25. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 857-893

Davos

Davos watches as Melisandre leads a sunset ceremony glorifying R'hllor. Queen Selyse and Ser Axell Florent join in the responses enthusiastically, King Stannis not so much. "He is with them, but not of them, Davos thought." As for Davos, he is silently praying to the Mother to keep his son Devan safe.

Now Ser Andrew Estermont gives him the signal that it is time for them to move. A plot is afoot, and Davos thinks of his companions in it, "they will all be dead men soon, if this night's work goes badly." He has warned them that Melisandre may have foreseen their plans, and one of them advises killing her. But Davos knows from experience that this is precisely the sort of thing Melisandre sees first. When another protests about the clandestine nature of what they are about to do, Davos says, "I don't need men of honor now. I need smugglers."

Davos and Ser Andrew go to Maester Pylos's schoolroom, where the maester tells Edric Storm that he is to go with them. Pylos helps Edric into a hooded cloak, but when Davos asks if Pylos is going with the boy, he says no. Davos admires the maester's courage. When Edric is told that he is being taken to a ship, he asks if Princess Shireen is coming with them. When he's told she isn't, he asks to see her, but Davos explains that there isn't time.

Edric protests that he wants to see King Stannis, but Davos replies, "I am his Hand, I speak with his voice. Must I go to the king and tell him that you would not do as you were told? Do you know how angry that will make him?" And he shows Edric his lopped-off fingers as a demonstration of what happens when the king gets angry. Edric agrees to go with Davos.

The conspirators have tied up the guards, and all goes smoothly as Davos escorts Edric to the waiting boat, telling him, "It's the start of your life's great adventure. May the Warrior defend you." Edric replies, "And may the Father judge you justly, Lord Davos." He goes with the men to the boat that will take him to the ship.

Davos now steels himself and goes to see Stannis, not knowing what the king's reaction will be. The Chamber of the Painted Table is empty when he enters, so he lights a fire and waits. Finally Stannis arrives with Melisandre. They are arguing about Melisandre's vision of the deaths of the three kings, and Davos is able to tell Stannis that her vision has come true: Joffrey is dead. The news had been brought by Lyseni traders.

"They must send for me now," Stannis says, but Melisandre reminds him that Tommen will succeed to the throne, and that now is the time to wake the dragons. "'Give me this boy,' she whispered, 'and I will give you your kingdom.'" But Davos tells Stannis that the boy is gone: "He is aboard a Lyseni galley, safely out to sea." He watches Melisandre's reaction and "saw the flicker of dismay there, the sudden uncertainty. She did not see it!"

Melisandre says, "You will bring him back, my lord. You will." But Davos replies, "The boy is out of my reach.... And out of your reach as well, my lady." She glares at him, but Stannis sounds "more tired than angry" when he questions Davos's loyalty. Davos replies,

"Four of my sons died for you on the Blackwater. I might have died myself. You have my loyalty, always." Davos Seaworth had thought long and hard about the words he said next; he knew his life depended on them. "Your Grace, you made me swear to give you honest counsel and swift obedience, to defend your realm against your foes, to protect your people. Is not Edric Storm one of your people? One of those I swore to protect? I kept my oath. How could that be treason?"

At Stannis's prompting, Melisandre argues once again that Edric Storm had "the power of kingsblood in his veins." But Davos persists in his contention that a king protects his people, causing Stannis to ask, "Must I learn a king's duty from an onion smuggler?"

Davos kneels and offers his head, asking Stannis to hear him out first. Stannis draws the sword Lightbringer and tells Davos to be quick about it. So Davos produces the letter about the attack on the Night's Watch and begins to read it "by the light of the magic sword."

Jon

Jon has a dream in which he is rejected by the dead in the crypt at Winterfell,who tell him, "You are no Stark." He hears sounds of feasting in the Great Hall, and knows that he isn't welcome there. He calls out to Ygritte to forgive him as the crypt grows darker, and he sees "only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark." He wakes to remember that the wolf had been gray, not white like Ghost, and wonders if the Thenns had hunted Bran down and killed him.

Then he hears a horn, and goes out to see his fellow members of the Watch heading toward the Wall. "It is Mance, he thought. He has come at last. That was good. We will fight a battle, and then we'll rest. Alive or dead, we'll rest." He goes to wait for the winch to take him to the top of the Wall with others. When Satin asks him if it's Mance Rayder, Jon says, "We can hope so," knowing that a battle with wildlings was preferable to an encounter with the Others and the wights.

When he reaches the top of the Wall he can tell that it's Mance and his forces because of the torches. "The Others did not light torches." Donal Noye orders the trebuchets to fling barrels of flaming pitch, and Jon sees the mammoths moving below, a hundred of them. When the sentry's horn sounds, the wildlings answer with their own horns, as well as drums and pipes.

Pyp cries out that they're at the gate, which is the only way the wildlings have of breaching the Wall. The gate is only the entrance to a crooked and narrow tunnel, with three locked and chained iron grates within, each "protected by a murder hole." The gate itself is wood, nine inches thick, but the mammoths and giants could demolish it.

As the wildlings gather at the base of the Wall, jars of lamp oil are set ablaze and tipped over the edge, followed by a big barrel of pitch. They can hear the screams from below. Noye commands the archers to release arrows into the darkness. Then he calls for two bowmen and two spearmen to join him in the tunnel below, to defend it if they break through the gate. And he puts Jon in charge of the Wall, to Jon's surprise.

The battle rages through the night, and the trebuchets do so much work that one of them finally breaks down. Jon takes up a longbow, feeling how stiff his fingers are. "His fever was back as well, and his leg would tremble uncontrollably, sending a white-hot knife of pain right through him." Dawn breaks, and then they get a glimpse of the foe.

Beneath the trees were all the wildlings in the world, raiders and giants, wargs and skinchangers, mountain men, salt sea sailors, ice river cannibals, cave dwellers with dyed faces, dog chariots from the Frozen Shore, Hornfoot men with their soles like boiled leather, all the queer wild folk Mance had gathered to break the Wall. 

Then the mammoths, ridden by giants, begin their attack on the gate, pushing a ram mounted on wheels.

The sheer numbers of the wildlings frighten the men on the Wall, so Jon calls out to them, "The Wall will stop them. The Wall defends itself.... Mance wants to unman us with his numbers. Does he think we're stupid? ... The chariots, the horsemen, all those fools on foot ... what are they going to do to us up here? Any of you ever see a mammoth climb a wall?" The laughter that follows the question gives him the impetus to carry on with his speech, and he has the men with the warhorns "sound for battle." He calls on the archers to aim for the giants with the ram. He laughs, "like a drunk or a madman, and his men laughed with him."

He gives out orders to various men as the wildlings begin to show their lack of discipline. The wildling archers waste their arrows shooting at the men atop the Wall, seven hundred feet above. Jon keeps control of his archers, telling them precisely when to shoot. He gives similar orders to the men at the catapults which fling "a hundred spiked steel caltrops." The wildlings are caught in a death trap. "The ram was down and done, he saw, the giants who'd pushed it dead or dying." A mammoth is running loose, trampling wildlings. Jon orders Grenn and Pyp to drop barrels of burning oil on the men below.

The mammoths begin to flee, and the center of the attack collapses, causing the flanks to fall back too. Cheers go up from the men of the Watch, and suddenly Jon feels the pain and weariness. He asks Pyp to help him to the lift, and puts Grenn in charge of the Wall. He wants to eat and to rest, and to get something for the pain, but when they reach the ground he first wants to check on the tunnel and Donal Noye.

He waits as Pyp goes for Maester Aemon who has the key to the grates. They make their way through the narrow tunnel until they can see light on the other side, which Jon realizes is bad. Pyp observes that there is blood on the floor. The last twenty feet of the tunnel had been the scene of a bloodbath. The door had been torn from its hinges and a giant had crawled through, killing Donal and his four men. But Donal had stabbed the giant in the throat before dying. Jon recognizes the giant as "Mag the mighty. The king of the giants."

