34. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 887-913

The Dragontamer

While Barristan is attempting his overthrow of Hizdahr, Quentyn Martell is working on something even more risky. Unable to sleep, he pours himself a cup of wine and lights a candle. And then he holds his hand in the candle flame. When he withdraws it with a yelp, Gerris Drinkwater appears, astonished at what the prince is up to. He suggests finding a whore might be a more pleasant solution to Quentyn's restlessness.

But Quentyn's mind is on Daenerys and his determination to marry her even though, as Drinkwater reminds him, she is already married. Drinkwater tries to discourage him from further pursuit of the queen, but Quentyn has his mind made up: He believes that she is still alive, and thinks he knows the way to find her. He wants to take one of the remaining dragons and ride out on it in search of her.

Drinkwater protests this mad idea, but Quentyn is adamant: "You have my leave to go. Find a ship and run home, Gerris." But when the hour of the wolf arrives, the three Dornishmen are preparing to attempt this plan. Archibald Yronwood frets that the dragons won't like the rain, and Gerris is gloomy, but Quentyn will not be denied. They put on their disguises: The outfits of the Brazen Beasts, a bull, a lion, and an ape. Yronwood chooses the bull, Quentyn naturally picks the lion, and Gerris is stuck with the ape. The Tattered Prince has helped them obtain the costumes, as well as the Beasts' password: dog.

The main gates are guarded by Brazen Beasts with the masks of a rat and a fox, but they yield their posts at the password. Hurriedly, because the real relief to the guards will probably show at any moment, they open the doors and bring in a wagon that they have hidden in a nearby alley. They are joined by other members of the Windblown, all except Pretty Meris disguised as Brazen Beasts. She tells them that the Tattered Prince is nearby with fifty men, waiting for them to bring out the dragon.

They descend into the pyramid and finally reach the iron doors of the dragons' pit. Four Brazen Beasts guard it. One wears a basilisk mask, but the other three are locusts -- the masks of Barristan's conspirators. When Quentyn utters the password, "dog," the reaction makes him realize that something has gone wrong. "Take them," he orders, and Yronwood swiftly kills the basilisk and Gerris intervenes to keep one of the locusts from killing Quentyn. The other sellswords come running and finish off the rest of the locusts.

Quentyn is still wondering why the password doesn't work when Pretty Meris tells him to get a move on. Yronwood shatters the lock on the doors with his warhammer, and pulls them open. Quentyn orders the cart brought forward: It contains a quartered ox and two sheep to feed the dragons. Gerris hands him a torch and Quentyn steps into the darkness.

The green one is Rhaegal, the white Viserion, he reminded himself. Use their names, command them, speak to them calmly but sternly. Master them, as Daenerys mastered Drogon in the pit. The girl had been alone, clad in wisps of silk, but fearless. I must not be afraid. She did it, so can I. The main thing was to show no fear. Animals can smell fear, and dragons.... What did he know of dragons? What does any man know of dragons? They have been gone from the world for more than a century. 

The air grows warmer as he enters the pit. He sees two glowing eyes, then dark green scales. The dragon's long neck uncoils until it is looking down on him. Quentyn croaks out the dragon's name, "Rhaegal," and calls for the food to be brought forward. Yronwood flings one of the sheep into the pit and the dragon snaps it up in midair.

Yronwood asks where the other one is, and Quentyn remembers that Viserion had been hanging from the ceiling when he visited with Daenerys. He shines the torch around and discovers that the dragon has hollowed out a cave in the masonry of the walls. As Viserion wakes and stretches and extends his wings, Quentyn calls for more meat. The plan had been to feed the dragons and then, when they are torpid after their meal, to chain them. But Drinkwater grabs Quentyn and tells him the plan won't work: "They are too wild, they...."

The dragon lands between them and the door. It stares at Pretty Meris, and Quentyn realizes it recognizes her as female. "He is looking for Daenerys. He wants his mother and does not understand why she's not here." Quentyn calls out the dragon's name, Viserion, and reaches for the whip at his belt, remembering that Daenerys had controlled Drogon with a whip. The dragon looks at him for a moment, but then turns away and heads for the door.

One of the Windblown fires a crossbow, causing Quentyn to protest, but too late. Viserion seizes the man by the neck and breathes fire, burning him while biting off a chunk of the man's throat. The Windblown pull back. The dragon looks at them for a moment and then returns to the corpse, tearing off a leg.

Quentyn calls out "VISERION!" and cracks the whip. The dragon raises his head and looks at him. Then there is a blast of hot wind, the sound of wings, Drinkwater calling his name and Yronwood shouting, "Behind you, behind you, behind you!"

When he raised his whip, he saw that the lash was burning. His hand as well. All of him, all of him was burning. 

Oh, he thought. Then he began to scream.

Jon

Queen Selyse has announced her firm opposition to rescuing the wildlings at Hardhome, but Jon is determined to defy her, even if it means he has to lead a rescue mission himself. This is fine with her: "Afterward some bard will make a stirring song about you, no doubt, and we shall have a more prudent lord commander." And now she introduces Gerrick Kingsblood, whom she calls "Gerrick of House Redbeard, ... King of the Wildlings." Jon knows that this is a royal line of her own devising, that although she claims Gerrick is "descended in an unbroken male line from their great king Raymun Redbeard," among the wildlings "that counted about as much as being descended from Raymun Redbeard's horse." But Selyse has devised a royal lineage so she can marry Ser Axell Florent to Gerrick's eldest daughter, and his other two to her knights.

Jon goes along with this charade until she announces that she intends for Val to "wed my good and leal knight, Ser Patrek of King's Mountain." Jon points out that this is not the way it usually works among the free folk, where a man usually steals the woman of his choosing from her kinfolk, risking "a savage beating if he is caught by the woman's kin, and worse than that if she herself finds him unworthy." Ser Axell sniffs, "A savage custom," and Selyse orders Jon to send Val to her for instruction "in the duties of a noble lady toward her lord husband."

