22. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 628-657

Brienne

Stunned and in pain, Brienne is being carried bound, "like a sack of oats," over the hindquarters of a horse. She hears Podrick calling out to her faintly, but then he falls silent. She drifts off into a dream in which she is being tormented by Biter, while others, such as Nimble Dick, Catelyn Stark, and Lord Renly, look on.

Finally the horse comes to a stop and she is taken from the horse. A girl gives her something to drink and tells her that her arm is broken, along with several ribs. The last thing she remembers from the fight is Biter attacking her, and she asks about him. The girl tells her, "He's dead. Gendry shoved a spearpoint through the back of his neck."

She gets a better look at the girl, who resembles Willow, back at the inn, and concludes that it's her sister, the innkeeper. The girl admits as much, and says her name is Jeyne Heddle. Brienne asks her to loosen the ropes tying her hands, but she says she can't. Then Gendry appears -- once again Brienne takes him at first for Renly -- and says, "M'lady means for you to answer for your crimes."

Brienne remembers the earlier mentions of a "Lady Stoneheart," and asks if she is the one he refers to. "Some call her that," he says. "Some call her other things. The Silent Sister. Mother Merciless. The Hangwoman." Brienne struggles to rise, but instead she faints into more dreams of struggle and capture.

When she wakes again, Jeyne is giving her a cup of onion broth. She asks for Gendry, but is told that he has returned to the inn to take care of Willow and the children. Then she gets a look at one of the men standing around her: "A yellow greatcloak was plastered to his shoulders, sodden and filthy. From his shoulders rose a steel dog's head, its teeth bared in a snarl." She protests that she had killed him, but the man now wearing the Hound's helmet says, "You got that backwards. It'll be me killing you. I'd do it now, but m'lady wants to see you hanged."

When Brienne protests that they shared bread and salt with Jeyne's sister, Jeyne replies, "Guest right don't mean so much as it used to.... Not since m'lady come back from the wedding. Some o' them swinging down by the river figured they was guests too."

They get back on the horses, and this time a leather hood covers Brienne's head. She passes out again and dreams of being back on Tarth, waiting for her betrothed. Blood pours from her mouth when she tries to speak: She has bitten off her tongue. Her betrothed mocks her, and when he turns away she sees that he is Jaime. She tries to call out for him, but her mouth is full of blood.

When she wakes again, she doesn't know where she is. Her clothes and armor are gone and she is wearing a thin woolen shift. Her arm is in a splint and her face is covered with bandages. When she stands and calls out, an old man in rags moves and says her name. He tells her they are being held in a cave, and asks if she is hungry. He tells her she has been suffering with a fever, but when he feels her forehead assures her that it has broken. Biter's savaging of her face had led to an infection. "We had to cut away some of the flesh. Your face will not be pretty, I fear.... My lady, that creature chewed off half your cheek."

She asks why bother to treat her wounds and splint her arm if she's just going to be hanged, and he admits to the irony of her situation. She had "fought bravely at the inn.... Whatever else you may have done, you won those wounds honorably, in the best of causes." She asks who they are, and he admits that they were once the king's men, and then they were a brotherhood, but now, "I do not know who we are, if truth be told, nor where we might be going."

She realizes then that he is the red wizard, Thoros of Myr, and that he was one of Dondarrion's band. But he tells her Lord Dondarrion is "gone out of the world" and "A grimmer shadow leads us in his place." He brings her food, and she asks about the others who were with her. Septon Merribald has been allowed to go on his way, he tells her, but "The others are here, awaiting judgment." She pleads for Podrick, who is "just a boy," but Thoros tells her that he has said he is a squire -- "The Imp's squire. He has fought in battles, by his own admission. He has even killed, to hear him tell it." She argues for pity and justice.

"Justice." Thoros smiled wanly. "I remember justice. It had a pleasant taste. Justice was what we were about when Beric led us, or so we told ourselves. We were king's men, knights, and heroes ... but some knights are dark and full of terror, my lady. War makes monsters of us all."

Then he hears others coming. "Our lady sends for you."

Four men appear, one of them wearing the Hound's helmet. She realizes now that it had been Rorge she killed, and that he had taken the helmet from him. Thoros is dismayed to hear this: "Is this true? A dead man's helm? Have we fallen that low?" Lem argues, "The sight of it will make my foes afraid." They escort her out of the cave and into a larger one centered on a firepit where outlaws are gathered. The only face Brienne recognizes is Jeyne Heddle's.

