15. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 395-419

Daenerys

Daenerys is growing worried about the ships that are blockading Slaver's Bay, but all her admiral, Groleo, can offer her is advice to turn her dragons loose and burn them. Barristan assures her that the city is well-supplied for the time being.


Skahaz, attended by two of the guards known as Brazen Beasts because they wear animal masks of brass, tells her that Hizdahr has been visiting the wealthy of Meereen, and that it has been twenty-six days since the Sons of the Harpy have committed a murder. Skahaz believes that Hizdahr is himself the Harpy and wants to torture the truth out of him. To his displeasure, Daenerys forbids it.


He then presents her a list of all the Meereenese ships participating in the blockade, which represent all the ruling families of the city. He wants to send the Brazen Beasts to all the houses and imprison all the kin as hostages. Again, she forbids it to prevent "open war inside the city. I have to trust in Hizdahr. I have to hope for peace." Skahaz glowers as she burns the list.


Later, Barristan praises her restraint, saying her brother Rhaegar would approve. But she remembers what Jorah Mormont said: "Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died."


At her public hearing of grievances, there are very few attending, and Reznak mo Reznak tells her people are afraid to leave their houses. Then that evening, Galazza Galare arrives, along with Grey Worm. They tell her that a dying man arrived on a pale horse to say that Astapor is burning. He was emaciated and feverish, suffering from bloody dysentery. She realizes that if the Yunkai'i have taken Astapor, they will aim at Meereen next, and tells Barristan to recall her bloodriders and her sellswords.


Brown Ben Plumm and the Second Sons are the first to arrive, eight days later. They bring with them three Astapori with harrowing tales of the fall of the city. Two of them thank Daenerys for giving them refuge in Meereen, but she sees the truth in the eyes of the third: "She knows I cannot keep them safe. Astapor is burning, and Meereen is next." And Brown Ben says there are hundreds, even thousand of refugees still to come. "The Cats and the Windblown are swarming through the hills with lance and lash, driving them north and cutting down the laggards."


Daenerys is troubled by what to do about them: She is the one who disturbed the order in their city. Reznak mo Reznak has an answer for her: Marry Hizdahr. But Daenerys also remembers Quaithe's warning: "Beware the perfumed seneschal." Brown Ben's solution is to unleash the dragons, but she tells him she can't do that. Then they should leave Meereen, he advises, "and start west with wagons full o' gold and gems and such."


She determines, however, that they should stand and fight: "I defeated the Yunkai'i before. I will defeat them again." But her counselors disagree on the answers to her questions: "Where, though? How?" She commissions the Second Sons to scout the enemy, but she says the Astapori refugees must be welcomed. Barristan protests, "Your Grace, I have known the bloody flux to destroy whole armies when left to spread unchecked. The seneschal is right. We cannot have the Astapori in Meereen." So she tells them to set up a refugee camp outside the walls.


Privately, she consults with Barristan, whose assessment of the situation is gloomy. And she recognizes what she needs to do to at least stabilize the city: "I need Hizdahr zo Loraq."


Melisandre


In her chambers, Melisandre gazes into the fire, seeking to be sure of what she has seen there. She looks especially for "the grey girl on the dying horse," who she has told Jon is his sister Arya. She sees "A wooden face, corpse white," and it sees her. "Beside him, a boy with a wolf's face threw back his head and howled." She hears voices out of the past: "'Melony,' she heard a woman cry. A man's voice called, 'Lot Seven.'" She hears Jon Snow's name, and sees his face appear and disappear.

Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him. Melisandre had seen his danger before, had tried to warn the boy of it. Enemies all around him, daggers in the dark. He would not listen.

She thinks, "I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R'hllor shows me only Snow." She asks Devan, Stannis's squire, to bring her a drink of water. He was upset when Stannis left him behind to stay with Melisandre, but she had asked for him specifically, knowing that Davos had already lost four sons.


Devan suggests that she eat something, and when she sends him to fetch her breakfast she tells him to find Rattleshirt and send him to her. When he arrives, she notices that he isn't wearing his armor of bones. "He was cloaked in shadows too, in wisps of ragged grey mist, half-seen, sliding across his face and form with every step he took." When she comments on the missing bones, he tells her, "The clacking was like to drive me mad."