Jon knows that this will not end well, but his efforts to tell Selyse that are squelched, and he withdraws. As he is leaving the queen's tower, Melisandre calls out to him. She asks where Ghost is, and he tells her that the wolf is not allowed to accompany him to meetings with the queen and that since the arrival of Borroq with his boar, he has not been able to let Ghost roam freely. She tells him that the attempt to rescue the people at Hardhome is doomed: She has seen it in her fires, that all of the ships are lost. He tells her he has reasons to doubt her visions:

"A grey girl on a dying horse. Daggers in the dark. A promised prince, born in smoke and salt. It seems to me that you make nothing but mistakes, my lady. Where is Stannis? What of Rattleshirt and his spearwives? Where is my sister?"

But Melisandre insists that his questions will be answered, and in the meantime, "I am you only hope." 

He still intends to lead a rescue party despite Selyse's determination not to help, and speaks with Leathers about gathering the men in the Shieldhall before the evening watch. When he reaches the armory, he finds two of his men on guard outside. When he asks why they are standing in the cold, they tell him that Ghost doesn't want them inside, and Mully says the wolf tried to bite him. "I never seen him like this, m'lord. All wild-like, I mean.

Inside, Jon finds Ghost pacing restlessly, and when he tries to calm him, "the wolf bristled and bared his teeth." Jon blames it on the boar. But Mormont's raven is upset, too, and keeps calling out, "Snow, snow, snow." Jon has Satin light a fire and sends him for Bowen Marsh and Othell Yarwyck. When they arrive, Yarwyck complains that he doesn't have enough builders to continue the work on the castles in the snowstorm that seems to be arriving. Jon suggests using wildlings, but Yarwyck grumbles about their unreliability. Jon is tired of the complaints of the steward and the builder about the free folk, and insists that it has to be done. Marsh of course sides with the queen on helping the people at Hardhome, and suggests sending all of the wildlings: "The more we lose, the fewer mouths we'll have to feed."

Jon thanks them and walks out with them, thinking,

My brothers. The Night's Watch needed leaders with the wisdom of Maester Aemon, the learning of Samwell Tarly, the courage of Qhorin Halfhand, the stubborn strength of the Old Bear, the compassion of Donal Noye. What it had instead was them.

The drifts have piled up against the Wall, covering the ice cells. Jon has them dug out, and sends Cregan Karstark to a new cell under the Lord Commander's Tower. There are two corpses in the cells, but he decides to leave them there, intending to study them before burning them. Tormund Giantsbane arrives with fifty men, not the eighty that had been promised. He mocks the new King of the Wildlings. Jon starts to talk to him about what to say to the men when they meet at the Shieldhall, but he is interrupted by Clydas, who has received a letter.

Clydas is trembling as he delivers the letter, which is from Ramsay Bolton. It is addressed simply to "Bastard." It claims that Stannis is dead and that Ramsay possesses "his magic sword." He says he has captured Mance Rayder and "made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell." Rayder came there, he says, "to steal my bride from me."

I want my bride back. I want the false king's queen. I want his daughter and the red witch. I want his wildling princess. I want his little prince, the wildling babe. And I want my Reek. Send them to me, bastard, and I will not trouble you or your black crows. Keep them from me, and I will cut out your bastard's heart and eat it.

Jon reads it to Tormund, who is confused by the reference to Rayder, whom he thinks dead. Jon doesn't reveal the truth about Melisandre's trick of substituting Rattleshirt for Mance. Tormund thinks Ramsay is lying, but Jon recognizes that it reveals Ramsay's knowledge of the sword Lightbringer and the number of spearwives who accompanied Mance. He tells Tormund that they need to change their plans.

When the time comes for the meeting at the Shieldhall, he shuts Ghost inside because he is afraid that Borroq will be at that gathering. The crowd there is made up of five times as many wildlings as members  of the Watch. Marsh and Yarwyck are there, as is Borroq, though without his boar. Two of Selyse's knights, Ser Narbert and Ser Benethon are there too. Melisandre enters the hall as Jon tells the crowd that he needs to send the rescue mission by land, but that he will not be leading it, Tormund Giantsbane will. Borroq asks if Jon will be "Hiding here in Castle Black with your white dog," and Jon replies that he is riding south. When he reads them the letter from Ramsay, the hall goes wild. Tormund has to sound his horn to restore order.

"The Night's Watch takes no part in the wars of the Seven Kingdoms," he reminds them. But he intends to make Ramsay -- "This creature who makes cloaks from the skins of women" -- answer for what he has done. He won't ask any of his brothers to break their vows, but he will ride alone unless there are those who will come with him. A roar fills the hall. "I have my swords, thought Jon Snow, and we are coming for you, Bastard." He sees Marsh and Yarwyck and their men leave the hall, but is unconcerned: "No man can ever say I made my brothers break their vows. If this is oathbreaking, the crime is mine and mine alone."

He leaves the meeting with his guards, Horse and Rory, but they hear a terrifying scream from the direction of Hardin's Tower. There they find the giant, Wun Wun, holding a bloody corpse by one leg and swinging it against the walls of the tower. The giant has sword cuts on his belly and his arm. "The dead man was Ser Patrek of King's Mountain; his head was largely gone, but his heraldry was as distinctive as his face." Jon tells Leathers, who speaks the Old Tongue, to try to calm the giant, and tells the men who are gathering at the scene to put away their weapons for fear they'll agitate the giant even more.

Then he sees the flash of a blade in the hands of Wick Whittlestick, and realizes that it is aimed at him. He dodges the blow, which grazes his skin, and asks Wick why he is attacking him. "For the Watch," Wick says. Jon grabs his arm as he strikes again, and Wick drops the dagger. Jon reaches for Longclaw but is unable to get the sword free as Bowen Marsh appears, saying, "For the Watch," and stabs Jon in the belly. "When the third dagger took him between the shoulder blades, he gave a grunt and fell face-first into the snow. He never felt the fourth knife. Only the cold...."
 

30. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 793-813

The Spurned Suitor

Gerris Drinkwater thinks Quentyn should take Barristan's advice, but the prince is disturbed at the thought of returning to Dorne empty-handed to face the scorn of his sister and the Sand Snakes. So he tells the other two to go ahead and leave: "I am staying." So Drinkwater and Yronwood have no choice but to stay and protect the prince.

In fact, Quentyn has come to a conclusion: He needn't marry Daenerys at all. What he needs is the dragons. He has Targaryen blood, he says. Drinkwater protests, "The dragons won't care about your blood, except maybe how it tastes." But Quentyn insists that this is what he has to do for the sake of Dorne and his father and the men they have lost on their quest.