Jon squeezes through the carnage and finds a dead mammoth and three more dead giants. He returns to tell them that they need to block the tunnel with rubble and ice and anything else they can find. "Ser Wynton will need to take command, he's the last knight left, but he needs to move now, the giants will be back before we know it."

But Maester Aemon says that Ser Wynton is too old and senile to remember even this crucial advice. Jon must be in charge until the garrison returns.

"Donal chose you, and Qhorin Halfhand before him. Lord Commander Mormont made you his steward. You are a son of Winterfell, a nephew of Benjen Stark. It must be you or no one. The Wall is yours, Jon Snow."

Arya


The grief is so profound that it overshadows everything, even the lump on her head left by the flat of the Hound's axe. She wants to curl up and sleep through her depression, but he won't let her do it. When she does sleep, she dreams of wolves: "A great pack of wolves, with her at the head." But he continues to wake her and force her to take part in their travels. They have found another horse, that she has named Craven "because Sandor said she'd likely run off from the Twins the same as them."

He no longer keeps a close watch on her, though she still tells herself, "One night I'll kill him in his sleep," and could easily ride away on the new horse. But she has no place to go unless she can find her way back to Lady Smallwood's or rejoin Beric's outlaws. But she has decided "None of them wanted her around. They were never my pack, not even Hot Pie and Gendry. I was stupid to think so, just a stupid little girl, and no wolf at all."

She has asked Clegane where they are going, but he said only "Away."

She could feel the fury in him, she could see it in his face, the way his mouth would tighten and twist, the looks he gave her. Whenever he took his axe to chop some wood for a fire, he would slide into a cold rage, hacking savagely at the tree or the deadfall or the broken limb, until they had twenty times as much kindling and firewood as they'd needed.

One day they come across a survivor of the massacre of the northmen at the twins. He is feverish and dying of an infected wound in his shoulder. He asks for wine, but the Hound tells him, "I can give you water, and the gift of mercy." He accepts, and Arya brings him water in the Hound's helmet, and the Hound provides the mercy with his dagger, gently driving it through his heart. Arya asks if they will bury him, but the Hound says, "Leave him for the wolves and wild dogs. Your brothers and mine." On his body, Clegane finds some money and a dagger. He keeps the former and gives her the latter.

They reach the Mountains of the Moon, and turn eastward. He tells her, "You have an aunt in the Eyrie. Might be she'll want to ransom your scrawny arse, though the gods know why." But Arya wants to go back to the Twins, arguing that they don't know if her mother is dead and they should rescue her. The Hound refuses. When Arya falls asleep that night she dreams that she is with the wolf pack. They are feasting on the bodies of the dead at the Twins, and she picks up her mother's scent. Then she sees her: "something pale and white drifting down the river, turning where it brushed against a snag." She drags the body to the shore. "Rise, she thought. Rise and eat and run with us." But men arrive and she and the other wolves flee.

The next morning, Clegane says, "This thing about your mother...." But Arya answers, "I know she's dead. I saw her in a dream." He looks at her for a long time, then nods and they ride on. They find a village where they get food and shelter. But the villagers tell him that the way to the Eyrie is too dangerous. "If you don't freeze or starve, the shadowcats will get you, or the cave bears. There's the clans as well." The ones that went away to the war are back, and more fierce than ever.

The Hound decides that they should stay there, but the village elder tells him he can't. They will only be extra mouths to feed when winter sets in. And he has been recognized as "King Joffrey's dog," so they don't want him there to attract trouble. So they leave and turn south. He decides that they'll go to Riverrun. "Maybe the Blackfish wants to buy himself a she-wolf." But she doesn't really know her uncle, and "Every time she made for Riverrun, she ended up someplace worse."

She suggests they go to the Wall because her brother is there, but he argues that it's a thousand leagues away, and they would have to fight their way through "thousands of bloody buggering northmen." She responds, "Have you lost your belly for fighting?" He looks like he is going to hit her, but the rabbit they are roasting is done and he eats instead. "I don't give a rat's arse for you or your brother. I have a brother too."

22. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 722-754

Davos

Salladhor Saan has brought the news to Stannis:

"The Red Wedding, the smallfolk are calling it. They swear Lord Frey had the boy's head hacked off, sewed the head of his direwolf in its place, and nailed a crown about his ears. His lady mother was slain as well, and thrown naked in the river."

Davos is shocked at the violation of the code of hospitality: "At a wedding.... As he sat at his slayer's board, a guest beneath his roof. Those Freys are cursed." Ser Axell Florent and Queen Selyse piously invoke the name of R'hllor, but Stannis observes, "This sounds more like Walder Frey's handiwork than any god's."

Melisandre claims to have seen in her flames the rising of more kings to take the place of Balon Greyjoy and Robb Stark. "You must show the realm a sign," she urges. "A sign that proves your power!" But Stannis scoffs at the idea of his having any power at all: He has "thirteen hundred men on Dragonstone, another three hundred at Storm's End." The only fleet he has at hand belongs to Salladhor Saan, and he has no money to hire mercenaries.

But what he does have, the queen and Ser Axell remind him, is the bastard son of Robert Baratheon. Melisandre presses the point: "Give me the boy for R'hllor ... and the ancient prophecy shall be fulfilled. Your dragon shall awaken and spread his stony wings. The kingdom shall be yours." Davos holds his tongue as Ser Axell and the queen kneel before him, claiming that burning the boy will bring the stone dragon to life and even break the curse of barrenness that has made the queen unable to bear Stannis a son.

Stannis begins to waver when Melisandre says, "From his king's blood and his untainted fire, a dragon shall be born." He really would like to see a dragon. He remembers going with Robert to Aerys Targaryeon's court, where the dragon skulls were displayed. Stannis had been about four and Robert five or six, and they "agreed afterward that the king had been as noble as the dragons were fearsome." Later, however, their father told them that the man on the throne that day wasn't Aerys, who had cut himself on the protruding blades of the Iron Throne, "so his hand had taken his place. It was Tywin Lannister who'd so impressed us."

Still, he thinks about how impressed people would be if he could show them his dragon. Then Davos ventures forth to say, "I know little of dragons and less of gods ... but the queen spoke of curses. No man is as cursed as the kinslayer, in the eyes of gods and men." Melisandre protests that there are no gods apart from "R'hllor and the Other, whose name must not be spoken." Davos persists in asking her why she needs Edric Storm (he shrewdly repeats the name, knowing that as long as they think of him as a person they'll be more reluctant to kill him).

"Only death can pay for life, my lord," Melisandre replies. "A great gift requires a great sacrifice." The greatness resides in the king's blood in his veins, and she reminds him that the blood in the leeches that Stannis burned has already taken effect. But Davos says, "Robb Stark was murdered by Lord Walder of the Crossing, and we have heard that Balon Greyjoy fell from a bridge. Who did your leeches kill?" And Stannis points out that she's still short a king. Melisandre replies:

"To be sure, Your Grace. One king might die by chance, even two ... but three? If Joffrey should die in the midst of all his power, surrounded by his armies and his Kingsguard, would not that show the power of the Lord at work?"

"It might," Stannis agrees. "Or not," Davos adds, hoping he hasn't gone too far, and remembering the murderous shadow that Melisandre gave birth to.

Stannis dismisses them, but Davos stays behind to plead the case for sparing Edric Storm's life. But Stannis is torn between his need of Melisandre's help and his skepticism about her powers. The glowing sword she gave him, Lightbringer, didn't help him on the Blackwater, but he would really like a dragon. And he tells Davos he, too, has seen things in the flames: "a king, a crown of fire on his brows, burning ... burning, Davos. His own crown consumed the flesh and turned him into ash."