In the iron fetter he wears on his wrist, there is a ruby. He says he can feel its warmth, and sometimes it even burns and he's tempted to pry it out. She tells him, "The spell is made of shadow and suggestion. Men see what they expect to see. The bones are part of that," and wonders if she made a mistake by sparing him. She tells him that Lord Snow's rangers will return today, "with their blind and bloody eyes." That, he tells her, is the work of the Weeper -- one of the wildling chieftains who remained north of the Wall.


Then she tells him about the girl on the dying horse, whom she still assumes to be Arya Stark. She wants to send him out to rescue her. He scoffs at the idea: "No one ever trusted Rattleshirt but fools. Snow's not that. If his sister needs saving, he'll send his crows. I would." He asks where she saw the girl, and from her description he recognizes Long Lake. But their conversation is interrupted by the sound of a warhorn. It is the signal for returning rangers, and she tells him to stay there. When the Watch sees what has happened to the rangers, they will be angry at the wildlings.


She goes out and follows the tunnel through the Wall to where Jon and the black brothers are gathered around three spears, each with the head of a ranger impaled on the point, the eyes gouged out of each head. Bowen Marsh identifies the rangers for her, and comments that with the ground so frozen it must have taken half the night for the wildlings to drive the spears so deep. He worries that they are still close by, watching, but Jon says they have gone. "Ghost would have their scent if they were still out there." He orders the heads taken and burned until nothing but bone is left.


When he sees Melisandre, he asks her to walk with him, which pleases her. They walk slowly, according to her plan, because her warmth causes the ice in the tunnel beneath the Wall to melt and drip: "He will not fail to notice that." He asks if she has seen the other six rangers, and she tells him she hasn't. She does tell him that she had a vision of "towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide." He takes that to be Eastwatch, but although she isn't entirely sure that is what the vision signified, she agrees with him. She asks him to come to her chambers, and he agrees.


As they walk, she can sense his mistrust, and she recognizes it as the same mistrust Stannis once had in her. "In truth, the young lord commander and her king had more in common than either one would ever be willing to admit." She notes that he hasn't asked about Arya, and he tells her that his oath to the Watch means that he has no sister, and that there is no way he can help her. When they enter her chambers, he sees Rattleshirt and bristles. The wildling taunts him, but turns his attention to Melisandre, telling her that he'll need half a dozen good horses and some spearwives to accompany him. "The girl's more like to trust them, and they will help me carry off a certain ploy I have in mind."


Melisandre explains to Jon that she is sending Rattleshirt to rescue Arya. Jon objects, furiously, "If he tries to leave Castle Black without my leave, I'll take his head off myself." But Melisandre sends Devan away, then touches the ruby at her neck and speaks a word. "The wildling heard one word, the crow another. Neither was the word that left her lips." Suddenly, Rattleshirt is transformed into Mance Rayder. And Jon learns that it was Rattleshirt who was burned. He calls it "sorcery," but she replies, "Call it what you will. Glamor, seeming, illusion." But to her self she admits it was a difficult spell to bring off. "When the flames had licked at Rattleshirt, the ruby at her throat had grown so hot that she had feared her own flesh might start to smoke and blacken. Thankfully Lord Snow had delivered her from that agony with his arrows."


She points out that Mance won't betray him, because they hold his son and because Jon had pleaded against his execution. "There he stands, Lord Snow. Arya's deliverance. A gift from the Lord of Light ... and me."

5. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 112-147

Tyrion

Tyrion awakes to find luggage being unloaded and readied for transfer to the river part of his journey. He is introduced to Haldon, who is known as Halfmaester, and to Ser Rolly Duckfield, known as Duck. Illyrio calls Tyrion Yollo, but Tyrion knows that's a Pentoshi name, and it's clear he isn't from Pentos, so he says he's called Hugor Hill.

Leaving Illyrio behind, Tyrion and the two men ride cross-country. They ride all night, Tyrion seated in front of Duck on the horse, and reach the Rhoyne the following day. As they near the river they are hailed by a boy standing on the roof of the cabin of the Shy Maid, their riverboat. It is Young Griff, "a lithe and well-made youth, with a lanky build and a shock of dark blue hair. The dwarf put his age at fifteen, sixteen, or near enough to make no matter." Also on board are an older couple and "a handsome septa in a soft white robe."

