why was it worth his life?"

Catelyn

Catelyn and Ser Rodrik are plodding northward in the rain, heading for an inn at the crossroads between the Kingsroad that takes them to Winterfell and the road that goes westward to her family's home in Riverrun and eastward to the Eyrie, where her sister Lysa lives. The inn is crowded with travelers heading south to the tournament, but they are able to take the last rooms available.

Fortunately, no one seems to recognize them in the common room, where they decide it is safest to pose as father and daughter. Across the table from them is a young singer on his way to King's Landing to try to make some money performing for the crowds at the tournament. His name is Marillion, he tells them.

Emun Elliott as Marillion

Then a servant bursts into the room and calls out, "my lord of Lannister requires a room and a hot bath." Ser Rodrik says, "Oh, gods," before Catelyn can silence him. She sees a man in the black of the Night's Watch, two servants, and Tyrion, They're told that the inn is full, but Tyrion pulls out a gold coin and flips it in the air, and one of the guests volunteers to give up his room.

Tyrion invites Yoren, who is the man in black, to have supper with him, and when they go to sit down Catelyn breathes a sigh of relief because they are at the other end of the room. But Marillion suddenly stands up and calls out to Tyrion, offering to sing him "the lay of your father's great victory at King's Landing!" Anything concerning his father is bound to turn off Tyrion, but as he looks at the singer his eyes suddenly fall on Catelyn. "'Lady Stark, what an unexpected pleasure,' he said. 'I was sorry to miss you at Winterfell.'"

Her identity exposed, Catelyn decides to take a chance. She calls out to several men she can identify by the emblems on their clothing as belonging to families allied with her father.

"This man came a guest into my house, and there conspired to murder my son, a boy of seven," she proclaimed to the room at large, pointing. Ser Rodrik moved to her side, his sword in hand. "In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell to await the king's justice." She did not know what was more satisfying: the sound of a dozen swords drawn as one or the look on Tyrion Lannister's face.

Sansa

Riding to the tournament with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, Sansa is dazzled and excited by the romance of it all. The jousting goes on all day, and while "Jeyne covered her eyes whenever a man fell, like a frightened little girl, ... Sansa was made of sterner stuff. A great lady knew how to behave at tournaments. Even Septa Mordane noted  her composure and nodded in approval." Jaime Lannister, called "the Kingslayer," is unbeatable, as are Sandor Clegane and his brother, Ser Gregor, who is known as "the Mountain That Rides."

Conan Stevens as Gregor Clegane

Then a man is killed, "a young knight from the Vale," when Ser Gregor's lance pierces his throat and he falls, "not ten feet from where Sansa was seated." Jeyne collapses in hysterics and has to be taken away by Septa Mordane, "but Sansa sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. She had never seen a man die before."

The jousts resume, however, and another knight falls to Ser Gregor, and Sandor unhorses Renly Baratheon. In the end, only four are left: the Clegane brothers, Jaime Lannister, and Ser Loras Tyrell, who is known as the Knight of Flowers.

Finn Jones as Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers

At sixteen, he was the youngest rider on the field.... Sansa had never seen anyone so beautiful. His plate was intricately fashioned and enameled as a bouquet of a thousand different flowers, and his snow-white stallion was draped in a blanket of red and white roses.

After each victory he had stopped before a young woman and plucked a white rose from the blanket and given it to her. After the last one, he stopped before Sansa and gave her a red rose. After he rides off, she finds a man standing over her. He says, "You must be one of her daughters.... You have the Tully look." Septa Mordane introduces him as "Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king's small council." Littlefinger tells her, "Your mother was my queen of beauty once," then turns and walks away.

It has grown late, and the last three matches are postponed to the next morning. At the feast that night, Prince Joffrey sits beside her. They haven't spoken since the incident at the river, and she has been dreading seeing him again, but he smiles and kisses her hand, "handsome and gallant as any prince in the songs," and comments, "Ser Loras has a keen eye for beauty, sweet lady." As the feast goes on, Joffrey remains courteous and attentive. "She could see from the way he moved that his right arm was still troubling him, yet he uttered not a word of complaint."

Then there's a disturbance at the king's table. He "had grown louder with each course," and now Sansa is "shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was as drunk as a man could be." He screams at the queen, "I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!" The queen leaves in silence, followed by her servants, and when Jaime Lannister tries to calm the king down, the king shoves him and he falls. Robert mocks him: "The great knight. I can still knock you in the dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer." Lord Renly comes forth and tells his brother, "You've spilled your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet."