Quentyn's plan is to enlist the sellswords of the Tattered Prince, and they meet with him and Pretty Meris at the Purple Lotus, which is presided over by an ancient woman known as Zahrina. Quentyn points out that Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, who had hired them for the Yunkish siege of Meereen, is dead and that the peace treaty means there will be no battle. So he proposes to hire them instead and to pay them twice what the Yunkai'i agreed to.

The Tattered Prince is understandably skeptical, and when Quentyn names exactly what he wants -- "I need you to help me steal a dragon" -- the request is met with amusement. The Tattered Prince indicates that even double is not enough for such a task. Quentyn asks if he wants triple, but the Tattered Prince tells him, "What I want ... is Pentos."

The Griffin Reborn

Meanwhile, Jon Connington and the Volantene ships he has hired have reached Westeros and mounted an attack on Griffin's Roost. Connington had expected to lose a hundred men in regaining his family's old castle, but he loses only four, and his bowmen manage to shoot down all of the ravens that were let loose to spread news of the attack. "Griffin's Roost was his again, and Jon Connington was once more a lord."

Connington had lost his title at Stoney Sept, where his attempt to capture and kill Robert Baratheon had been thwarted by Eddard Stark and Hoster Tully. He had failed Aerys Targaryen, and is now determined not to fail Prince Aegon. Now he begins to plan his course of further reconquest. They had set out from Volantis with ten thousand men, as well as weapons, horses, and elephants, but after a storm at Lys only about half of that number -- and no elephants -- had turned up in Westeros. As he was taking Griffin's Roost, another force had set off to take House Morrigen at Crow's Nest, and yet another to Rain House. The rest were guarding the landing site, where Prince Aegon remained.  

Haldon Halfmaester has studied the messages kept by the maester at Griffin's Roost and reports to Connington on the fraying alliances of the Lannisters, the squabble between Cersei and Margaery, and the abandonment by Mace Tyrell of the siege of Storm's End. Stannis's campaign in the north and the rebellion of the ironborn have also been reported. In this situation, an alliance with Dorne would be advantageous, so Connington instructs Haldon, "Write Sunspear. Doran Martell must know that his sister's son is still alive and has come home to claim his father's throne."

Unfortunately, they need something to seal an alliance, and they have neither gold nor land to offer. Haldon suggests that Prince Aegon's hand in marriage would be sufficient to win an alliance. But Connington is reluctant to offer that as long as the potential of a marriage between Aegon and Daenerys still exists. So Haldon suggests another arrangement:

"You are unwed. A great lord, still virile, with no heirs except these cousins we have just now dispossessed, the scion of an ancient House with a fine stout castle and wide, rich lands that will no doubt be restored and perhaps expanded by a grateful king, once we have triumphed. You have a name as a warrior, and as King Aegon's Hand you will speak with his voice and rule this realm in all but name. I would think that many an ambitious lord might be eager to wed his daughter to such a man. Even, perhaps, the prince of Dorne."

But Connington is cold to the idea. "Death is creeping up my arm. No man must ever know, nor any wife." The next morning he orders a servant to bring him "The worst wine in the cellar," which he empties in a bowl and soaks his hand in. Vinegar was thought to be a remedy for greyscale, which has turned four of the nails on his hand black, and which has spread to the second knuckle on his middle finger.

There is good news that morning. One of their ships has landed on Estermont and taken Greenstone, the castle of House Estermont. The ships have all been instructed to land without banners, so that any reports that get out will blame the raids on pirates. Connington decides it is time to bring Prince Aegon to Griffin's Roost, but not to raise his banner. "Let King's Landing think this is no more than an exile lord coming home with some hired swords to reclaim his birthright." He proposes to write to King Tommen and ask for a pardon. The important thing in the meantime is to work on getting Doran Martell's support.

He also intends to act decisively before King's Landing can figure out what's happening. "I mean to take Storm's End. A nigh-impregnable stronghold, and Stannis Baratheon's last foothold in the south. Once taken, it will give us a secure fastness to which we may retreat at need, and winning it will prove our strength."

Aegon arrives, with Lady Lemore and Rolly Duckworth, four days later. He approves of Connington's plans to take Storm's End, and tells him he intends to lead the attack.

29. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 769-792

Jon

Jon has a nightmare in which he is fighting not only wildlings but also dead men of the Night's Watch such as Donal Noye and Qhorin Halfhand. He wakes to find Mormont's raven pecking at him and screeching "Snow," and is soon full of misgivings about the treaty he has made with Tormund. As he dresses, he notices something odd: The raven is muttering his full name, "Snow, Jon Snow, Jon Snow." He can't remember its ever doing that before.

At breakfast Bowen Marsh assures him they are ready to receive the wildlings, and Jon reiterates his concern that all go well: "If blood should be shed today, it had best not be one of us who strikes the first blow, or I swear by the old gods and the new that I will have the head of the man who strikes it." He prepares his men to receive Tormund's hordes and gives the order to open the gate.

He goes to meet Tormund, who tells Jon he wants his people to see him: "a long-faced lad in an old black cloak. They need to learn that the Night's Watch is naught t'be feared." In reply, Jon whistles for Ghost, who bounds out of the gate and causes Tormund's horse to shy. Calling Jon "a black-hearted bastard," Tormund sounds the horn for his people to begin their journey through the Wall.

It lasts all day, beginning with the hostages, a hundred boys aged eight to sixteen. Tormund identifies some of them, including the son of Varamyr Sixskins, the skinchanger, whom Tormund believes to be dead. Two of them turn out to be girls, and Jon asks for replacements. Tormund gives Jon his own son, Dryn, and Jon says he'll make him his page. Next come the warriors, including some spearwives who remind Jon of Ygritte. Some pause to pledge themselves to Jon, and they all discard their treasures into the carts that have been prepared for them.

About midday a cart becomes wedged in the tunnel through the Wall, and a fight nearly starts over the best way to move it. Tormund says he wishes he had the Horn of Joramun to take down the Wall, and Jon tells him Melisandre burned it. Tormund claims that it wasn't really Joramun's, but just a big horn they found in a giant's grave. Jon wonders if Mance had lied to him about the horn, or if Tormund is lying now: "If Mance's horn was just a feint, where is the true horn?"