But when Griff himself makes an appearance, Tyrion thinks, "This one will be trouble." Griff immediately demands an explanation for the dwarf's presence, and Haldon gives him a letter that Illyrio had sent. In the cabin, Griff reads the letter, which tells about Tyrion's killing Tywin. Tyrion notices that although Griff claims to be a sellsword, he can read, which most of the mercenaries can't. In response to Griff's surprise at Tywin Lannister's death, Tyrion says,

"Lord Tywin was sitting on a privy, so I put a crossbow bolt through his bowels to see if he really did shit gold. He didn't. A pity, I could have used some gold. I also slew my mother, somewhat earlier. Oh, and my nephew Joffrey, I poisoned him at his wedding feast and watched him choke to death.... I mean to add my brother and sister to the list before I'm done, if it please your queen." 

Griff asks why Daenerys "should welcome the service of a self-confessed kingslayer and betrayer," and Tyrion points out that the king he killed -- or rather, claims to have killed -- was sitting on her throne. He asks if he can see the letter, but Griff burns it instead.

Tyrion has already begun to figure out the true identity of Griff and Young Griff, but he only hints at his suspicions now. When Griff asks how he plans to serve Daenerys, Tyrion says he knows how Cersei thinks ("if you call it thinking"), that he understands how one can beat Jaime in battle, and that he is well-acquainted with the loyalties of Tommen's court. Griff tells him to hold his tongue, and Tyrion replies, "As you say, my lord." Griff replies that he isn't a lord, and Tyrion thinks, "Liar."

Griff agrees to take Tyrion as far as Volantis, and beyond if he proves "obedient and useful."

Davos

In the town of Sisterton, where he is seeking passage to White Harbor, Davos has been taken prisoner and is escorted to see Godric Borrell, Lord of Sweetsister. The fleet that Stannis dispatched has been wrecked and scattered by storms, enraging Salladhor Saan, whose fleet it was. Saan had sent Davos ashore in a small boat, then set out to regroup his fleet.

Godric brings Davos up to date on the news of Tywin Lannister's death, but refuses to let Davos send a raven to Stannis to inform him. "I'll not have it said that I gave Stannis aid and comfort." But he accepts Davos as a guest and has food brought for him. This pleases Davos, because "even robber lords and wreckers were bound by the ancient laws of hospitality." He is less pleased when Godric tells him that Lord Wyman Manderly, whom Stannis has dispatched Davos to see, tells him that Wyman intends to cast his lot with the Lannisters. A contingent of Freys is on their way to White Harbor to bring Lord Wyman the bones of his son, who was killed at the Red Wedding, in atonement. "Lord Wyman and Lord Walder have made a pact, and mean to seal it with a marriage."

White Harbor is essential to Stannis's plans: "If Winterfell was the heart of the north, White Harbor was its mouth." So Davos pleads for Godric's help in getting there to compete with the Freys. Godric is stubborn, so Davos begins to play on his doubts about the stability of Cersei's rule. "This child king will not prevail against" Stannis, Davos argues. Godric points out that Tommen has the wealth of Casterly Rock and the support of Highgarden and the Boltons and Freys, but he admits that "in this world only winter is certain. Ned Stark told my father that, here in this very hall."

At the beginning of Robert's Rebellion, with a price on his head, Lord Eddard had been on his way home but was shipwrecked. A fisherman's daughter rescued him. "They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn." Ned had made it to Sisterton and met with Godric's father, who saved him from being captured and beheaded.

Jon

Jon has tried to persuade Stannis not to execute Mance Rayder because of the King-Beyond-the-Wall's knowledge of the lands north of the wall and of the people who remain there. But Stannis and Melisandre are unmoved, and now she is presiding over his burning. He is placed in a cage over "a deep pit filled with logs, leaves, and kindling." When he sees this, he pleads, "This is not right. I'm not the king, they --" but a rope around his neck chokes off the words. The queen's men also bring out the Horn of Joramun, which was supposed to destroy the Wall.

Melisandre proclaims to the gathering, which includes a thousand captives in the stockade, "If the Wall falls, night falls as well, the long night that never ends. It must not happen, will not happen! The Lord of Light has seen his children in their peril and sent a champion to them, Azor Ahai reborn." She gestures toward Stannis.