Behind a trestle table in a cleft in the rock sits "a woman all in grey, cloaked and hooded. In her hands was a crown, a bronze circlet ringed by iron swords." The one-eyed man presents her as "The Kingslayer's whore," to which Brienne protests.  A younger outlaw is holding her sword, Oathkeeper, which he places on the table in front of the hooded woman. Its pommel is in the shape of a lion's head. Thoros then places on the table the letter with Tommen's seal, which Lady Stoneheart takes to read.

Brienne protests that the sword was given her by Jaime because he "swore an oath to Catelyn Stark," but she is interrupted by the man in the yellow cloak: "...before his friends cut her throat for her, that must have been." Brienne realizes that her cause is hopeless, but she continues to explain that Jaime had promised to return Catelyn's daughters, and that he sent her out to find them. But Lem mocks all of her arguments, and then produces her companions. "Hyle Hunt had been beaten so badly that his face was swollen almost beyond recognition." Podrick supports him, and apologizes to Brienne for what has happened. 

Brienne turns to Lady Stoneheart and pleads that her companions had nothing to do with "Whatever treachery you think I may have done." She asks her to let them go. But the woman in gray says nothing for a moment, then reaches for her throat and produces sounds, "part croak, part wheeze, part death rattle." Brienne doesn't understand, but one of the men interprets the sound as a question about the sword's name. Brienne says it is Oathkeeper, but the woman hisses something that is interpreted as "Call it Oathbreaker.... It was made for treachery and murder. She names it False Friend. Like you."

Brienne asks to whom she has been unfaithful, and the interpreter says, "To her.... Can it be that my lady has forgotten that you once swore her your service?" Suddenly realizing that he means that Lady Stoneheart is Catelyn Stark, Brienne protests, "That cannot be.... She's dead." Lady Stoneheart lowers her hood and reveals the decayed face of Lady Catelyn. Thoros explains that she had been dead three days when they found her in the river. It was Beric Dondarrion who gave her the "kiss of life."

Brienne swears by the Seven, by her sword, that she had never betrayed Catelyn, who then produces more sounds that Lemoncloak interprets: "She says that you must prove your faith.... All she asks from you is Jaime Lannister." Brienne argues once again for Jaime's good faith, but to no avail: "The sword or the noose, she says. Choose, she says. Choose."

Brienne refuses, and she understands the next thing Lady Stoneheart croaks: "Hang them."

They are taken outside and strung to the trees. Brienne makes a last plea for Podrick, and as the noose tightens around her own throat she sees him struggling. "She screamed a word."

Cersei

Cersei is playing her part as she sits below the Iron Throne and in front of the assembled court protests the High Septon's decision. But Septa Moelle is insistent "that the young queen and her ladies cannot be released until and unless their innocence has been proved." The septa repeats the charges against Megga Tyrell and Elinor Tyrell -- "lewdness, fornication, and conspiracy to commit high treason" -- and the lesser one against Alla Tyrell -- "witnessing their shame and helping them conceal it" -- and finally against Queen Margaery -- all of the above "as well as adultery and high treason." Cersei feigns dismay at "such calumnies." But the septa's report of Ser Osney's confession causes a gasp and a buzz in the assemblage.

Once again, Cersei protests: "Margaery is a maiden!" But the septa says that she examined Margaery, Megga, and Elinor herself, as did other septas. The maidenheads of all of them were "not intact." Lord Merryweather asks, "Would you have us believe that all of these noble people lied to us?" But Septa Moelle says she can only attest to what she discovered in her examinations.  Cersei tries not to laugh, and says, "Grand Maester Pycelle, you shall accompany Septa Moelle back to Beloved Baelor's Sept, and return to us with the truth about our Margaery's maidenhead." Pycelle follows through: There's no need for him to do so. "Queen Margaery is no maiden. She has required me to make her moon tea, not once, but many times."

Cersei delights in the uproar that follows. But she rises with a stern face, has the gold cloaks clear the hall, and the Kingsguard exit with her. Secretly she rejoices in her triumph of the prophecy of Maggy the Frog: "No golden shrouds, no valonqar, I am free of your croaking malice at last." Her small council gathers around her in dismay, and Ser Harys Swyft predicts "blood in the streets" when Mace Tyrell hears the news. Cersei tells them that she will go to Baelor's Sept and see if there is anything she can do. 