Joffrey then tells Sansa it's getting late and asks if she needs an escort back to the castle. She says no at first, but then realizes that Septa Mordane, who has been drinking wine all evening, has passed out. So she says she would be grateful "for some protection." Joffrey shouts, "Dog!" and the Hound, Sandor Clegane, appears. Joffrey tells him, "Take my betrothed back to the castle and see that no harm befalls her." Then he walks off without even saying good night.

It's not what Sansa was expecting, and the Hound knows it. "'Did you think Joff was going to take you himself?' He laughed. He had a laugh like the snarling of dogs in a pit. 'Small chance of that.'" He tells her to hurry because he needs his sleep. "I've drunk too much, and I may need to kill my brother tomorrow." As he takes her back to the castle, she tries to compliment him: "You rode gallantly today, Ser Sandor." But he snarls, "Spare me your empty little compliments, girl." First of all, he's not a "ser":  "I am no knight. I spit on them and their vows. My brother is a knight. Did you see him ride today?" She tries to find something to say: "He was..." "Gallant?" he says, mocking her. She finally says, "No one could withstand him." This only leads to further mockery: "Some septa trained you well," and he compares her to "A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite."

Then he stops her and squats in front of her, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look at his mutilated face. People believe that the left side of his face was burned in a battle. But he tells her the truth. He was six or seven, and a woodcarver sent him and his brother some toys. "I don't remember what I got, but it was Gregor's gift I wanted. A wooden knight, all painted up, every joint pegged separate and fixed with strings, so you could make him fight." Gregor, he says, is five years older and even then was "near six foot tall and muscled like an ox." So when Sandor stole the toy and Gregor found out, "There was a brazier in the room. Gregor never said a word, just picked me up under his arm and shoved my face down into the burning coals and held me there while I screamed and screamed."

Four years later, Sandor says, his brother was made a knight. Sansa  realizes that she isn't afraid of him anymore, and says, "He was no true knight," which makes him roar with laughter. The rest of the way he is silent, but when they reach her room and she thanks him, he grabs her arm and says, "If you ever tell anyone, ... I'll kill you."

Eddard

The knight from the Vale killed by Gregor Clegane is none other than the former squire to Jon Arryn that Ned has wanted to talk with. "Eddard Stark looked at his face and wondered if it had been for his sake that the boy had died. Slain by a Lannister bannerman before Ned could speak to him, could that be mere happenstance?" He is especially distressed that it happened at a tournament in his name. "This was needless. War should not be a game."

Now Ned turns his mind to the fact that the king has announced his intention to fight in the melee. Ser Barristan Selmy suggests that perhaps the king has forgotten his announcement, but Ned knows Robert Baratheon better than that. They find the king in his pavilion trying to fit into his armor and cursing his squires. Ned tells him the problem isn't with the squires: "You're too fat for your armor, Robert." After a flicker of anger, the king says, "Ah, damn you, Ned, why are you always right?" So he sends the squires for a "breastplate stretcher." Ned observes that the squires are Lannisters, and "it troubled him to see Robert surrounded by the queen's kin, waking and sleeping."

Barristan speaks up and suggests that if he fights in the melee, "It would not be a fair contest. Who would dare strike you?" Ned sees that Barristan has hit the mark: "There's not a man in the Seven Kingdoms who would dare risk your displeasure by hurting you," he adds, knowing that this approach touches the king's pride. "Are you telling me those prancing cravens will let me win?" They indicate that this is so. The king throws his breastplate at Barristan and orders him out of the tent, but calls Ned back.

He tells Ned that his marriage to Cersei is miserable, and "More than once, I have dreamed of giving up the crown." But what stops him is "The thought of Joffrey on the throne, with Cersei standing behind him whispering in his ear. My son. How could I have made a son like that, Ned?" He wishes he had a son like Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers. "Now there's a son any man would be proud to own to." And he falls to reminiscing about their boyhood days, as Ned thinks about his investigation:

If he could prove that the Lannisters were behind the attack on Bran, prove that they had murdered Jon Arryn, this man would listen. Then Cersei would fall, and the Kingslayer with her, and if Lord Tywin dared to rouse the west, Robert would smash him as he had smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He could see it all so clearly.

Ned goes to watch the final jousts with Sansa. The first combat is between Sandor Clegane and Jaime Lannister, and in the first pass, the Hound is almost unseated. But on the second pass, Sandor unhorses Lannister, whose helmet is so twisted and dented in the fall that is unable to get it off, and the crowd bursts out into laughter at his efforts, the king laughing loudest of all.