The horn is set afire, and in the cage Mance Rayder "screamed incoherently of treachery and witchery, denying his kingship, denying his people, denying all that he had ever been." The wood in the pit catches fire and Mance's "screams become one long, wordless shriek of fear and pain." Jon notices that Val doesn't betray any emotion or look away. He gives an order and his men shoot arrows into Mance, cutting short his agony. Stannis looks displeased.

Then Melisandre commands the watchers, "Your false king brought you only death, despair, defeat ... but here stands the true king. BEHOLD HIS GLORY!" Stannis draws his sword, Lightbringer, which glows like "the sun made steel." He promises "food, land, and justice" to those who bend the knee to him, and orders the gates of the stockade opened. Queen's men hand each of the wildlings as they approach the fire pit a piece of weirwood: "A piece of the old gods to feed the new," Jon thinks.

A few people flee back toward the woods, but most come forward. "Behind them was only cold and death. Ahead was hope." Sigorn, the new Magnar of Thenn, is the first to kneel before Stnnnis, then Rattleshirt, who, Jon thinks, is "A small, malicious, treacherous man, as stupid as he is cruel." Others follow, and a deputation of Night's Watch show them the way through the Wall. But Jon wonders whether they will stay loyal to Stannis when Tormund Giantsbane and his followers arrive. Ser Alliser Thorne mutters his disapproval of this union with the wildlings.

Melisandre leads a chant of "One realm, one god, one king!" but Jon notices that Val doesn't join in the chant. Neither do the Night's Watch, who are sworn not to take part in political matters. A few wildlings, including four giants, remain at the stockade, and then disappear into the forest, leaving only corpses, which Jon orders burned. Bowen Marsh asks Jon if he really thinks the wildlings "will keep faith," and Jon admits that some will and some won't. "We have seen the face of our real foe, a dead white face with bright blue eyes. The free folk have seen that face as well. Stannis is not wrong in this. We must make common cause with the wildlings." But Marsh worries about letting "tens of thousands of half-starved savages through the Wall."

Marsh also warns Jon that there has been talk that he is "too friendly with Lord Stannis." Jon knows what he's been called: "A rebel and a turncloak, aye, and a bastard and a warg as well." He tells Marsh that Stannis helped them when they needed it, but Marsh worries that Stannis is a rebel and that they may have found themselves on the losing side. Jon says he isn't choosing any side, but that Tywin Lannister's death has changed things. He remembers his meeting with Tyrion, who had called him a friend, and finds it "hard to believe the little man had it in him to murder his own sire." He leaves Marsh to supervise the burning and tells him he will think about what he has said.

In the dining hall, Jon finds his old friends, Pyp and Grenn and Toad, making fun of Melisandre and her rituals, but he scolds them, remembering, "A lord may love the men that he commands, he could hear his lord father saying, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgment on them, or send them forth to die." He goes outside, where he sees Val walking the battlements of the tower she is held in, and thinks of the choice Stannis had offered him: to become Lord of Winterfell and to take Val as his wife. "Instead he had chosen a black cloak and a wall of ice. Instead he had chosen honor. A bastard's sort of honor."

Ghost appears, and Jon tastes the hot blood in the wolf's mouth, but reminds himself, "I am a man, not a wolf." He goes to see Aemon's steward, Clydas, who talks to him about the cowardice Mance Rayder had shown. He drinks a cup of wine with Clydas and talks about Stannis brandishing Lightbringer. He had read about Azor Ahai in the book Maester Aemon left him, The Jade Compendium, and remembers Azor Ahai fighting a monster with Lightbringer, which made the creature's blood boil "and its body burst into flame." He wishes he could see how Stannis's sword performs in battle.

He returns to his room with Ghost, and reads a letter Ser Denys Mallister had written from the Shadow Tower asking for more men. He writes to Ser Denys and to Cotter Pyke, telling them that he is sending his friends Halder and Toad to the Shadow Tower and Grenn and Pyp to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. "This is my lot, he realized as he undressed, from now until the end of my days."

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!"

6. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 188-226

Catelyn

Robb has arrived at Riverrun, and Catelyn is eagerly awaiting her son. She can't go to meet him because she is still denied the run of the castle, and the return of Ser Robin Ryger after his boat was sunk by Brienne, foiling the recapture of Jaime, has only put her in more disrepute. Moreover, some news has come that caused a stir, making about forty men leave the castle in what seems to be anger, but no one will tell her what it was.

Finally the summons comes to meet Robb in the Great Hall. It's crowded when she arrives, and she has an uneasy feeling as she moves through the crowd. Robb, on the dais, looks harder and leaner and battle-worn, but also regal. There are several people on the dais she doesn't recognize, including Robb's squire. She wonders if they are prisoners, but realizes that they wouldn't be on the dais with Robb. As she approaches him, "it seemed to her that it was not anger she saw in her son's eyes, but something else ... apprehension, perhaps? No, that made no sense. What should he fear? He was the Young Wolf, King of the Trident and the North."

Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, comes down from the dais and hugs her, and Robb greets her as "Mother." He tells her about the wound, an arrow through the arm, that he suffered, and assures her that it has healed. And she says, "They will have told you what I did. Did they tell you my reasons?" He knows it was an attempt to rescue his sisters, and she says, "I had five children. Now I had three."

But Lord Rickard Karstark comes forward to remind her of his sons, killed by Jaime, and to say, "You have robbed me of my vengeance." Jon Umber, the Greatjon, interposes himself between Catelyn and Karstark to say, "It was a woman's folly. Women are made that way," but Karstark rejects that excuse: "I name it treason." Robb cries out, "Enough," and Catelyn tells Karstark she "would gladly make amends" for what she did. But Karstark is not satisfied, and leaves the hall angrily.

Robb tells her they must talk and signals for the steward, Utherydes Wayn, to dismiss the audience. As the company leaves, she realizes what she has been missing in the hall: Grey Wind, Robb's direwolf, is not there. Finally she is there with only Robb, her three uncles, and the six strangers she had seen on the dais. Robb presents the Lady Sybell Westerling, her brother Ser Rolph Spicer, her son Ser Raynald Westerling, his sister Elenya, his brother and Robb's new squire Rollam Westerling. And finally a shy young woman: "'Mother,' he said, 'I have the great honor to present you the Lady Jeyne Westerling, Lord Gawen's elder daughter, and my ... ah ... my lady wife.'"

Catelyn thinks first that Robb's only a child, second that he is already pledged to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's daughters, and third, "Mother have mercy, Robb, what have you done?" But she has no choice except to welcome her new daughter-in-law, and to remember that the girl is now a queen. At least, she observes, she has "good hips" and "should have no trouble bearing children, at least."

When the Westerlings have left, Catelyn observes that Lady Jeyne's father, Lord Gawen, is sworn to Tywin Lannister and is now imprisoned by Jason Mallister, held as a hostage at Seagard. "We wed without his consent, I fear," Robb admits, "and this marriage puts him in dire peril." She also observes that by the marriage, he has lost the allegiance of the Freys, and asks how many swords he gained by the marriage.

"Fifty. A dozen knights." His voice was glum, as well it might be. When the marriage contract had been made at the Twins, old Lord Walder Frey had sent Robb off with a thousand mounted knights and near three thousand foot. "Jeyne is bright as well as beautiful. And kind as well. She has a gentle heart."

Catelyn is flummoxed by what she sees as Robb's stupidity, but she just asks him "how this came to be." He replies that when they took the Crag, the Westerling castle, he was wounded and the wound festered. Jeyne nursed him through the fever, and when the news came of the fall of Winterfell and the deaths of Bran and Rickon, "That night, she ... she comforted me, Mother." "And you wed her the next day," Catelyn says.

Robb insists that "It was the only honorable thing to do" and that he's "made a botch of everything but the battles." She agrees that he has: "Not only have you broken your oath, but you've slighted the honor of the Twins by choosing a bride from a lesser house." Robb replies that the Westerlings are "an ancient line, descended from the First Men," but Catelyn says this will only make Lord Walder angrier: "It has always rankled him that older houses look down on the Freys as upstarts."