"If Joffrey should die ... what is the life of one bastard boy against a kingdom?" he asks. And Davos replies, "Everything." Stannis glares at him and sends him away, "before you talk yourself back into the dungeon."

Outside, Davos smells the sea and wishes he could sail away on it. He looks at the gargoyles and grotesques on the buildings, and the dragon figures carved everywhere. Even the buildings are designed in the shape of dragons. He wonders, "What if they were real dragons, somehow turned to stone?" He finds Salladhor Saan standing there, and asks if he's still angry with him for quashing Ser Axell's plan to invade Claw Isle. Salladhor says he has forgiven but not forgotten. He also says that he has heard that Davos is unpopular at court and is finding new friends elsewhere.

Davos has indeed been doing that, seeking out people who are not followers of Melisandre's religion and gaining their confidence. Salladhor tells him to be careful: "You are grown so very great now, yet the higher a man climbs the farther he has to fall." As he leaves Salladhor, Davos reflects on the truth in his statement. He is on his way to see Maester Pylos, who is teaching him to read, a skill that he is certain the king's Hand should have mastered. He arrives to find his own son, Devan, the Princess Shireen, and Edric Storm finishing up their lesson with Pylos. Edric has been reading about his father's battles, and recounts them with pride.

For his own lesson, Davos is reading from the letters that have been sent to the king. "His first duty was to help his king rule, and for that he must needs understand the words the ravens brought." There are no new letters, so Pylos gives him an old one. It turns out to be addressed to the "five kings," and to be about the attack by the King beyond the Wall and his wildlings. "We fear Mormont slain with all his strength," he reads, haltingly at first.

When he realizes what he's reading, he asks if Stannis has seen the letter. Pylos tells him that he took it to Lord Alester when he was still the Hand, but he declined to send a reply: "'His Grace lacks the men to fight his own battles, he has none to waste on wildlings,' he said to me." Davos remembers his own visit to the Wall at Eastwatch, and the wildlings he had met who, he tells Pylos, "seemed men like any other men, some fair, some foul." Burt something about the letter bothers him:

If Melisandre knew of this letter.... What was it she had said? One whose name may not be spoken is marshaling his power, Davos Seaworth. Soon comes the cold, and the night that never ends.... And Stannis had seen a vision in the flames, a ring of torches in the snow with terror all around.

Pylos notices his behavior and asks if he is ill. "I am frightened, Maester, he might have said." But instead he asks Pylos for another letter. This one, he tells the maester, is "Too ... troubling."

Jon

The smoke of burning Mole's Town is visible from Castle Black, so they have been alerted that Styr and his wildlings are approaching. Jon is still in pain from his leg, but Maester Aemon has given him a crutch. Donal Noye has taken charge of the preparations to defend the castle, which lies open to the south, and Jon is ready to do whatever he can.

His thoughts turn inevitably to Ygritte, but he has to force them down: "Ygritte, stay away. Go south and raid, go hide in one of those roundtowers you liked so well. You'll find nothing here but death."

They have mounted black-clad scarecrows everywhere: decoys to make the wildlings think their forces are ten times more numerous than they are. There are six on top of the King's Tower with Jon, as well as two living brothers-in-black, Deaf Dick Follard and a boy who had been raised in an Oldtown brothel whom they called Satin. The tower is next to the Wall at the foot of the wooden stairs that zigzag up its side.

Jon remembers his Uncle Benjen telling him that the reason Castle Black is undefended on its southern side is that the Night's Watch is pledged to be neutral in any internal disputes. Its sole task is to defend attacks from the north, which is what the Wall is for. But no one seems to have anticipated that the foes might cross the Wall and then attack from the south. "We are caught between the hammer and the anvil," Jon realizes. So the plan is to move all essentials to the top of the Wall and to concentrate on defending the gate. A rampart of barrels of nails, salted meat, timbers, bales of grain and of cloth and so on is built ten feet high around the entrance to the gate and the foot of the stairway up the side of the Wall.

Villagers from Mole's Town are either climbing the stairs or being hauled up by the lift to the top of the Wall. The garrison itself consists of "old men, cripples, and green boys," and some of them still don't trust Jon because of his time with Mance Rayder: "They still think me a turncloak. That was a bitter draft to drink, but Jon could not blame them. He was a bastard, after all. Everyone knew that bastards were wanton and treacherous by nature, having been born of lust and deceit." He also has some enemies he made earlier, such as Rast, whom he threatened with having his throat torn out by Ghost because he wouldn't stop tormenting Samwell Tarly.

In addition to members of the garrison, Donal Noye is also trying to whip some of the villagers into shape to defend the castle, outfitting them with weaponry and armor. The women and children have been given tasks carrying water and tending fires.

The day passes without an attack, but when night falls the horns blow, signaling the approach of the wildlings. He and Satin and Deaf Dick take their positions, bows and arrows at the ready. He sees dark shapes slipping around below, but waits until they are close enough for a sure shot. Their arrows begin to hit the mark as the moonlight makes the wildlings increasingly visible. They are close enough that Jon can recognize some of his former companions, but what he really wants is a good shot at Styr, the Magnar of Thenn.

The wildlings have set fire to the common hall, and then Deaf Dick call's Jon's attention to the roof of the armory, where two wildlings have climbed, one with a torch. Deaf Dick aims his crossbow but misses. And then he is struck by an arrow from below and plunges a hundred feet to the ground. Jon looks down at the body and sees, not ten feet from it, Ygritte. He raises his bow and aims, but can't bring himself to release the arrow.

The stables are on fire, and the movements of the wildlings through the buildings is clearly visible. Jon limps over to Satin and they go to the north parapet, looking down on the gate and the makeshift barricade. The Thenns are attacking the barricade, and are an easy target. Jon realizes that he is out of arrows, so he goes to fetch more. As he does so, the trap door to the roof opens. Jon reaches for Longclaw and kills the first man through the opening with a blow to the head. He calls for Satin, who kills the next man with an arrow. Then they fetch a kettle of boiling oil and pour it down on the Thenns below. Jon shuts the trap door and puts the kettle on top of it.

They go back to the parapet where the battle has begun to turn in favor of the wildlings. The citizens of Mole's Town begin to flee, and the brothers are outnumbered. The gate has been taken, and no one has fallen back into the tunnels to defend it. The Thenns begin to climb the stairs, and although Jon and Satin manage to kill a few, there are too many of them. The brothers defending the fourth landing are cut down and the archers on the fifth landing begin to retreat.


Jon tells Satin to fetch the torches, and as he is bringing them, Jon sees Styr on the barricade, calling to the half-dozen Thenns following him. A horn sounds from the ninth landing of the stair, where Donal Noye is standing. Jon lights a fire arrow from a torch and shoots it at "the casks and kegs and sacks" at the foot of the stairs. They are full of lard, oil, and combustible wood. Fire arrows are coming from above, setting the steps aflame. The wildlings have no way to go. And then the heat from the fire melts the ice on the side of the Wall, "and the whole lower third of the stair broke off, along with several tons of ice. That was the last that Jon Snow saw of Styr, the Magnar of Thenn."

Satin helps Jon, who is crippled by pain, down the tower steps, past the bodies on them. He walks through the destroyed buildings and past the bodies of wildlings, some of whom he recognizes. He finds Ygritte with an arrow in her chest, but he knows from the feathers that it wasn't one of his. Her eyes open when he kneels beside her. He tells her that Maester Aemon will treat her wound and give her something for the pain.

"You're not going to die, Ygritte," he assures her. "You're not." And she says, "You know nothing, Jon Snow."

3. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 93-141

Tyrion

Tyrion is entertaining Janos Slynt, plying the butcher's son-turned-knight with food and wine -- especially wine. And when Slynt addresses him as "Lord Tyrion," he reminds him, "I'm not a lord, as you are. A simple Tyrion will suffice for me, Lord Janos." He is ostensibly discussing whom to name as Slynt's successor as Commander of the City Watch. Slynt's candidate is Allar Deem, his "right arm." Tyrion says that he had been leaning more toward Ser Jacelyn Bywater, who isn't on Slynt's list of recommended candidates. Slynt objects that Bywater "thinks overmuch of himself and his honor." Tyrion observes, however, that Deem is unpopular because of an incident that took place in a brothel, in which he not only killed a baby but also the mother who has trying to protect the child. Slynt thinks this shows Deem's loyalty: "Doing for a babe, and her still on the tit, that takes a certain sort. Not every man'd do it. Even if it was only some whore and her whelp."

The phrase "only some whore" sticks with Tyrion, who thinks of Shae and of the woman he married years ago. But when he asks who commissioned the killing of the infant, Slynt gets wise to what Tyrion is trying to find out. "Never a question, and never a word afterward, not with me," Slynt replies. So Tyrion shifts tactics. Slynt will be a hard man to replace, he says to him, just as Jeor Mormont is going to have a hard time grooming a replacement for his job as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. "He'd sleep easier if he had a man like you, I imagine. Or the valiant Allar Deem."

Slynt doesn't quite follow, but he allows that there's a small chance that he would ever take a job like Mormont's. Tyrion persists: You never know what turns you'll take in life, just as Eddard Stark surely never imagined he'd wind up being beheaded "on the steps of Baelor's Sept." This amuses Slynt, especially when Tyrion adds, "A pity I wasn't here to see it. They say even Varys was surprised." It especially amuses Slynt to have outwitted Varys, the master of covert intelligence. Tyrion continues that Varys thought he had persuaded Cersei to grant a pardon on the condition that Eddard be allowed to join the Night's Watch.

Well, Slynt says, the decision was the king's.  Who is thirteen years old, Tyrion observes. But he's still the king, Slynt persists, "The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms." Tyrion replies, "Well, one or two of them, at least," and then asks to see the miniature spear, tipped in red, that fastens Slynt's cloak. When Slynt hands it over, Tyrion observes that the workmanship is inferior, and then asks, "Tell me, my lord, did you drive the spear into the man's back yourself, or did you only give the command."

Slynt objects: Eddard Stark was a traitor who had tried to buy his services in a revolt against King Joffrey. "Little dreaming that you had already been sold," Tyrion retorts. Slynt protests at having his honor questioned. Tyrion scoffs at the idea of Slynt's honor, and tosses the ornamental spear back at him. It falls to the floor as Slynt rises in protest, calling Tyrion "Imp" and then "dwarf."

"I am Tyrion of House Lannister, and someday, if you have the sense the gods gave a sea slug, you will drop to your knees in thanks that it was me you had to deal with, and not my lord father. Now, how many sons do you have?"

Slynt grows frightened. He has three sons and a daughter, and he begins to beg. Tyrion reassures him that no harm will come to his children, but that he won't be inheriting the castle at Harrenhal. He will sail in the morning to join the Night's Watch. Slynt recovers from his fear when he finds out he isn't going to be executed. "We shall hear what Joffrey has to say about this. And Littlefinger and the queen, oh, yes, Janos Slynt has a good many friends." He turns to leave, but when he opens the door he is met by Ser Jacelyn Bywater, whom Tyrion introduces as "our new Commander of the City Watch."

Ser Jacelyn tells Slynt that a litter is waiting to take him to the ship. As the guards take Slynt away, Tyrion hands Ser Jacelyn a list of six others who will accompany Slynt on the journey, and tells him that one of them is Allar Deem. "Tell the captain it would not be taken amiss if that one should happen to be swept overboard before they reach Eastwatch."

Before long, Varys appears and congratulates Tyrion on his coup. Tyrion is in no mood to enjoy what he has done. "I told them to throw Allar Deem into the sea. I am sorely tempted to do the same with you." It was Varys who had informed on Slynt, though he hadn't mentioned what Tyrion hs deduced: "It was my sister. That was what the oh-so-loyal Lord Janos refused to say. Cersei sent the gold cloaks to that brothel." The baby who was killed was Robert Baratheon's illegitimate daughter, and hence another bit of evidence that Robert is not Joffrey's father.  Varys claims that it was "a hard thing to tell a man, my lord. I was fearful how you might take it." But Tyrion regrets that he is unable to punish Cersei the way he has dealt with Slynt and Deem. Varys also tells him, "There was another bastard, a boy, older. I took steps to see him removed from harm's way ... but I confess, I never dreamed the babe would be at risk. A baseborn girl, less than a year old, with a whore for a mother. What threat could she pose?" (Thus Varys lays claim to Gendry's escape.)

Tyrion is preoccupied with the thought of the fate of the infant's mother, who reminds him of Shae, now housed in opulence. But he comments that at least Cersei seems not to have been responsible for Eddard Stark's death. "We have my nephew to thank for that madness." Yes, Varys says, Joffrey gave the command and Slynt and Ser Ilyn Payne carried it out. "...almost as if they had expected it," Tyrion concludes.

Then Varys brings up his riddle. Tyrion admits he has thought about it: "The king, the priest, the rich man -- who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey?" It is a question of power, and Varys presents the solution: "Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less." So it depends on whether the swordsman believes the power resides in the law (the king), the gods (the priest) or wealth (the rich man).  Power is "'A shadow on the wall,' Varys murmured, 'yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.'" Tyrion says he is "growing strangely fond" of Varys. "I may kill you yet, but I think I'd feel sad about it." Then he asks the eunuch, "Who cut you, Varys? When and why? Who are you, truly?" But Varys postpones the answer for another time.

They discuss a variety of other matters of treason and misconduct before Varys takes his leave. On the way out he meets Bronn, and tells him of Slynt's fate. "Varys would have me believe that I have replaced one of Joffrey's men with one of my own. More likely, I have replaced Littlefinger's man with one belonging to Varys, but so be it." Then he asks Bronn if he commanded him to kill and infant at her mother's breast, would he do it. "'Without question? No.' The sellsword rubbed thumb and forefinger together. 'I'd ask how much.'" Tyrion "wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep; most of all, he wanted Shae."

Arya

Yoren and the recruits have been forced to take back roads to avoid not only the gold coats pursuing Gendry but also the crowds streaming southward. Their pace has consequently slowed. As a consequence of the revelation that the queen wants Gendry's head, he has become a celebrity among the boys, and one night Lommy says, "I bet he's that traitor's bastard," which incenses Arya, who has to leave the group to keep from saying too much.

Yoren tells them that they are nearing Gods Eye, which means they're getting close to the Trident. Until then, they will have to continue to avoid the kingsroad. Unfortunately, the slow pace means that they have consumed most of the food they brought with them, and now have to forage. Arya manages to kill a rabbit with her wooden sword, which goes into a stew.

They detour around a camp of armed men, and they encounter farmers who have taken to patrolling their fields to prevent raiders and scavengers. One evening the sun seems to set in the north, but they realize that it's the light from a burning village. The next day they find its ruins and the bodies of people who have been impaled on stakes and burned alive. Gendry has taken to wearing the helmet he made when he was apprenticed to the armorer.

Because of the lack of food, Arya begins drinking water to fill her stomach, and one night she wakes needing to urinate urgently. She slips away from the camp into the forest, but as she's urinating she sees a pair of glowing eyes. A wolf comes out from the trees and bares his teeth at her, but then he turns and runs back into the forest. She returns to the camp and tells Yoren there are wolves in the woods. He tells her to go back to sleep, but as she lies there she hears the wolves howling, "and another sound, fainter, no more than a whisper on the wind, that might have been screams."