The skies begin to cloud in the afternoon, threatening snow, and the crowd moving through the Wall begins to hurry. As they wait, Jon asks Tormund to tell him about the Others. Tormund is reluctant: "They're never far, you know." They had never attacked his people in force, but he lost many outriders to them. He had lost his own son, Torwynd, to them. John murmurs, "I know," but Tormund replies,

"You know nothing. You killed a dead man, aye, I heard. Mance killed a hundred. A man can fight the dead, but when their masters come, when the white mists rise up ... how do you fight a mist, crow? Shadows with teeth ... air so cold it hurts to breathe, like a knife inside your chest ... you do not know, you cannot know ... can your sword cut cold?"

Jon remembers what Sam had found in the books about dragonsteel, and tells Tormund, "I do not know. And if the gods are good, I never will."

As night comes on, the crowd grows more impatient to make it through the Wall, and Jon recognizes the fear driving them: "Warriors, spearwives, raiders, they are frightened of those woods, of shadows moving through the trees. They want to put the Wall between them before the night descends." Smoke begins to rise from where Tormund's son, Toregg, has been burning the corpses of the wildlings who were found dead in the camp.

Finally, Tormund's rear guard of a dozen warriors appears. In its midst is an enormous boar, twice as big as Ghost. With it is a man Tormund calls Borroq, then spits. Jon realizes instantly that Borroq is a skinchanger. Ghost takes the scent of the boar and bristles and bares his teeth. Jon tells the wolf to stay, but Tormund advises him to keep Ghost locked up that night, and he will tell Borroq to do the same with the boar.

Tormund goes ahead through the Wall, leaving Jon and his guard. Jon tells Borroq to go through because they are about to close the gate. Borroq replies, "You close it good and tight. They're coming, crow." And he and the boar enter the tunnel. When Jon reaches the other side of the wall, Bowen Marsh is waiting with a tally: "Three thousand one hundred and nineteen wildlings passed through the gate today."

Clydas brings Jon a message from Cotter Pyke, who has reached Hardhome with six ships, the others having been lost to storms. "Very bad here. Wildlings eating their own dead. Dead things in the woods." Jon readies himself for the worst.

The Discarded Knight

Hizdahr is holding court, and Barristan is present, still wearing his sword though he has been dismissed as one of the king's guards. He notes to himself how many of Daenerys's followers are missing: Missandei, Strong Belwas, Grey Worm, Aggo, Jhogo, Rakharo, Irri, Jhiqui, and Daario Naharis. Skahaz the Shavepate has been replaced as commander of the Brazen Beasts by the king's cousin, Marghaz, though Barristan wonders if Skahaz is there behind the mask of one of the Brazen Beasts.

The court begins in disorder, with people complaining loudly about the damage done to their person and property and kin by the dragon. There are cries demanding to know what has happened to Daenerys. Reznak mo Reznak struggles to keep order. Barristan tunes out of what is being said and scans the crowd, discovering Quentyn Martell and his companions at the back of the hall. He thinks, "They should not have come. Martell does not realize his danger. Daenerys was his only friend at this court, and she is gone." He feels sorry for the Dornish prince, who is certainly not the romantic figure of Daenerys's dreams: "She wants fire, and Dorne sent her mud."

And then a thought occurs to Barristan: Quentyn Martell grew up in the courts of Dorne, well known for intrigue and poisonings, and is a relative of the Red Viper. Is it possible that the poisoned locusts were meant for Hizdahr, and not Daenerys? Could Quentyn had arranged for them to be delivered to eliminate his rival for Daenerys's hand? If Hizdahr had died, the peace would have ended, and Daenerys might have found it advisable to accept Quentyn as her consort and return to Westeros with him.

A delegation of Yunkishmen arrives, accompanied by the sellsword Bloodbeard, who carries a leather satchel. He pulls a severed head from it and tosses it at Reznak, who squeals and dodges. The head is that of Daenerys's admiral, Groleo. Barristan is dismayed: "Groleo was a good man. He did not deserve this end. All he ever wanted was to go home." One of the Yunkish delegation explains: There had been seven signatories to the peace treaty, and seven hostages tendered for their safety. Yurkhaz zo Yunzak had died, so Groleo's head had been taken in response.

Barristan speaks up to remind Hizdahr that Yurkhaz had been trampled to death by his own slaves fleeing from the dragon. Hizdahr seems to agree, calling Groleo's death a "breach of our peace." The Yunkish agree in turn to release three of the Meereenese hostages and to deliver Groleo's body for a proper sea burial. But the other three hostages, he says, will remain until the dragons are destroyed. "No peace is possible whilst they live." Reznak replies that the dragons are Daenerys's and cannot be destroyed without her authority, but Bloodbeard asserts that she is dead, which causes a roar of protest from the Meereenese crowd. Hizdahr says he needs to speak with his council, putting an end to the court and the uproar.

As the hall clears, Barristan approaches Quentyn and suggests that it would be wise if he didn't return to his chambers but left the city as quickly as possible. He had seen Hizdahr frown when he noticed the Dornishmen in the hall. Gerris Drinkwater laughs and asks why they should be frightened of Hizdahr, who had "quailed before the Yunkishmen." Quentyn is inclined to agree, admitting that Daenerys had also warned him, but insisting that the documented marriage pact still gives him some claim to her hand. Barristan mocks the pact as having been "made by two dead men." It envisioned Quentyn's sister marrying Daenerys's brother Viserys and has no relevance in this case. "I have no wish to salt your wounds," Barristan says to him, "but Her Grace has a new husband and an old paramour, and seems to prefer the both of them to you."

Quentyn shows his anger, but Barristan continues, telling him about the poisoned locusts. Quentyn is shocked by the news. Barristan then points out that if Hizdahr had planned the poison for Daenerys then "he will need a scapegoat" to explain it away: "Who better than a rival from a distant land who has no friends at this court? Who better than a suitor the queen spurned?" He points out that Quentyn's uncle was the Red Viper and that Quentyn has a reason to want Hizdahr dead.

Gerris Drinkwater suggests that Daario Naharis might also be considered a suspect, but Barristan points out that Daario wasn't there, having been sent as a hostage. Besides, Hizdahr needs Daario's Stormcrows, whom he would lose if he seized their captain as a poisoner. So he advises Quentyn to lie low, or even better to take the first ship to Volantis.

25. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 661-686

Daenerys

The peace treaty between Meereen and the Yunkai'i is being signed, and the fighting pits have been reopened as part of the celebration. Daenerys is not happy: Though she married Hizdahr to bring about peace, she feels defeated. Hizdahr assures her that it's only temporary: When the Yunkai'i leave, they will "have all we desired. Peace, food, trade. Our port is open once again, and ships are being permitted to come and go."

But she objects that the Yunkai are trading in slaves outside her own walls, mocking her as powerless. She tries to console herself that by agreeing to the peace terms she has saved thousands of lives: "This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost."

At the feast, she notes how unimpressive the Yunkish commanders are, and how the sellswords they had hired are swaggering bravos. Brown Ben Plumm has appeared, but only after an exchange of hostages to keep Daenerys's men from killing him. Among the hostages sent to the Yunkish camp are her bloodrider Jhogo, her admiral Groleo, and Daario Naharis. The last was furious at the wedding and at the peace terms, so it was just as well he wasn't present at the feast.

When the party goes out to the terrace to look at the city, she encounters Brown Ben Plumm, who is insouciant about his deserting her, arguing that he didn't want to be on the losing side and advising her, "Never trust a sellsword." Ser Barristan, who has overheard their conversation, tells Daenerys, after Plumm has left, that it's good advice. She talks with him about ways of getting rid of Brown Ben, and wonders if there is a way to use the Dornishmen who include Prince Quentyn. "The three Dornishmen had been at the feast, as befit Prince Quentyn's rank, though Reznak had taken care to seat them as far as possible from her husband," who might see Quentyn as a rival suitor.

Barristan reminds her that House Martell had been a loyal ally to the Targaryens, and that Quentyn had been stubbornly insistent about his plans to marry her. So she tells him to bring Quentyn to her: "It is time he met my children." She and Quentyn descend to the place where the dragons are caged.

One of the elephants trumpeted at them from his stall. An answering roar from below made her flush with sudden heat. Prince Quentyn looked up in alarm. "The dragons know when she is near," Ser Barristan told him.

Viserion has broken and melted his chains and clings "to the roof of the pit like some huge white bat." Rhaegal is still chained, and is eating the carcass of a bull. When Quentyn asks about the third, she tells him just, "Drogon is hunting." Quentyn is terrified, but she assures him that they frighten her too. Still, she tells him, she intends to learn to ride one of them.

Then she advises him to return to Dorne. "My court is no safe place for you, I fear. You have more enemies than you know. You made Daario look a fool, and he is not a man to forget such a slight." He stubbornly insists that he is a prince of Dorne and "will not run from slaves and sellswords." She reflects that he is a fool.

That night, Hizdahr makes drunken love to her, after which he whispers, "Gods grant that we have made a son tonight." But she can only remember Mirri Maz Duur's prophecy of her barrenness. When he falls asleep, her thoughts turn to Daario. Then Missandei enters to say she thought she heard Daenerys crying. Daenerys denies it, but asks Missandei to stay and talk to her about happy things until she falls asleep, "to dream queer, half-formed dreams of smoke and fire."

Theon

The horns and drum of Stannis's troops are still heard, but the attack hasn't yet materialized. Theon waits for it in the Great Hall and keeps an eye on Abel, Rowan, and another of the washerwomen who is known as Squirrel.  Seeing Ramsay Bolton enter the hall, Theon is filled with fear and whispers to Abel that his escape plan won't work. But Abel insists that Stannis is just outside the walls of Winterfell, and that Theon needn't worry.

Just then the doors of the hall burst open and Ser Hosteen Frey enters, carrying the body of Little Walder Frey. Theon instantly assumes that the washerwomen are responsible for the murder, but Rowan assures him that they weren't. In any case, Ramsay Bolton is enraged at the loss of his favorite, and Hosteen accuses Wyman Manderly of ordering the killing. Wyman asks how old the boy was, and when he is told Little Walder was nine, says, "So young.... Though mayhaps this was  a blessing. Had he lived, he would have grown up to be a Frey."

Hosteen attacks Wyman with his longsword: "The blade slashed through three of his four chins in a spray of bright red blood." The room erupts in turmoil as Manderly slumps to the floor and his men come to his defense. By the time Roose Bolton is able to restore order, six of Manderly's men and two of the Freys are dead. A maester arrives with a raven, and Bolton reads the message it has brought: Stannis's company, "snowbound and starving," is three days' away. He orders Hosteen to gather his troops and leave by the main gate, and Manderly to dispatch his by the east gate. Hosteen vows that when he returns with Stannis's head, he will finish cutting off that of Manderly, who is being treated by a maester. Ramsay Bolton orders them all to prepare to fight Stannis, and Roose echoes his son: "There will be time enough to fight one another once we are done with Stannis."

Abel is called on for a song as the Freys begin to lead their horses out of the hall, and Rowan grasps Theon's arm to tell him it is time to put the plan they have discussed in effect: "Bolton is sending forth his swords. We have to reach King Stannis before they do." Theon thinks what they have planned is madness, but he gives in and goes with Rowan to the godswood. They are joined there by Squirrel, Holly, and three more of the washerwomen.

The plan is to engineer an escape for Jeyne Poole by disguising her as Squirrel, who is almost the same size. Squirrel will exit by a window and scale down the tower wall while Jeyne exits with the other maids. Theon's task is one he does regularly: to fetch the water for Jeyne's bath. The washerwomen, pretending to be Jeyne's maids, will carry it to her chambers.

Jeyne is huddled in terror in her room when they make it past the guards with the bathwater. Rowan addresses her as "Lady Arya" -- Theon hasn't revealed her true identity to his co-conspirators. They tell her that they are going to take her to her brother, which confuses Jeyne, who says she has no brothers. Theon realizes that the horribly abused girl isn't entirely sure who she is anymore, but Rowan explains that they are going to get her to Jon Snow at the Wall.

Jeyne resists, terrorized as she has been by Ramsay, and the women tell Theon to handle her. He gently persuades her to go along with the plan. They quickly dress her in Squirrel's clothing, and to Theon's surprise and relief they make it past the guards outside the door. His fear returns as they go down the stairs, but even the guards outside the doors barely look at them. Theon feels sorry for them: "Ramsay would flay them all when he learned his bride was gone, and what he would do to Grunt and Sour Alyn" -- the guards outside the bedchamber door -- "did not bear thinking about."