Next, Gregor Clegane is up against the Knight of Flowers. Gregor "was huge, the biggest man that Eddard Stark had ever seen.... He was well over seven feet tall, closer to eight, with massive shoulders and arms thick as the trunks of small trees." The crowd is delighted by the appearance of Loras Tyrell "in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to a blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots" that drew a gasp when the crowd realized "that the blue of the flowers came from sapphires." Tyrell is riding a grey mare, and "Ser Gregor's huge stallion trumpeted as he caught her scent." When Gregor kicks the horse to try to control it, the horse almost throws him. And when the joust begins, he continues to have trouble controlling the horse, so that "suddenly Loras Tyrell was on him, placing the point of his lance just there, and in an eye blink the Mountain was falling. He was so huge that he took his horse down with him in a tangle of steel and flesh."

The crowd cheers the Knight of Flowers, whose lance isn't even broken, but Gregor is so enraged that he calls for his sword and kills his horse, "with a single blow of such ferocity that it half severed the animal's neck." Then Gregor attacks Loras Tyrell, knocks him from his horse, and is about to kill him when his brother, Sandor, intervenes. The two brothers do battle until the king calls a halt to their combat and a dozen knights do their best to break it up.

There is one joust left, between the Hound and the King of Flowers, but "Ser Loras Tyrell walked back onto the field in a simple linen doublet and said to Sandor Clegane, 'I owe you my life. The day is yours, ser.'" Once again the Hound denies that he has the right to be called "ser," "but he took the victory, and the champion's purse, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, the love of the commons." Afterward, Ned hears Littlefinger suggest that Tyrell knew the mare he was riding was in heat and chose it because "Gregor has always favored huge, ill-tempered stallions with more spirit than sense."

The melee is a bloody mess, which makes Ned happy that he was able to persuade the king not to take part in it. Arya joins them at the feast, and when Sansa asks how her dancing lessons are going, shows her "a huge purple bruise on her leg." "'You must be a terrible dancer,' Sansa said doubtfully. Later, Ned talks to Arya alone and suggests that maybe Syrio is a little too hard on her, but she stands her ground, insisting, "I want Syrio."

He returns to his room, and ponders all of the things he has learned, trying to put them all together into a pattern. He is sure that Gendry is Robert's son: "The Baratheon look was stamped on his face, in his jaw, his eyes, that black hair." But Robert has had other bastards as well, including "a daughter born in the Vale when Robert was scarcely more than a boy himself.... The girl would be seventeen or eighteen now, he realized, older than Robert had been when he fathered her." But "none of them could threaten Robert's trueborn children."

The steward enters to tell him he has a visitor who will not give his name. Ned admits a man whose face is covered with a cowl, and when the steward has left, the man reveals himself: Varys. He says he has disguised himself because he doesn't want the queen to know that he is speaking to him in private, and has come to tell Ned that there was a plot to kill the king during the melee. Ned protests that the queen had asked Robert not to fight, but Varys replies, "She forbade him to fight, in front of his brother, his knights, and half the court. Tell me truly, do you know any surer way to force King Robert into the melee?" Ned concedes the point.

Ned protests that Varys should have told him sooner, but Varys says if Ned had told the king of a plot that would have only provoked him to fight. Besides, Varys says, he wasn't sure if he could trust Ned. But now, "I comprehend why the queen fears you so much." Doesn't the king have other friends, Ned asks, like his brothers?

"His brothers hate the Lannisters, true enough, but hating the queen and loving theking are not quite the same thing, are they? Ser Barristan loves his honor, Grand Maester Pycelle loves his office, and Littlefinger loves Littlefinger.... No, my lord, when the swords come out in earnest, you will be the only true friend Robert Baratheon will have."

As Varys starts to leave, Ned asks the question that he's been trying to solve: "How did Lord Arryn die." It was a poison called "The tears of Lys," Varys says. As for who gave him the poison, Varys says it must have been "Some dear friend who often shared meat and mead with him."

"There was one boy. All he was, he owed to Jon Arryn, but when the widow fled to the Eyrie with her household, he stayed in King's Landing and prospered. It always gladdens my heart to see the young rise in the world." The whip was in his voice again, every word a stroke. "He must have cut a gallant figure in the tourney, him in his bright new armor, with those crescent moons on his cloak. A pity he died so untimely, before you could talk to him...."

It was the new-made knight, the former squire to Jon Arryn, killed by Gregor in the tournament. But then Ned asks why Jon Arryn was killed: "What was he doing that they had to kill him?"

"'Asking questions,' Varys said, slipping out the door."