Then she goes to Tommen with some blank arrest warrants for him to sign and seal. When he is gone, she fills in the names and gives them to Ser Osfryd Kettleblack to have the gold cloaks deliver them. He tells her that a crowd is gathering at Baelor's Sept. She hadn't expected this, though she knows the "smallfolk" love Margaery. She tells him to let the High Septon's own knights take care of the crowd, but to close the city gates. "No one is to enter or leave King's Landing without my leave, until all this is done and settled." The warrants are served, and by the end of the day all of the accused are in the dungeons except the Redwyne twins, who are supposed to be found falsely accused. They are "given comfortable chambers in a tower."

The next day she goes with Taena Merryweather to Baelor's Sept. Taena worries that Margaery may demand trial by combat, but Cersei has anticipated even that: A member of the royal family must be defended by one of the Kingsguard, and Margaery's brother, Ser Loras, is gravely wounded, while others are away, and Osmund is the brother of the accuser. That leaves only the elderly Boros Blount and Meryn Trant, "and Ser Meryn has been feeling ill of late. Remind me to tell him that when we return to the castle." Taena says she hopes she never offends Cersei.

The crowd at the sept is not particularly menacing, it turns out, and she is ushered in to the presence of the High Septon, though she has to wait until he finishes his prayers. She asks to see Margaery, and he agrees, though he asks her to come to seem him afterward. "We must pray together, you and I." Margaery is barefoot and shivering,, dressed in a "roughspun shift." She complains that the septas come every hour to ask her to confess, so she is unable to sleep. And she is astonished when Cersei tells her that her cousins have been accused as well.

Cersei tells her there will have to be a trial, and that the knights of the Kingsguard will defend her if she chooses a trial by combat. And suddenly Margaery gets wise to what is going on. She runs through the members of the Kingsguard herself, and "her brown eyes narrowed in suspicion. 'Blount or Trant,' she said at last. 'It would have to be one of them. You'd like that, wouldn't you? Osney Kettleblack would cut either one to pieces.'" When Margaery orders her to leave, Cersei is provoked at at having been seen through so easily, and assures Margaery that she only wants to help her.

"To help me to my grave. I asked for you to leave. Will you make me call my gaolers and have you dragged away, you vile, scheming, evil bitch?"

Cersei makes a dignified retreat.

Four septas escort her to a subterranean audience chamber where the High Septon is waiting. She suggests that instead of being tried by the court, over which Tommen would have to preside, Margaery might be tried by the Faith. He agrees, saying he had had the same thought. "A sacred court of seven judges shall sit upon this case. Three shall be of your female sex. A maiden, a mother, and a crone. Who could be more suited to judge the wickedness of women?" He also agrees that if she chooses trial by combat, it should be one of the Kingsguard.

"Cersei covered her face with her hands, as if in grief. When she raised her head again, a tear glistened in one eye." Then she says she'll return to the castle and take Ser Osney Kettleblack with her to be questioned by the small council. And she is shocked when he says "No." He will take her to Ser Osney, he says, and she begins to worry. He conducts her to a chamber protected with an iron door, which he unlocks.

Within, Osney Kettleblack hung naked from the ceiling, swinging from a pair of heavy iron chains. He had been whipped. His back and shoulders [had] been laid almost bare, and cuts and welts crisscrossed his legs and arse as well.

The High Septon explains to her that he had seldom "heard a man so pleased to be so guilty." So he has had him whipped to find out the truth: "Osney Kettleblack is guilty of treason and murder, and the wages of treason are death." Ser Osney now says he never touched Margaery Tyrell, but that he had had sex with Cersei: "She's the queen I fucked, the one sent me to kill the old Septon. He never had no guards. I just come in when he was sleeping and pushed a pillow down across his face."

Cersei makes a run for it. The elderly High Septon is no match for her, nor are the old septas who had escorted her. As she is trying to escape she remembers that Taena Merryweather is there: "Taena knows it all. If they take her too, and whip her...." But finally she is caught, overpowered, stripped, and thrust naked into a cell. And like Margaery she is awakened every hour by a septa who says, "I am come to hear you tell of all your murders and fornications."

A night and a day passes with only the hourly visits of the septa demanding confession. Finally, on the morning of the second day, Qyburn appears. He tells her, "You are to be tried before a holy court of seven, for murder, treason, and fornication." Margaery is to be tried by the same court, he says, and he has handed over the Blue Bard to the High Septon. "My whisperers tell me that they are whipping him, but so far he is still singing the same sweet song we taught him."

