7. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 172-198

Cersei

The wedding of Tommen and Margaery is taking place, and Cersei is in a snit. When Jaime arrives to assure her that every precaution is being taken to prevent poisoning another king, she wants him to make sure that Tommen is safe from his wife's family as well: "I will not have Tommen alone with Margaery, not for so much as half a heartbeat," she tells him. She had not even wanted them to share a bed, but the Tyrells had insisted on it. It was bad luck for a man and wife not to share a bed on their wedding night. So Cersei has been forced to allow it "for that one night" and no more. And she wants someone watching the couple at all times.

Jaime points out that there's no chance the union will be consummated in any case, but Cersei cannot be overruled. He asks her if she also plans to go through with burning down the Tower of the Hand, and she says yes: "It was the only part of the day's festivities that Cersei thought she might enjoy." She is still persuaded that Tyrion or Varys or the missing jailer, or all three, are hiding in it somewhere. The pyromancers have been concocting wildfire to take care of destroying the tower, and Cersei almost hopes it spreads to the rest of the castle: After the war, she plans to build a new palace on the other side of the river, "long leagues from the stinks and noise of King's Landing."

The wedding is to be a smaller affair than the one of Joffrey and Margaery, and the bride is wearing the same dress she wore to that one. Cersei had planned for Tommen to give Margaery the cloak that Joffrey had used at his wedding, the one Tywin had used when he married Cersei's mother, but the Queen of Thorns had pointed out that Tommen was a Baratheon, not a Lannister: "In my day a bride donned her husband's colors, not his lady mother's." So Cersei is forced to have Tommen use the one Robert had given her on their wedding day. She knows that Lady Olenna is aware of the truth about Tommen's parentage.

After the wedding, she speaks to Kevan Lannister, who is taking his son Lancel to Darry castle to marry one of the Freys. They talk about the rumor that Sandor Clegane has joined with Beric Dondarrion's outlaws: "Saltpans had been savagely raided by a band of outlaws, and some of the survivors claimed a roaring brute in a hound's head helm was amongst the raiders. Supposedly he'd killed a dozen men and raped a girl of twelve."

As Jaime escorts her to the wedding feast, she blames him for the fact that the wedding took place so quickly, and proclaims her belief that Margaery is not a virgin. "Renly had a cock, didn't he? He was Robert's brother, he surely had a cock." She complains again about the Queen of Thorns, whom she calls a "disgusting old crone." Jaime tells her that Lady Olenna is leaving tomorrow, but "Cersei did not trust any Tyrell promise." He assures her that half of the Tyrells are going to Storm's End and the other half to the Reach.

There are only seven courses to the feast, and only one singer. "'What a disappointment,' Lady Olenna complained loudly. 'I was hoping for "The Rains of Castamere."'" The Queen of Thorns reminds Cersei of Maggy the Frog, who had once told her fortune: "Queen you shall be, the old woman had promised, ... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear." Cersei looks at Margaery and thinks, "Only a fool would ever claim she was more beautiful than I. The world was full of fools, however." The death of Joffrey looms over the feast, and once, when Tommen coughs, Cersei leaps up to see about him, only to be assured by Margaery that he'd swallowed some wine the wrong way.

Cersei leaves the feast for a moment, fearing that her tears will show. Thinking she is alone, she lets out a sob, but then she is approached by Lord Orton Merryweather's wife, Taena, a Myrish woman. She tells Cersei that one of the queen's maids is a spy for Margaery. Lady Merryweather is one of Margaery's companions, and Cersei asks why she would reveal this secret. She says that her only loyalty is to her husband and son, and she wants what's best for them. Cersei remembers that Lady Merryweather testified against Tyrion at the trial, and recognizes that she is trying to get in her good graces, so she promises to look into this charge and reward her if it's true, thinking, "And if you've lied to me, I'll have your tongue, and your lord husband's lands and gold as well."

When she returns to the hall, Jaime assures her that he was frightened by Tommen's cough as well, but that all is well. Cersei looks around the room and decides that there is no one there whom she can really trust. "I will need to sweep them all away and surround the king with mine own people." Dancing begins, but she refuses offers from Jaime -- because of his stump -- and with Mace Tyrell and Lancel. She observes "the handsome young Bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters," with some interest, however. She sees Tommen talking with Ser Garlan Tyrell and wonders what they have to talk about, and she begins to brood on her suspicions, such as the gold coin from Highgarden that was found under the missing jailer's chamberpot and the allegation that Margaery was spying on her.