Davos

Melisandre has ordered the burning of the seven gods: the Maid, the Mother, the Warrior, the Smith, the Crone, the Father, and the Stranger. Davos watches as the figures burn, and hushes his sons Allard and Dale when they quietly voice their protest. "Dragonstone's sept had been were Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night before he sailed," but Queen Selyse has supported Melisandre in her desire to destroy the building and smash its stained-glass windows. Davos has never been religious, "though like most men he had been known to make offerings to the Warrior before battle, to the Smith when he launched a ship, and to the Mother whenever his wife grew great with child. He felt ill as he watched them burn, and not only from the smoke." He had seen Maester Cressen slip something into the cup he drank from with Melisandre, so he knows about the attempt to poison her that ended in Cressen's death. He thinks that Cressen would have opposed the burning.

But Davos still owes his loyalty to Stannis, who made him a lord "for the price of a few finger joints," the bones of which he wears in a little pouch around his neck. He watches as Melisandre invokes her god R'hallor, and as Stannis, wearing a protective leather cloak, enters the flames to take the sword away from the effigy of the Mother. Melisandre proclaims it "Lightbringer," and treats it as a sign. Stannis sticks the sword into the ground and beats out the flames that have caught onto his clothing. "The Red Sword of Heroes looks a proper mess, thought Davos."

The port of Dragonstone is full of ships and sailors, and after the fire has died down and the crowd disperses, Davos heads for an inn for a drink. For luck, he pats the weathered head of a gargoyle that sits outside the inn and enters, where he meets Salladhor Saan. "The Lyseni was a smuggler himself, as well as a trader, a banker, a notorious pirate, and the self-styled Prince of the Narrow Sea." Davos had recruited him to serve in Stannis's navy. Saan says he didn't go to watch the burning of the gods because the red priests are always burning things in Lys and he's bored with their fires.

Saan has heard the news from King's Landing that Tyrion has replaced Janos Slynt as head of the gold cloaks. He thinks the city is poorly defended. "A swift strike, like a hawk plummeting at a hare, and the great city will be ours. Grand us wind to fill our sails, and your king could sit upon his Iron Throne by evenfall on the morrow." Davos assures Saan that Stannis will make good his promises to pay him and the other hired seamen handsomely when that occurs.

Saan has also heard that Stannis's brother, Renly, is marching toward the city "with his fair young queen, his flowered lords and shining knights, and a mighty host of foot." Davos is surprised to hear that Renly is taking his wife with him. Saan tells Davos that he has already informed Stannis of that fact. But Saan scoffs at the notion that the sword Stannis pulled from the fire was Lightbringer, the burning sword of prophesy, and tells Davos the legend of the forging of Lightbringer, in which it was tempered in the blood of the hero Azor Ahai's wife. "Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes."

After Saan leaves, Davos remembers being in King's Landing with Stannis a year ago when Thoros of Myr, the red priest, waved a burning sword about in the melee, but "in the end his fire had guttered out and Bronze Yohn Royce had brained him with a common mace." And he thinks of his wife Marya and tries to imagine stabbing her with a sword to forge it. "If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay." On the way out of the inn he pats the gargoyle again for luck.

Davos is summoned to meet with Stannis, and on the way he talks with Ser Axell Florent, who is the leader of the queen's men. He tells Davos that when he watched the "false gods" burning he saw in the flames "a dozen beautiful dancers, maidens garbed in yellow silk spinning and swirling before a great king." He takes it as a prophecy of "the glory that awaits His Grace after we take King's Landing." Davos, knowing that dancing girls are not to the dour and puritanical Stannis's taste, tells him he saw only fire.

Davos finds Stannis in conference with Maester Pylos, who has been drafting a letter asserting his claim to the Iron Throne on the grounds that Joffrey is not Robert's son but the product of the incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime. Stannis suggests a few corrections and then tells Davos that he plans to send one hundred seventeen ravens, each with a copy of the letter, throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and that he wants Davos to sail north, and his son Dale to sail south, carrying copies "to every port and holdfast and fishing village. Nail them to the doors of septs and inns for every man to read who can." Pylos points out that that won't be very man, and suggests they be read aloud. So Stannis says he can spare a hundred knights to read them. He also wants Allard to sail "across the narrow sea, to Braavos and the other Free Cities" and deliver the letters there. "The world will know of my claim, and of Cersei's infamy."

After Pylos leaves, Davos points out that Stannis has no proof of Cersei's incest with Jaime. But Stannis says that Robert left a bastard, Edric Storm, at Storm's End. "He is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder, I would think." Davos points out that he's at Storm's End, not at Dragonstone or King's Landing, and Stannis admits that's "a difficulty. One of many."

Davos points out another difficulty: The letter has a phrase at the end that refers to Melisandre's new god. He thinks it might be revised to "the gods old and new.... Your people will not love you if you take from them the gods they have always worshiped, and give them one whose very name sounds queer on their tongues." Stannis says he stopped believing in gods when his mother and father died. "I know little and care less of gods, but the red priestess has power."

Theon

Theon is returning to Pyke, his home, after ten years as Eddard Stark's ward, a hostage after the defeat of his father by Robert Baratheon. He is carrying a letter from Robb Stark to his father. On the way, Theon has seduced the daughter of the captain of the ship, the Myraham. Theon is full of high expectations for the plan he has hatched.

He is met when the ship lands by his Uncle Aeron, who is a priest with a grim and chilly manner. This surprises Theon, who remembers Aeron Greyjoy as "the most amiable of his uncles, feckless and quick to laugh, fond of songs, ale, and women." Instead, Aeron makes him bow and then anoints him with seawater. He asks Aeron if his sister and mother will be at Pyke, and Aeron tells him his mother lives on Harlaw, another island, with her sister, and that his sister, Asha, has gone to Great Wyk to deliver messages from their father.

Other than describing his conversion -- "the sea washed my follies and my vanities away" -- Aeron is close-mouthed. When Aeron won't answer his questions, Theon reminds him that he is "heir to Pyke and the Iron Islands," but Aeron responds, "As to that, ... we shall see." Theon angrily protests that his brothers are dead. "Your sister lives," Aeron says. Asha is three years older than Theon, who is twenty. He protests that a woman can't inherit unless there is no male heir and warns Aeron that he won't be cheated out of his rightful inheritance. But Aeron tells him to be silent, "And you are a great fool if you believe your lord father will ever hand these holy islands over to a Stark."

Theon broods on this. "As if ten years in Winterfell could make a Stark." He had not been treated as an equal there. "Even the bastard Jon Snow had been accorded more honor than he had." He seethes with resentment, and realizes that the old grudges against Eddard Stark were still alive. He reminds Aeron that Robb Stark is Lord of Winterfell, but his uncle says, "One wolf is much like the other." Theon says that the red comet heralds a new age, and Aeron replies, "It is the flame the Drowned God brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide. It is time to hoist our sails and go forth into the world with fire and sword, as he did."

When they reach Pyke, Aeron leaves. An old woman tells him that his father is waiting for him in the Sea Tower after he rests from his trip. She shows him to "a suite of chilly rooms ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom." It is the Bloody Keep, where enemies had been hacked to pieces a thousand years ago. The furnishings in the rooms are mildewed and musty. "The damp went bone deep." He orders hot water, but it's tepid seawater." He dresses in his best clothes and makes his way to his father.

Balon Greyjoy is "Bone thin and bone hard," and when Theon refers to himself as "Your  blood and your heir," Balon grunts, "We shall see." When he sees Theon's clothes, he asks, "Did Ned Stark dress you like that? ... Was it his pleasure to garb you in velvets and silks and make you his own sweet daughter?" He observes the gold chain around Theon's neck and asks "was it bought with gold or iron?" Theon remembers, "In the Old Way, women might decorate themselves with ornaments bought with coin, but a warrior wore only the jewelry he took off the corpses of enemies slain by his own hand. Paying the iron price, it was called." When he admits it was paid for, his father yanks it from his neck. "'My daughter has taken an axe for a lover,' Lord Balon said. 'I will not have my son bedeck himself like a whore.'"