But Qyburn has been removed from the king's council, which is being run by Harys Swyft and Pycell. They have removed Osfryd Kettleblack as head of the City Watch, and have sent a raven to Casterly Rock, asking Kevan Lannister to become regent. "Mace Tyrell has abandoned the siege of Storm's End and is marching back to the city with his army, and Randyll Tarly is reported on his way down from Maidenpool as well." Lord Merryweather and his wife have fled. (Cersei is glad to hear that they let Taena go.) And Aurane Waters has left with his fleet. "Ser Harys fears he means to join Lord Stannis. Pycelle believes that he is sailing to the Stepstones, to set himself up as a pirate."

Cersei says, "I am lost, Qyburn." And when he hears that only a member of the Kingsguard can defend her, he doesn't disagree. But she asks him to send word to Jaime of her plight, and to write three times, "I love you." Qyburn agrees, but reminds her that her brother has no sword hand anymore. "If he should champion you and lose...."

We will leave this world together, as we once came into it. "He will not lose. Not Jaime. Not with my life at stake."

20. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 561-586

Jaime

Bryden Tully comes out to meet Jaime for the parley, but it is clear from the beginning -- when the Blackfish addresses Jaime as "Kingslayer" -- that it is not going to go well. He also forces Jaime to admit that he has not fulfilled his promise to Catelyn: to return Sansa and Arya. And when Jaime promises to return Edmure in exchange for Lady Sybelle Westerling and her three children, Tully uses it again: "As you returned Lady Catelyn's daughters?" In short, the Blackfish is determined not to trust anything Jaime says.

Finally, Jaime proposes they settle their differences by single combat, each of them to name a champion. But the Blackfish throws that in his face as well: "Why not you against me, ser?" Jaime knows that he is disadvantaged by his lack of a sword hand, but he has another reason to advance for not fighting Ser Brynden: His oath to Catelyn not to take up arms against Starks or Tullys. But he bluffs his way through by saying that if the Blackfish will free him from that pledge, he will fight him. "If I win, Riverrun is ours. If you slay me, we'll lift the siege."

But Tully will not take him up on the offer, and ends the matter by saying there are no terms under which he will surrender the castle. He came to parley only because "A siege is deadly dull. I wanted to see this stump of yours and hear whatever excuses you cared to offer up for your latest enormities. They were feebler than I hoped." And he turns and rides back into the castle, leaving Jaime to seethe.

Back at camp, he summons a war council. But it quickly degenerates into squabbling among various factions of the Frey family and others, and Jaime has to silence them. He announces, "We attack at first light." Then he decides to visit the gallows where Edmure Tully stands with a noose around his neck. He takes Ilyn Payne with him, and when he reaches the platform on which Edmure is standing, Edmure says, "Better a sword than a rope. Do it, Payne." Jaime responds by telling Payne, "You heard Lord Tully. Do it."

Shouting "No! Stop!" Edwyn Frey appears, followed by his father, Ser Ryman, by whose orders Edmure had been posted on the gallows. Ryman is accompanied by "a straw-haired slattern as drunk as he was." When Ryman protests, Jaime backhands him with his golden hand and threatens to have Ser Ilyn take off his head. He dismisses Ryman and replaces him with Edwyn, then takes Edmure with him: Ser Ilyn had cut the rope in two, and Edmure had collapsed on the scaffold.

As he returns to the camp with Edmure, Jaime sees a singer and has him follow. Edmure asks Jaime why he had him cut down, and Jaime says, "Consider it a wedding gift." When they reach Jaime's pavilion he has a bath prepared for Edmure, along with wine and some food. "Once you've eaten, my men will escort you to Riverrun. What happens after that is up to you.

"Yield the castle and no one dies. Your smallfolk may go in peace or stay to serve Lord Emmon. Ser Brynden will be allowed to take the black, along with as many of the garrison as choose to join him. You as well, if the Wall appeals to you. Or you may go to Casterly Rock as my captive and enjoy all the comforts and courtesy that befits a hostage of your rank. I'll send your wife to join you, if you like. If her child is a boy, he will serve House Lannister as a page and a squire, and when he earns his knighthood we'll bestow some lands upon him. Should Roslin give you a daughter, I'll see her well dowered when she's old enough to wed. You yourself may even be granted parole, once the war is done. All you need do is yield the castle."

Otherwise, he tells Edmure, the castle will be razed and the people in it butchered. And when his child is born, Jaime says, he'll send him to Edmure. "With a trebuchet." Then he says he will leave Edmure to eat while the singer plays "The Rains of Castamere." Edmure suddenly recognizes the singer from the Red Wedding: "No. Not him. Get him away from me."