Brynden Blackfish diplomatically interrupts these recriminations and suggests that they go somewhere more private. As they are leaving, she asks Robb where Grey Wind is. He says he is outside, and that "Jeyne's anxious around him, and he terrifies her mother." This doesn't make Catelyn feel any better about the marriage: "He is part of you, Robb. To fear him is to fear you." And when he tells her that Grey Wind bares his teeth when Jeyne's uncle, Ser Rolph, come around, Catelyn is even more concerned: "Send Ser Rolph away. At once." When Robb resists, she insists:

"Robb." She stopped and held his arm. "I told you once to keep Theon Greyjoy close, and you did not listen. Listen now. Send this man away. I am not saying you must banish him. Find some task that requires a man of courage, some honorable duty, what it is matters not ... but do not keep him near you.... Any man Grey Wind mislikes is a man I do not want close to you. These wolves are more than wolves, Robb. You must know that. I think perhaps the gods sent them to us. Your father's gods, the old gods of the north. Five wolf pups, Robb, five for five Stark children."

Robb reminds her there was a sixth, for Jon, whom Catelyn has conveniently omitted. And he argues that he stopped believing in the wolves when he heard of Bran and Rickon's deaths: "Small good their wolves did them." But he agrees that he'll find some pretext for sending Ser Rolph away, "Not because of his smell, but to ease your mind. You have suffered enough."

When they are in private, it is Edmure Tully's turn to be scolded, first by the Blackfish and then by Robb. Edmure had been commanded only to defend Riverrun, and not to wage a campaign against the Lannisters at the fords, which Edmure had been boasting about. Robb's aim had not been to attack Lannisport or Casterly Rock, but to lure Lord Tywin further west, and distract him from what was happening at King's Landing: "'Lord Stannis was about to fall upon King's Landing,' Robb said. 'He might have rid us of Joffrey, the queen, and the Imp in one red stroke.'" When Edmure delayed Lord Tywin it gave time for word to reach him about what was happening in the east, so that he could turn and rescue King's Landing.

Once the wedding of Joffrey and Margaery is over, Robb says, the Lannisters will turn their attention to him instead, and they'll have the Tyrells on their side, and possibly the Freys. Catelyn says that Robb's "first duty is to defend your own people, win back Winterfell, and hang Theon in a crow's cage to die slowly. Or else put off that crown for good, Robb, for men will know that you are no true king at all." Robb says that the last news he had had was that Ser Rodrik was about to retake Winterfell, and that he may have done it already. "We must win back the Freys," he says. "I am willing to give Lord Walder whatever he requires ... apologies, honors, lands, gold ... there must be something that would soothe his pride...."

"'Not something,' said Catelyn. 'Someone.'"

Jon

He is watching giants riding mammoths. The giants are "more bearlike than human," as much as fourteen feet tall, covered with hair. "Their sloping chests might have passed for those of men, but their arms hung down too far, and their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper." They also smell very bad, "but perhaps that was the mammoths." Tormund, who is with Jon, is full of tall tales about the giants and of his other exploits, but he is also teasing Jon for not having sex with Ygritte, who has been sleeping next to him every night and making her availability plain. But Jon is still trying to keep his vow of chastity, and he has tried to get Ghost to sleep between them. He is also shocked by the sexual mores of the wildlings, who don't regard bastardy as a stigma. He gives as his excuse for not having sex with Ygritte his determination not to bring another bastard into the world.

He is coming to know the various subcultures among the wildlings, most of whom, he has discovered, have never even seen the Wall and don't speak the Common Tongue of Westeros. He is following Qhorin Halfhand's order to "Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them.... And watch." He is becoming more aware of the difficulty of his task, and of the possibility that he may have to kill their leader, Mance Rayder, "a man he half admired and almost liked," to save Winterfell and the north from "Rattleshirt and Harma Dogshead and the earless Magnar of Thenn."

He knows they are drawing near to the Fist of the First Men and that "Mormont will not run.... He is too old and he has come too far. He will strike, and damn the numbers." He also knows that it's not the thousands of wildlings they need to kill but just one: Mance Rayder. "The King-beyond-the-Wall was doing all he could, yet the wildlings remained hopelessly undisciplined, and that made them vulnerable." The vast majority of them are on foot, not on horseback or on mammoths.