He gives Balon the letter from Robb. It outlines the plan of attack and proposes to restore the crown the Greyjoys had lost in their rebellion if they aid in the conquest of the Lannisters. "I will lead the attack myself, if it please you," Theon says. As my reward I would ask that you grant me Casterly Rock for my own seat, once we have taken it from the Lannisters."

Balon takes the letter and tosses it on the fire in the brazier, where he has already thrown Theon's gold chain. "The boy will give me a crown. And what is given can be taken away." Theon protests, and his father backhands him. "I am the Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, King of Salt and rock, Son of the Sea Wind, and no man gives me a crown. I pay the iron price. I will take my crown, as Urron Redhand did five thousand years ago."

"I mean to carve out a kingdom with fire and sword ... but not from the west, and not at the bidding of King Robb the Boy. Casterly Rock is too strong, and Lord Tywin too cunning by half. Aye, we might take Lannisport, but we should never keep it. No. I hunger for a different plum ... not so juicy sweet, to be sure, yet it hangs there ripe and undefended."

1. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 1-51

Prologue

A big red comet in the sky is freaking everyone out. Even Maester Cressen, who is Stannis Baratheon's maester on Dragonstone. Cressen knows it's a perfectly common astronomical phenomenon, but he can't help feeling uneasy because everyone seems to think it's an omen of some sort. And now a message from the Citadel has been delivered by a white raven announcing the end of summer.

As he's worrying about these things, Pylos, a young man who will replace the octogenarian Cressen as maester some day, enters to announce that Lady Shireen, Stannis's daughter, has come to see the white raven. She is accompanied by her fool, Patchface, who has on "a mock helm fashioned from an old tin bucket, with a rack of deer antlers strapped to the crown and hung with cowbells." Shireen, who is ten, is a homely girl disfigured by a skin disorder called "greyscale," that has left patches of mottled dead skin on one cheek and down her neck.

Shireen is troubled by the comet because she has heard that it is "dragonsbreath. If the dragons are breathing, doesn't that mean they are coming to life?" He assures her that the comet is just "A star with a tail, lost in the heavens," and that it will be gone soon. But when she asks about the white raven, he tells her that it is indeed a sign that summer is ending -- "Ten years, two turns, and sixteen days it lasted, the longest summer in living memory." They should hope for a good autumn harvest so they can stock up for the winter.

Pylos enters with the bird, "white as snow and larger than any hawk, with the bright black eyes that meant it was no mere albino, but a truebred white raven of the Citadel." Patchface begins to sing a song, "The shadows come to dance, my lord, dance my lord, dance my lord.... The shadows come to stay, my lord, stay my lord, stay my lord." Shireen asks Cressen to make the fool stop singing the song, which he does all the time. "It makes me scared." But Cressen is unable to do that.

He reflects on Patchface's arrival on Dragonstone. He had survived a shipwreck that had drowned Lord Steffon Baratheon and his wife, the parents of Robert, Stannis, and Renly Baratheon. Steffon had written to say that they had found a wonderfully amusing fool that they were bringing with them, but when Patchface washed ashore two days after the shipwreck he "was someone else, broken in body and mind, hardly capable of speech, much less of wit." He was identifiable as the fool Steffon had written about only because of the tattoo that covered his face, "patterned in squares of red and green motley."

Pylos returns now to tell Cressen that Ser Davos has arrived and is meeting with Stannis -- "the king," Pylos calls him, because Stannis has laid claim to the throne once held by his brother Robert. Cressen is surprised that no one has told him, so he excuses himself and makes his way to the meeting. As he makes his way up the many steps, he stops to catch his breath and meets Ser Davos Seaworth on his way down.  "Before Lord Stannis had knighted him, he had been the most notorious and elusive smuggler in all the seven kingdoms. He is known as "Shorthand" and "the Onion Knight." Davos was knighted for his part in breaking the siege of Storm's End, the castle that Stannis had defended for almost a year. The smuggler had arrived with a cargo of onions and salt fish, which kept the inhabitants of the castle alive until Eddard Stark and his army could end the siege. But though Davos was knighted, Stannis also punished him for his career as a smuggler by lopping off the final joints of every finger except the thumb on Davos's left hand. Davos "took for his banner a black ship on a pale grey field -- with an onion on its sails.

Davos has been on a mission to raise support for Stannis's claim to the throne, but he hasn't succeeded. He also brings news of those who have joined in support of Renly Baratheon's rival claim to the throne. Renly has created his own Kingsguard, who traditionally wear white; but Renly has had his seven men each take a different color and calls it "the Rainbow Guard." Cressen reflects that "It was just the sort of notion that would appeal to Renly Baratheon," who "Even as a boy ... had loved bright colors and rich fabrics."

Davos tells Cressen that he has advised Stannis not to march on King's Landing with the meager force he has assembled, but adds, "My fingers will grow back before that man bends to sense." Cressen agrees, and ascends the stairs to second Davos's advice. Stannis, however, is in no mood to hear Cressen's advice. He is brooding over the injustices done to him by his brother Robert, because he made Stannis Lord of Dragonstone and gave their younger brother, Renly, Storm's End, which "belonged to House Baratheon for three hundred years; by rights it should have passed to me when Robert took the Iron Throne." Cressen suggests that Robert wanted someone older and wiser than Renly to rule Dragonstone, which had been the seat of the Targaryens whom Robert dethroned. This doesn't mollify Stannis one bit.

Cressen suggests that rather than turning his anger against Renly, he should try to make an alliance with him against the Lannisters, who are the real power behind the throne now held by Joffrey, Robert Baratheon's son. Stannis stubbornly refuses to have any dealings with Renly as long as his brother calls himself a king. So Cressen tries another tack: an alliance with Robb Stark, who has "all the power of Winterfell and Riverrun behind him." But Stannis dismisses Robb as "A green boy ... and another false king." Nor is he persuaded by the idea of helping Robb avenge his father's murder. He is filled with spite because Robert preferred Eddard Stark over him when he named a successor to Jon Arryn as Hand. Cressen tries again: What about an alliance with Lady Arryn by betrothing Shireen to her son? Even though Jon Arryn's heir "is weak and sickly," Stannis finally thinks this might be worth a try.

Unfortunately, Lady Selyse, Stannis's wife, who enters at the moment, doesn't think much of the idea. All of these people -- Lady Arryn, Renly, the Starks -- owe Stannis allegiance, she argues. "It would not be fitting to plead and bargain with them for what is rightfully yours by the grace of god." Cressen observes that she said "god," not "gods." For Lady Selyse belongs to a new monotheistic religion.

There is no love between Stannis and Selyse: "he did his duty in the marriage bed once or twice a year, but took no joy in it, and the sons he had once hoped for had never come." But she promises the support of her family, House Florent. Stannis is dubious about this. And then she proclaims that her god, "the Lord of Light," will bless his cause, and points to the comet as a sign, "blazoned on the sky. Red it is, the red of flame, red for the fiery heart of the true god." She assures him that if Renly were out of the way, he would have the support of the troops of Storm's End. Cressen is alarmed at what she is proposing: "Fratricide ... my lord, this is evil, unthinkable ... please, listen to me." But she tells Stannis, "Melisandre has gazed into the flame and seen [Renly] dead."

Stunned, Cressen returns to his chambers and reflects on the power of this Melisandre, "The red woman, the servants had named her, afraid to speak her name." She was "sorceress, shadowbinder, and priestess to R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow." He renews his determination that her "madness must not be allowed to spread beyond Dragonstone." So he finds his supply of a poison, "made from a certain plant that grew only on the islands of the Jade Sea, half a world away." It causes the muscles of the throat to constrict, choking the victim to death. That night, Melisandre would be feasting with Stannis and his followers.