The snowstorm continues to conceal them as they make their way through the paths through the snow, which in places is higher than their heads. At an intersection, Rowan sends Theon and Jeyne on with Holly and Frenya, while she and the others go to fetch Abel. When they reach another pair of guards, Holly and Frenya kill them both, but Jeyne screams when she sees what is happening. Theon puts his hand over her mouth and pulls her along with him as they run.

They reach the steps to the battlements, and Theon slings Jeyne over his shoulder as he begins to climb. Halfway up, he slips on the ice and hurts his knee, but Holly helps him back to his feet and together they get Jeyne to the top of the battlements. Frenya remains behind to attack any pursuers. But when they reach the top, Holly realizes that Frenya has the rope they need to climb down. Then she is pierced by arrows and falls.

Realizing that they have been discovered, and that there are crossbowmen on the inner wall and men racing toward them with drawn swords, Theon does the only thing he can do: He grabs Jeyne and jumps.

21. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 549-578

The King's Prize

Stannis and his army set out from Deepwood Motte bound for Winterfell, with Asha Greyjoy a prisoner in the baggage train. The snow has not yet begun to fall, and the march is expected to take perhaps fifteen days. Only nine of her people from Deepwood remain, including Qarl and Tris.  She had yielded, and is his hostage, having gotten Stannis's vow to spare the others, who are imprisoned at Deepwood. But she knows she is worth little as a hostage. Euron couldn't care less about her.

Ser Justin Massey, who is in charge of the baggage train, has told her that the only woman Stannis respects is Melisandre. He wishes she were with them now, as he is opposed to the attack on Winterfell. The northmen were insistent, however: "Ned's girl must be rescued from the clutches of [Roose Bolton's] bastard."

Asha finds Ser Justin attractive, and it becomes obvious that he feels the same about her. Alysane Mormont, known as the She-Bear, tells her, "He wants you." Asha replies that he wants her lands, since he had lost his own in the south of the kingdom. "Stannis had frustrated Ser Justin's hopes of marrying the wildling princess that Asha had heard so much of, so now he had set his sights on her."

On the third day she begins to recognize landmarks from her earlier journey to try to persuade Theon to abandon Winterfell and come with her to Deepwood Motte, and thinks, "I failed in that as well." That night, Stannis sends for her, and she finds him staring into the fire outside his pavilion. She kneels and asks him to remove her manacles, and vows to join forces with him -- knowing that she has little in the way of forces to offer. But she makes the mistake of referring to his brother Robert, who "was renowned for turning fallen foes into friends." Ser Justin tells her later that was an error: Stannis never likes to be compared to his brother.

The snow begins to fall on the fourth day. By the third day of snow, the army begins to fall apart. The southerners are unaccustomed to it, and their big warhorses are unprepared for it, needing more food than the small horses of the men of the northern hills. The northern men also have snowshoes, and bear paws that they attach to the feet of their horses. But the warhorses shy away from attempts to attach them to their hooves. The baggage train also begins to sink into the snow.

On the fifth day, they lose five men and four horses when the baggage train tries to cross a frozen pond concealed by the snow. Asha hears the "queen's men" accompanying Stannis, the worshipers of R'hllor, talking about a sacrifice to end the storm. The wind and cold worsens, and provisions begin to run low. Any horse that collapses is slaughtered for food. The southerners begin to plead with Stannis to make camp until the storm ends, and the queen's men continue to urge a sacrifice, but Stannis ignores them both. They make less and less progress, sometimes as little as two miles a day.

By the fifteenth day of the march, they were less than half of the distance to Winterfell. Ser Justin comes to release Asha from her ankle chains, telling her that she must walk from now on. She had broken an ankle during the fight at Deepwood, but the cold numbs the pain. But by the end of the day she is so exhausted that she falls asleep at the supper table. But then there is little to eat anyway: They run out of vegetables on the twenty-sixth day, and eat the last of the grain and fodder on the thirty-second. "Asha wondered how long a man could live on raw, half-frozen horse meat."

Finally they reach an abandoned village between two frozen lakes, where fish can be taken through holes cut in the ice. Stannis agrees to the fishing, but orders them to march at first light. But Asha wakes in the morning to silence: Snow has fallen so heavily during the night that "Stannis Baratheon's host sat snowbound and unmoving, walled in by ice and snow, starving."

Daenerys

Each day brings her closer to her wedding to Hizdahr, and she is so anxious to postpone that eventually that she can't sleep. Daario shares her bed, and urges her to marry him, but they both know that's impossible. On the morning of the day before her wedding, he asks her if she is going to hold court. He has new recruits, former members of the Windblown, who want to see her, he says. "Bred and born in Westeros, most of them, full of tales about Targaryens." One of them, known as the Frog, has a gift for her. He is "Some Dornish boy. He squires for the big knight they call Greenguts." So she tells him to bring the Westerosi to court.

After he leaves, she goes out on her terrace and sees the ships of the Yunkai'i in the harbor. They are bringing wood for catapults, scorpions, and trebuchets. "Hizdahr will bring me peace," she thinks. "He must." The next day, she holds court, as Daario had wanted, but it is almost sunset before he arrives with his Westerosi, who are, she thinks, "a scruffy bunch." "Pretty Meris" is presented to her, and a series of others, equally unprepossessing, then finally the Dornishmen, Greenguts, Gerrold, and Frog. The last "was the youngest of the three, and the least impressive, a solemn, stocky lad, brown of hair and eye."

Then they reveal that they are all three knights, traveling under assumed names. They would prefer not to reveal them in such a public forum, however, so Daenerys tells Skahaz to clear the court. Then they reveal themselves as Ser Gerris Drinkwater and Ser Archibald Yronwood, but "Frog" asks if he may present his gift first. He unlaces his boot and pulls out a parchment concealed in it. Daenerys unrolls it and studies it until Ser Barristan asks if they might know what it is.

"It is a secret pact," Dany said, "made in Braavos when I was just a little girl. Ser Willem Darry signed for us, the man who spirited my brother and myself away from Dragonstone before the Usurper's men could take us. Prince Oberyn Martell signed for Dorne, with the Sealord of Braavos as witness." She handed the parchment to Ser Barristan, so he might read it for himself. "The alliance is to be sealed by a marriage, it says. In return for Dorne's help overthrowing the Usurper, my brother Viserys is to take Prince Doran's daughter Arianne for his queen." 