He is riding beside Ygritte, and she and others have been singing a song, "The Last of the Giants," when suddenly she cries out: "JON!" There is the sound of wings and "Blue-grey feathers filled his eyes, as sharp talons buried themselves in his face." He falls from his horse, but the eagle clings to his face, flapping and pecking. When he comes to, Ygritte is bending over him and the eagle has disappeared. He can't see out of one eye, but Ygritte tells him it's blood from the lacerations to his face. Tormund is there as Rattleshirt rides up and the eagle reappears and settles on the giant's skull he wears as a helmet. He orders Jon to come with him to see Mance Rayder.

As they ride, Jon sees the Fist of the First Men rising above the trees, and wonders if Mormont has attacked the wildlings. But as they get closer, he sees first one dead horse and then another. Blood is everywhere inside the garrison, and ravens are flapping around the dead animals. Jon wonders what has happened to Sam. A few tents are still standing, and Mance Rayder is in one of them. He gives Jon a "grim and cold" look as he enters, and says, "tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell."

With the pain from his wounds, Jon finds it hard to think, but he decides that his only recourse is to stick to the truth: "There were three hundred of us." Rayder says he should never have lied to them, and asks whose tent this was. Jon says, "You did not find his body?" Rayder says, "The next time you answer me with a question, I will give you to my Lord of Bones." As Rayder moves closer, Jon's hand moves toward his sword, but Rayder notices. Finally, Jon tells him: "The Old Bear." And when Rayder asks who is commanding at Castle Black, Jon tells him that Bowen Marsh is, which elicits derision from Rayder. But he also admits that if he had tried to storm the hill, he would have lost five men for every one defending it.

Rayder also knows that the garrison has been attacked by the wights, and "when the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing," so the Watch may have done him a favor by drawing their attention away from his own forces. He dispatches various of his men to see if the wights can be located, making sure that they all have torches.

Rattleshirt wants to kill Jon, but Ygritte steps forward to defend him. He asks Jon if he and Ygritte are lovers, and Jon lies, "Yes." So he says they are to go with Jarl and Styr, "Over the Wall. It's past time you proved your faith with something more than words, Jon Snow." Styr protests, but Rayder points out that Jon "knows the Watch and he knows the Wall, ... and he knows Castle Black better than any raider ever could."

Rattleshirt threatens Jon, but Ygritte points out Ghost on top of the ringwall, glaring at Rattleshirt, so he moves off. When they are alone, Jon says he didn't ask her to lie for him, and she says didn't. She said "that we fuck beneath your cloak many a night. I never said when we started, though." And then she tells him to find another place for Ghost to sleep that night.

Sansa

Sansa is being fitted with a new gown, and is surprised to hear that the orders have come from Cersei and not from Margaery or her grandmother. She has been spending time with the ladies of the Tyrell court and enjoying herself, though she feels a little superior to them: "Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father's head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them."

Margaery has been talking to her about her brother Willas, and calling Sansa sister, which has led her to give Margaery more warnings about Joffrey's cruelty. But Margaery dismisses her fears: She has her brother Loras to protect her, she says. Sansa is not so sure:

Joff might restrain himself for a few turns, perhaps as long as a year, but soon or late he will show his claws, and when he does ... The realm might have a second Kingslayer, and there would be war inside the city, as the men of the lion and the men of the rose made the gutters run red.

She has also been warned by Ser Dontos not to marry Willas: "I tell you, these Tyrells are only Lannisters with flowers." He wants her to go through with their plan to escape: "The night of Joffrey's wedding, that's not so long, wear the silver hair net and do as I told you, and afterward we make our escape." But Sansa says she doesn't want to escape now. Ser Dontos tries to make her see reality: The Tyrells want her to marry Willas because it gives them a claim to Winterfell. She leaves him and avoids the godswood after that, but he has planted a doubt in her mind. She assures herself that Robb will get married and produce an heir. "Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?"

She fills her head with romantic images of being married to Willas, though occasionally she brings herself back to reality: "Willas Tyrell was twice her age, she reminded herself constantly, and lame as well, and perhaps even plump and red-faced like his father. But comely or no, he might be the only champion she would ever have." And then she dreams she marries Joffrey instead and on their wedding night he turns into Ilyn Payne, the headsman. She worries again about Margaery and when she goes to the sept she prays to the Mother to protect Margaery and to the Warrior for Loras.

Then she thinks of the new dress Cersei has ordered for her, and assumes it is for the wedding. "She could scarcely wait to wear 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."