So Cressen goes to the feast, which is anything but festive: "there was no loud laughter, no raucous shouting such as marred the dignity of other men's feastrs; Lord Stannis did not permit such." But as Cressen enters, Patchface collides with him, knocking him to the floor. Someone helps Cressen stand, and he is surprised to find that it is Melisandre.

As ever, she wore red head to heel, a long loose gown of flowing silk as bright as fire, with dagged sleeves and deep slashes in the bodice that showed glimpses of a darker bloodred fabric beneath. Around her throat was a red gold choker tighter than any maester's chain, ornamented with a single great ruby. Her hair was not the orange or strawberry color of common red-haired men but a deep burnished copper that shone in the light of the torches. Even her eyes were red ... but her skin was smooth and white, unblemished, pale as cream.... Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red, and terrible, and red.

She picks up Patchface's helmet from where it has fallen and puts it on his head. People laugh at him, but he summons his dignity and gives the bucket back to Patchface. Then he discovers that Pylos has taken his usual place at the table. Pylos blushes and tells him that Stannis had sent for him instead, saying that Cressen needed to rest. Stannis speaks up and tells him that Pylos will be his counselor from now on: "You are too ill and too confused to be of use to me, old man."

Ser Davos rises and offers Cressen a place beside him at the table, and Stannis agrees, then turns his attention to Melisandre, sitting by him. Cressen realizes that she is too far away for him to slip the poison into her drink. Davos tells Cressen, "The red woman has seen victory in her flames, so Stannis means to press his claim. Before she's done we're all like to see what Patchface saw, I fear -- the bottom of the sea." Cressen is determined to get Stannis's attention, so he calls out, "Lord Stannis." But Lady Selyse corrects him: "King Stannis. You forget yourself, Maester." But Stannis asks what he wants. Cressen again urges him to make an alliance with Robb Stark and Lady Arryn, but Stannis cuts him off. Lady Selyse says that Stannis has an ally: "R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow."

"'Gods make uncertain allies at best,' the old man insisted, 'and that one has no power here.'" Melisandre and Selyse react sharply to this blasphemy: "If you will speak such folly, Maester, you ought to wear your crown again," Melisandre says, and Selyse commands him to put on Patchface's helmet again. Stannis commands Patchface to hand it over. "The maester sat silent while the fool put the antlered bucket on his brow." Then he sees Davos's half-full cup of wine and slips a bit of the poison in it. He proposes that Melisandre share the cup with him, and she accepts.

Melisandre takes the cup and drinks from it until there was only "half a swallow" remaining in it. Cressen finishes the wine, and Melisandre says, "He does have power here, my lord.... And fire cleanses." Cressen begins to choke. "As he sank to his knees, still he shook his head, denying her, denying her power, denying her magic, denying her god."

Arya 

Yoren has cut Arya's hair until "her scalp was nothing but tufts and stubble." He tells her that from now until they get to Winterfell, her name is Arry and she's a boy. He warns her that she'll be traveling with "bad company" -- thirty boys and men bound for the Wall. "Lord Eddard gave me pick o' the dungeons, and I didn't find no little lordlings down there." He advises her to pee in the woods. "That'll be the hardest part, the pissing, so don't drink no more'n you need."

The disguise helps her get out of the city. The guards at the gate "were looking for a highborn girl, daughter of the King's Hand, not for a skinny boy with his hair chopped off." But from Arya's point of view, the hardest part was not the pissing but the threats she gets from Lommy Greenhands and Hot Pie, orphaned street boys that Yoren has recruited with promises of food. The others came from the dungeons, and the worst are three that Yoren keeps in shackles. She is the smallest and skinniest of the lot, so Lommy and Hot Pie decide to bully her, and when they see Needle they are determined to take it away from her.

Arya has a defender in a boy with "shaggy black hair" whom Lommy calls "the Bull, on account of this horned helm he had that he polished all the time but never wore. Lommy didn't dare mock the Bull. He was older, and big for his age, with a broad chest and strong-looking arms." But Arya has her wooden practice sword with her, too, and when Lommy and Hot Pie start to make their attempt to take Needle away from her, she decks Hot Pie, then turns on Lommy. The Bull gives her a warning that Hot Pie is behind her with a large rock, so she turns on him again. "By the time Yoren pulled her off him, Hot Pie was sprawled out on the ground with his breeches brown and smelly, crying as Arya whapped him over and over and over."

Yoren drags Arya off into a thicket where the others can't see her and has her pull down her breeches. He "laid the wood against the back of her bare thighs" as she screams. Then more quietly he tells her how he happened to be there to rescue her when her father was executed:

"It wasn't supposed to happen like it did. I was set to leave, wagons bought and loaded, and a man comes with a boy for me, and a purse of coin, and a message, never mind who it's from. Lord Eddard's to take the black, he says to me, wait, he'll be going with you. Why d'you think I was there? Only something went queer." 

It was Joffrey, she says to him. "Someone should kill him!" Yoren replies, "Someone will, but it won't be me, nor you neither." He gives her some sourleaf to chew to ease the pain, but for several days she is too sore to ride a donkey. Hot Pie is in worse shape and has to ride in the back of a wagon. Lommy wasn't hurt, but he keeps his distance from Arya. "When at last she slept, she dreamed of home. The kingsroad wound its way past Winterfell on its way to the Wall, and Yoren had promised he'd leave her there with no one any wiser about who she'd been."

Sansa

Joffrey, who is turning thirteen, is celebrating his name day with a tournament. Sansa is wearing a gown with long sleeves to cover the bruises left there when Joffrey had been told that Robb had been proclaimed King of the North. He sent Ser Boros to beat her. Joffrey uses five of his six guards to do the beatings; only Sandor Clegane, the Hound, is never called on for that task.

The tourney is a shabby affair compared to the one Robert had staged in honor of Sansa's father. She learns from Ser Arys, who is one of the kinder guards, that Cersei will not be there because she's meeting with the council. "Sansa always felt safer when Cersei was there to restrain her son." She remains on her guard with Joffrey, who tells her the latest news: that Viserys Targaryen is been killed by having molten gold poured over his head. "It's almost as good as if some wolf killed your traitor brother. Maybe I'll feed him to the wolves after I've caught him."

The jousts are not very impressive. In the second one, Ser Balon Swann goes against Morros of House Slynt, the son of Janos Slynt, the former head of the City Watch who had been made a knight for his help in getting Joffrey the throne. Sansa hopes that Morros will be killed: "When Joffrey proclaimed her father's deth, it had been Janos Slynt who seized Lord Eddard's severed head by the hair and raised it high for king and crowd to behold, while Sansa wept and screamed." But Morros only makes a fool of himself by getting his foot caught in the stirrup and being dragged along by his horse.

Sansa notes with anxiety that Joffrey is getting bored. "When Joffrey Baratheon's mood darkened, any chance word might set off one of his rages." And in the next match, one of the combatants is so drunk that he appears at the lists chasing his horse. He is wearing only his breastplate and helmet. "His legs were pale and skinny, and his manhood flopped about obscenely as he chased after his horse." Then he gives up and sits down. "'I lose,' he shouted. 'Fetch me some wine.'"