Ser Barristan says Robert Baratheon would have attacked Dorne if he had known, and Daenerys observes that Viserys would have sailed for Sunspear as soon as he was old enough to marry. It was wise of Doran to keep this pact a secret, she observes, and Barristan agrees.

So does Quentyn, who reveals himself now: "My father was content to wait for the day that Prince Viserys found his army," he says. Daenerys laughs, then explains she remembers a children's story about "frogs who turn into enchanged princes when kissed by their true love." But she thinks of Quentyn, "Neither enchanted nor enchanting, alas. A pity he's the prince, and not the one with the wide shoulders and the sandy hair" -- i.e., Gerris Drinkwater.

She tells Quentyn that he has come too late, that she is about to marry Hizdahr, but she orders Reznak to provide accommodations for him and his companions suitable to their station. As Barristan accompanies her to her quarters, he says, "This changes everything." But she disagrees; nothing has changed. Then she asks him what the arms of House Martell are. "A sun in splendor, transfixed by a spear," he tells her. And she remembers Quaithe's prophecies, "The pale mare and the sun's son." And "Beware the perfumed seneschal." She wishes prophecies weren't always in riddles.

That night, she and Daario have sex in every possible way. Then she gets ready for her wedding. As she is going to the sedan chair that will carry her through the streets, Quentyn appears and makes a final plea. She tells him, "One day I shall return to Westeros to claim my father's throne, and look to Dorne for help. But on this day the Yunkai'i have my city ringed in steel. I may die before I see my Seven Kingdoms. Hizdahr may die. Westeros may be swallowed by the waves."

As they are going to the Temple of the Graces, she asks Barristan, who is riding beside her, whom her father and mother would have married if their marriages had not been arranged. Barristan is embarrassed by the question, and says that her mother was "smitten" with a knight who won a tournament "and named her queen of love and beauty," but was too lowly born to marry her. As for her father, he tries to get out of telling the story by saying it's only gossip, but she insists. Prince Aerys was taken with the lady who married Tywin Lannister. Aerys drank too much at their wedding feast "and was heard to say that it was a great pity that the lord's right to the first night had been abolished. A drunken jape, no more, but Tywin Lannister was not a man to forget such words, or the ... the liberties your father took during the bedding."

Fortunately, Barristan is relieved of his embarrassment by the appearance of Hizdahr zo Loraq in his sedan chair. At the temple they are welcomed by Galazza Galare, and four hours later they are married.

12. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 306-331

The Lost Lord

Griff/Connington is pacing the deck of the Shy Maid, which has docked in the riverfront at Volantis. He is waiting for Haldon, whom he has sent into the city to buy horses, and worries that he made a mistake by doing so. Haldon had shown poor judgment when he lost Tyrion in Selhorys -- not that Tyrion's disappearance bothers him much: "If the gods were good, Lannister's severed head was halfway back to King's Landing by now, but more like the dwarf was hale and whole and somewhere close, stinking drunk and plotting some new infamy."

He is planning to make contact with the Golden Company and to introduce Prince Aegon to them, though Lemore is uneasy, arguing that sellswords can't be trusted. "If Hugor's head was worth a lord's honors," she says, "how much will Cersei Lannister pay for the rightful heir to the Iron Throne?" They have abandoned the plan to keep Aegon's identity secret until they meet Daenerys because it seems that she doesn't plan to move west, at least for a while.

Haldon returns with the horses, which don't please Connington, but he grudgingly accepts that they were the best to be had. In any case, the ride is only three miles. He gives the best one to Aegon and he and Haldon ride out to meet the Golden Company. They are met first by a captain, Franklyn Flowers, who already knows Connington and Haldon. Connington holds off in revealing Aegon's identity, introducing him as his squire. Flowers takes him to the captain-general, Harry Strickland.


As they ride, Connington wonders if any of the men they pass recognize him. "Even the men who'd ridden with him might not recognize the exile lord Jon Connington of the fiery red beard in the lined, clean-shaved face and dyed blue hair of the sellsword Griff." He had ridden with the company for five years, and if he had stayed with it he might be commanding it instead of Strickland.

Flowers introduces him to the other members of the group of officers meeting with Strickland, who doesn't rise to greet Connington: He is soaking his feet in salt water to soothe the toes he blistered on their march. He says of Aegon, "And this must be your son." Connington wonders if he knows the truth, but reveals the secret to the group: "My lords, I give you Aegon Targaryen, firstborn son of Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone, by Princess Elia of Dorne ... soon, with your help, to be Aegon, the Sixth of His Name, King of Andals, the Rhoyne, and the First Men, and Lord of the Seven Kingdoms."

There is silence, and Connington realizes that they all know the secret already. The Golden Company was restless, and there were other lucrative offers to be had, including one from the Yunkishmen to attack Daenerys at Meereen. Strickland had told them he would consider the proposal, especially since Daenerys had made no move westward.

"She is in Meereen and we are here, where the Volantenes grow daily more unhappy with our presence. We came to raise up a king and queen who would lead us home to Westeros, but this Targaryen girl seems more intent on planting olive trees than in reclaiming her brother's throne. Meanwhile, her foes gather."

One of the officers, Tristan Rivers, says, "If Daenerys will not come to us, we must go to Daenerys." They begin to argue about how -- by sea or land -- and whether they should make the move.

Finally Aegon speaks up, and comes out with the plan Tyrion had proposed to him: "Why should I go running to my aunt as if I were a beggar? My claim is better than her own. Let her come to me ... in Westeros?" Franklyn Flowers endorses the idea: "Sail west, not east. Leave the little queen to her olives and seat Prince Aegon upon the Iron Throne. The boy has stones, give him that." But Strickland objects that they need the marriage. Without Daenerys, "the lords will only mock his claim and brand him a fraud and a pretender."

Connington realizes that Strickland doesn't really want to fight. So he argues that the triarchs of Volantis would be happy to get rid of them, and perhaps might even help them find the ships to sail to Westeros: "No city wants an army on its doorstep." Another officer observes that "Cersei's attentions will be fixed upon Meereen and this other queen. She knows nothing of our prince. Once we land and raise our banners, many and more will flock to join us."