Jaime suggests that she has had enough to drink, and she staggers as she rises to her feet to tell everyone to go outside to watch the burning of the Tower of the Hand. As the wildfire consumes the tower, Cersei thinks of all the King's Hands who had served there, including Eddard Stark, Tyrion, and her father. "They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my castle and my kingdom."

When the rest of the court retires for the night, Cersei, with Ser Osmund Kettleblack in attendance, stays and watches the fire.

The Soiled Knight

Ser Arys Oakheart is the member of the Kingsguard charged with protecting Princess Myrcella at the Dornish court in Sunspear. Leaving Myrcella playing a game called cyvasse with Prince Trystane, he goes to see Prince Doran, who had imprisoned the Sand Snakes. Doran tells him, "It would gladden my heart if I could assure you that the Sand Snakes were alone in wanting war, but I will not tell you lies, ser. You have heard my smallfolk in the streets, crying out for me to call my spears. Half my lords agree with them, I fear." He tells Arys that he plans to return to the Water Gardens as soon as possible, and to take Myrcella with him. Arys will accompany them, but Doran tells him not to write to King's Landing about this plan.

Arys is wondering about this as he goes to an assignation with Doran's daughter, Princess Arianne. After a bout of passionate lovemaking, however, Arys feels racked with guilt for breaking his vow as a knight of the Kingsguard, and tries to leave. She holds him back, however, and when he worries about what might happen if her father found out, she tells him "Nothing. My father is very good at doing nothing. He calls it thinking." But he insists that he has dishonored himself by his relationship with her: "I will not be remembered as Ser Arys the Unworthy.... I will not soil my cloak."

She says she knows all about white cloaks: Her great-uncle, Prince Lewyn, wore one. Arys says "he was a great knight," and she tells him he, too, had a lover. "My uncle always said that it was the sword in a man's hand that determined his worth, not the one between his legs, ... so spare me all your pious talk of soiled cloaks. It is not our love that has dishonored you, it is the monsters you have served and the brutes you've called your brothers." Ser Arys remembers with sham having to strike Sansa Stark on Joffrey's orders.

He tells her that Tommen isn't Joffrey, and she comments, "Nor is he his sister."

It was true. Tommen was a good-hearted little man who always tried his best, but the last time Ser Arys saw him he had been weeping on the quay. Myrcella never shed a tear, though it was she who was leaving hearth and home to seal an alliance with her maidenhood. The truth was, the princess was braver than her brother, and brighter and more confident as well. Her wits were quicker, her courtesies more polished. Nothing ever daunted her, not even Joffrey. The women are the strong ones, truly. He was thinking not only of Myrcella, but of her mother and his own, of the Queen of thorns, of the Red Viper's pretty, deadly Sand Snakes. And of Princess Arianne Martell, her most of all.

And this is precisely what Arianne wants him to think. She points out that she is heir to her father's house. He says, "Dorne is different. The Seven Kingdoms have never had a ruling queen." She replies that the first King Viserys wanted his daughter to succeed him, but it was the plotting of the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole, called the Kingmaker, who put an end to it by setting brother against sister and starting the war known as the Dance of the Dragons.

Arianne tells him that Doran wants to take Myrcella to the Water Gardens not to keep her safe, but "To keep her away from those who'd seek to crown her. Prince Oberyn Viper would have placed the crown upon her head himself if he had lived, but my father lacks the courage." Myrcella will be imprisoned at the Water Gardens, with Hotah as the chief guard. She urges Arys to support Myrcella's right to the throne. Tommen will inherit both Storm's End and Casterly Rock. "He will be as great a lord as any in the realm ... but Myrcella by rights should sit the Iron Throne." As for the vows of the Kingsguard, she says, those can be changed, just as Joffrey changed the law that the knights of the Kingsguard serve for life when he dismissed Ser Barristan Selmy and named Sandor Clegane to his guard. Myrcella, Arianne says, "will give us leave to marry if we ask."

He is weakening, and she knows it. She says she is afraid she'll be imprisoned, like the Sand Snakes, for supporting Myrcella's cause. He argues that the Sand Snakes were "speaking treason, fomenting war," but she scoffs, "Loreza is six, Dorea eight. What wars could they foment?" Her father is weak and afraid, she says, and he doesn't want her to be his heir. She says she found a letter from Doran to her brother Quentyn, who is supposedly being fostered by Lord Yronwood, saying that Quentyn "will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne." She claims that Yronwood is actually grooming Quentyn to usurp her rightful place as Doran's heir.

"So your two princesses share a common cause, ser ... and they share as well a knight who claims to love them both, but will not fight for them." Arys is won over, and pledges to fight for her right and first for Myrcella's.

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

Arya

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cersei

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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."