"'Why, it's just a song,' said Jaime. 'He cannot have that bad a voice.'"

Cersei

Lord Gyles Rosby has died, and Cersei is blaming his death on Grand Maester Pycelle. And on Margaery: "Tell me," she says to Pycelle, "was it our little queen who commanded you to kill Lord Gyles?" Pycelle is astonished and terrified at Cersei's accusations. And finally she bullies him into a confession: Margaery has ordered "moon tea," an abortifacient, from him. She also forces him into lying that Lord Gyles's dying wish was "to leave all his lands and wealth to Tommen." Pycelle protests that Gyles had a ward, but Cersei dismisses that as inconsequential and sends Pycelle scurrying.

The moon tea is all the evidence Cersei needs: "My son has been betrayed. Margaery has a lover. That is high treason, punishable by death." Ser Osmund Kettleblack proposes to take off her head, since Ser Ilyn is away with Jaime, but Taena Merryweather points out that the Tyrells have armies who might not take kindly to summary execution. And Cersei knows that she still needs Mace Tyrell's support in her campaign against Stannis. So she needs a more substantial proof of Margaery's infidelity.

So she has Lady Taena tell her husband, Lord Orton Merryweather, to join her at dinner, "And of course we must have some music, to help with our digestion." Taena knows what Cersei means, and leaves Cersei to plot with Ser Osmund and with Qyburn. At dinner, she tells Orton Merryweather that she plans to put Ser Harys in Gyles's position as treasurer, and to promote him to Hand. And then she turns to the singer Taena has provided, the Blue Bard, and tells him he deserves a reward for his singing.

She asks to see his lute, plucks a string, and then asks him, "the first time you took Margaery to bed, was that before she wed my son, or after?" Astonished, he protests that he has never slept with Margaery, but Cersei screams, "Liar!" and smashes the lute in his face. Then she orders Lord Orton to take the Blue Bard to the dungeon. There she watches as Qyburn interrogates the singer, who persists in denying any sort of affair with Margaery. When Qyburn takes a razor and cuts off one of the Blue Bard's nipples, she feels ill, "But she was the queen and this was treason. Lord Tywin would not have turned away."

By dawn the singer's high blue boots were full of blood, and he had told them how Margaery would fondle herself as she watched her cousins pleasuring him with their mouths. At other times he would sing for her whilst she sated her lusts with other lovers. "Who were they?" the queen demanded, and the wretched Wat named Ser Tallad the Tall, Lambert Turnberry, Jalabar Xho, the Redwyne twins, Osney Kettleblack, Hugh Clifton, and the Knight of Flowers. That displeased her. She dare not besmirch the name of the hero of Dragonstone. Besides, no one who knew Ser Loras would ever believe it.

So she persuades him to recant on Ser Loras and the Redwynes, whose fleet of ships she needs. She tells the singer he can take the black, and has Qyburn tend to his wounds.

Congratulating herself that she has thwarted the prophecy of Maggy the Frog, she returns to her rooms and to Taena Merryweather, deciding that she'll let her spy have sex with her as a way of keeping her loyalty. As they are sharing a bath, she refines her plot, deciding to spare one of Margaery's cousins in return for her testimony against Margaery, and to spare Tommen from losing all of his friends at once.

But when she goes to bed she dreams that she is the one being tortured in the black cells, and that the torturer is Tyrion. She wakes Taena and tells her about the dream. Taena asks, "Was it the dwarf again? Why does he frighten you so, this silly little man?" Cersei tells her about Maggy the Frog's prophecy, and her belief that Tyrion is the valonqar who will kill her. "Do you use that word in Myr?" she asks Taena. "It's High Valyrian, it means little brother." Taena tries to persuade Cersei that Maggy the Frog was just an ugly old woman who was jealous of her youth and beauty.

She feels better after breakfasting with Tommen, who tells her that Margaery is fasting and purifying herself for Maiden's Day. And this reminds her that only virgins can participate in the rituals of the day. After breakfast she sends for Osney Kettleblack and tells him he has to confess his treason. He protests that Margaery only teases and never lets him do anything, but she tells him "you must take yourself to the Great Sept of Baelor this very night and speak with the High Septon.... Tell him how you bedded Margaery and her cousins," Megga and Elinor, but not Alla.

Osney is confused, and worries, "I never lied to no High Septon before. I think you go to some hell for that. One o' the bad ones." But she has her own way of sealing the deal, and he tells her, "You can keep the crown on. I like you in the crown."

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

Jaime

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cersei

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrion

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sansa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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