Joffrey stands up and orders a cask of wine brought from the cellars. "I'll see him drowned in it." Shocked, Sansa says, "No, you can't." Which causes Joffrey to turn to her and demand, "Did you say I can't? Did you?" But Sansa quickly improvises that it would be bad luck for Joffrey to kill someone on his name day. This doesn't persuade Joffrey, who threatens, "I ought to drown you with him, if you care for him so much." But the Hound comes to Sansa's rescue: "The girl speaks truly.... What a man sows on his name day, he reaps throughout the year." So Joffrey says, "I'll have him killed on the morrow, the fool." Which Sansa seizes on to suggest that he ought to make him into a fool. "He doesn't deserve the mercy of a quick death." Joffrey likes the idea and tells the man, "From this day on, you're my new fool. You can sleep with Moon Boy and dress in motley."

Joffrey then cancels the rest of the tilts, but his little brother, Tommen, who was supposed to ride against a straw man, protests. And his sister, Myrcella, says that their mother, the queen, had agreed that he could do it. Joffrey gives in and lets Tommen, who is eight, ride his pony against "a child-sized leather warrior stuffed with straw and mounted on a pivot, with a shield in one hand and a padded mace in the other." Tommen hits the quintain, but it spins around and the mace knocks him off his pony. Joffrey laughs louder than anyone, but Sansa, "possessed of a queer giddy courage," urges him to go see about his brother.

But before Tommen can ride again, the gates open to admit a column of riders, in the midst of which is Tyrion Lannister. Tommen and his sister run to greet their uncle, who advances to Joffrey and kneels. Then he turns to Sansa and says, "My lady, I am sorry for your losses. Truly, the gods are cruel." Sansa is puzzled and wonders if he's mocking her. Then he tells Joffrey he's sorry for his loss too. Joffrey asks, "What loss?" Tyrion replies, "Your royal father? A large fierce man with a black beard; you'll recall him if you try. He was king before you." In the awkward moment that follows, Sansa tells Tyrion, "I'm sorry my lady mother took you captive, my lord." Tyrion says, "A great many people are sorry for that, ... and before I am done, some may be a deal sorrier."

Tyrion asks where he might find Joffrey's mother, and Joffrey directs him to the council, telling him that Jaime has been captured and Sansa's "stupid brother is calling himself a king." Tyrion replies, "All sorts of people are calling themselves king these days." Joffrey leaves Sansa with Tyrion, who looks at her and asks, "Is it grief for your lord father that makes you so sad?" Sansa gives out her reflexive answer: Her father was a traitor. Her brother and her mother are traitors. "I am loyal to my beloved Joffrey." Tyrion isn't buying it for a moment: "No doubt. As loyal as a deer surrounded by wolves." Sansa whispers, "Lions," then looks about uneasily. Tyrion takes her hand: "I am only a little lion, child, and I vow, I shall not savage you." Then he takes his leave.

Sansa is surprised at his gentleness, but recalls that Joffrey and the queen had once been gentle to her. "They had repaid that love and trust with her father's head. Sansa would never make that mistake again."

Tyrion

Ser Mandon Moore, the member of the Kingsguard, is unwilling to admit Tyrion to the council chamber. Tyrion introduces him to his own guards, Timett son of Timett of the Burned Men, and Bronn. Tyrion shows him the letter from Lord Tywin and Ser Mandon admits Tyrion, but not his guards. 

When he enters, Cersei says the same thing Joffrey had said on seeing Tyrion: "You." Her tone is "equal parts disbelief and distaste." He presents her the letter from their father, which she reads and pronounces "absurd": Tywin has appointed Tyrion Hand of the King until Tywin himself can assume the duties. Cersei protests, "I ask for an army and my father sends me a dwarf. The king names the Hand, with the consent of council." She insists that Tywin can't name his own replacement without Joffrey's consent.

Tyrion asks the councilors to leave him alone with his sister, and they depart after an exchange of ironic courtesies between Tyrion and Littlefinger, whom Tyrion has not forgiven for the incident involving the dagger that Littlefinger claimed was Tyrion's. When they are alone, Cersei threatens to proclaim the letter a forgery and send Tyrion to the dungeon. Tyrion, realizing that he needs to handle his sister with care, points out that this might upset "our father. The one with the army." He realizes that her chief aim is to get Jaime freed, and suggests that they might use the Stark girls as bargaining chips. Then he learns that Sansa is the only one of the girls they hold, and that Arya has escaped. "Likely she's dead," Cersei says. "A great many people died that day."

Then Tyrion asks about the members of the council. "Father seems to have taken a dislike to them," he says, and thinks they're not advising her well. "He knows that your son's short reign has been a long parade of follies and disasters. That suggests that someone is giving Joffrey some very bad counsel." She admits that beheading Eddard Stark was a great blunder. The plan was to allow Ned to take the black, which might have allowed them to make peace with the Starks, "but Joff took it upon himself to give the mob a better show. What was I to do? He called for Lord Eddard's head in front of half the city. And Janos Slynt and Ser Ilyn went ahead blithely and shortened the man without a word from me!"

It was Sansa, she tells Tyrion, who revealed to her that Eddard "was plotting with Renly and he'd written to Lord Stannis, offering him the throne." This surprises Tyrion: "Sansa had always seemed such a sweet child, tender and courteous." Cersei explains that Sansa was "wet with love" for Joffrey -- until he cut her father's head off. Tyrion also asks about the dismissal of Ser Barristan Selmy from the Kingsguard. It was Varys, she says, who suggested to Joffrey that Barristan be made a scapegoat for Robert's death, so he had a position to use as a reward. But Tyrion points out that Barristan escaped and that he's a popular hero: "What do you imagine they'll think when they see Barristan the Bold riding beside Robb Stark or Stannis Baratheon?" Cersei admits she hadn't thought of that.

In the end, Cersei agrees to accept Tyrion as Hand, as long as he keeps her informed of his plans and does nothing without her consent. Tyrion agrees, though he's lying. And then he confronts her with what he knows: that she was sleeping with Jaime. She slaps him. He asks why, if she can sleep with one brother, why not the other. She slaps him. And he says he's joking: "I never understood what Jaime saw in you, apart from his own reflection. She slaps him. He warns her that if she keeps slapping him he might get angry, and he has some new friends that she might not like. He also learns from her that Robert was given especially potent wine to drink on the hunt. "The boar did the rest."

He takes his leave with a "parting request. Kindly make certain no harm comes to Sansa Stark. It would not do to lose both the daughters." As he leaves the castle, accompanied by Lannister guardsmen, he sees the heads mounted on the walls. He tells the captain of the guard that he wants them taken down. The captain replies that Joffrey has ordered that they remain there until the three empty spikes hold the heads of Robb Stark, Stannis and Renly Baratheon. Tyrion replies that Joffrey is thirteen years old, and says if they're not taken down tomorrow, "one of those spikes may have a different lodger." The captain gets the point and promises they'll be down tomorrow.

He notices the filthy and dangerous streets as they ride through the city, and the empty stores, and the vendor selling roasted rats. They reach the Broken Anvil inn, and he tells the guard to leave him there. Inside, he finds Chella daughter of Cheyk with Shae, accompanied by a plump man whom Tyrion doesn't recognize until he turns around. He is surprised to see that it's Varys. Chella has been showing Varys her necklace made of "no less than forty-six dried, wrinkled ears." He realizes that Varys is delivering a message: He has been able to find Shae. Tyrion wonders who has betrayed him.

Before he leaves, Varys gives Tyrion a riddle, but doesn't wait for an answer:

"In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. 'Do it,' says the king, 'for I am you lawful ruler.' 'Do it,' says the priest, 'for I command you in the name of the gods.' 'Do it,' says the rich man, 'and all this gold shall be yours.' So tell me -- who lives and who dies?"

Tyrion goes upstairs with Shae who tells him he will miss her in his room in the Tower of the Hand. Tywin had ordered, "You will not take the whore to court," and Tyrion had defied him as much as he dared by bringing her to the city. After they make love, he has to remind herself that she's a whore, that she loves his money. She asks him what he will do as Hand of the King. He replies that it will be something Cersei doesn't expect: "I'll do ... justice."