Strickland continues to argue against the idea, but Connington says, "Dorne will join us, must join us. Prince Aegon is Elia's son as well as Rhaegar's." Aegon speaks up again and carries the day: "One by one, the men of the Golden Company rose, knelt, and laid their swords at the feet of his young prince." Strickland is the last to do so.

Connington says that Aegon's true identity must be concealed until they reach Westeros, and sends Haldon back to the Shy Maid for Lemore and Duck and Illyrio's chests, gold and armor. When he is alone he removes the glove on his right hand. "The nail on his middle finger had turned as black as jet, he saw, and the grey had crept up almost to the first knuckle. The tip of his ring finger had begun to darken too, and when he touched it with the point of his dagger, he felt nothing." But he persuades himself that he still has time to see Aegon crowned.

The Windblown

Rumors are flying that Daenerys is moving to attack Yunkai, and they have reached the company of sellswords known as the Windblown. Among their numbers is Quentyn Martell. "In Dorne Quentyn Martell had been a prince, in Volantis a merchant's man, but on the shores of Slaver's Bay he was only Frog, squire to the big bald Dornish knight the sellswords called Greenguts." For thirty years, the Windblown had been led by a Pentoshi called the Tattered Prince because he wore a ragged cloak made up of many scraps of cloth. No one knew his real name or origins.

Quentyn had protested being cast as a squire, but Gerris Drinkwater insisted that the best way to do it was to keep Quentyn under the protection of Ser Archibald Yronwood, now known as Greenguts, who is the best fighter of the three. In truth, Quentyn is getting cold feet about the project to marry him off to Daenerys, because the more he hears about her the more it frightens him. There are stories about her sexual insatiability and her murderous character, and Quentyn is aware that her father, King Aerys, was mad. And he has just been through the hell that Astapor has become.

"It was a hundred leagues from Astapor to Yunkai by the old Ghiscari coast road, and another fifty from Yunkai to Meereen." But the journey is slowed by the presence of Yunkish lords hoping to return to their city, including one enormously fat man known as the Yellow Whale, who travels with a retinue of grotesque slaves. There is a Girl General with an army of muscular, near-naked soldiers, a very short man known as the Little Pigeon whose troops are all at least seven feet tall and who march on stilts that make them even taller, and a pair of brothers the sellswords have dubbed the Clanker Lords because their troops are chained together in groups of ten. "In the time it took the Windblown to ride three miles, the Yunkai'i had fallen two-and-a-half miles behind."

The plan is now for Quentyn, Drinkwater, and Yronwood to turn cloaks and join Daenerys's forces at the soonest opportunity, which Gerris expects to be after they take Yunkai. The lands they are passing through now belong to the Yunkai'i, but north of the city is "no-man's-land," he tells Quentyn, who worries that Yronwood has made too many friends among the Windblown to take deserting them lightly. And if they're caught, the Tattered Prince is likely to torture them to death to make an example.

Two days later, they are summoned to the Tattered Prince's tent where they find other Westerosi gathered. The Tattered Prince informs them that the surviving Astapori, "hundreds of them, maybe thousands, all starved and sick," have been fleeing the destroyed city. Their orders are to drive them back to the city or else north to Meereen. "If the dragon queen wants to take them in, she's welcome to them. Half of them have the bloody flux, and even the healthy ones are mouths to feed." But if they encounter the Second Sons or the Stormcrows they are to turn their cloaks and join them -- exactly what Quentyn and the others had been planning to do. The Tattered Prince has realized that the Yunkai'i "do not inspire confidence," and wants the Windblown to stay on the winning side and share the spoils.

They will be commanded by a warrior woman known ironically as Pretty Meris; the Tattered Prince thinks Daenerys "may be more accepting of another woman." The Westerosi have been chosen for this mission because they speak Daenerys's language and worship her gods. They are to say that their motive is the wrongs they have suffered under the Tattered Prince. The Dornish contingent is to say they think he lied to them. "Every one of you has ample reason for wanting to abandon me. And Daenerys Targaryen knows that sellswords are a fickle lot." They are to leave immediately. 

4. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 83-111

The Merchant's Man

Quentyn Martell is on a stinking ship, pretending to be the servant of Gerris Drinkwater, who is playing the role of a wineseller. Gerris fits the role of master better: He is tall and handsome, with an arrogant swagger. Prince Quentyn, on the other hand, is plain and stocky. Gerris is attempting to find passage from Volantis to Meereen, in support of Quentyn's plan to win the hand of Daenerys.

They have been in Volantis for twenty days, trying to persuade the captains of various ships to take them, but no one wants to brave the war being waged in Slaver's Bay. Finally, the captain of the ill-smelling Adventure agrees to take them for thrice his usual fee. Quentyn is suspicious of the captain, and they make no commitment. Their voyage started off badly: They lost three of their company aboard the Meadowlark when it was attacked by pirates.

As they walk through the market square in Volantis, they come upon a pair of dwarfs, putting on a show: They are dressed in wooden armor and jousting, one riding a pig, the other a large dog. Gerris wants to stop and watch this amusement, but Quentyn is in no mood. They go to the Merchant's House, where a quartet of sellswords are trying to recruit men for their army, the Windblown, which has been hired by Yunkai.

At their room, they are admitted by the third surviving member of the party, Ser Archibald Yronwood, an enormous man, who has been urging them to make the journey overland. Quentyn is still considering the possibility of the Adventure, but Gerris has turned against it after considering the prospect of having to "endure that stench for months on end." He says a new idea has just occurred to him.

Jon

Jon has summoned Gilly, to whom he says, "I have something hard to tell you." She asks if it's about Mance Rayder, who is threatened with execution, but he says that it's about Mance's son, whom Gilly is nursing. She pleads with Jon not to let Melisandre burn the child, as she has threatened to do in part of her dragon-summoning ritual. He says that the only way to do that is for her to leave with Mance's child, but she must leave her own behind: "Take both boys and the queen's men will ride after you and drag you back. The boy will still burn ... and you with him." He promises that he will find a wet nurse for her son and raise him at Castle Black.

She leaves, and Samwell Tarly appears a few minutes later, carrying a stack of books. Jon shows him a letter that Maester Aemon has drafted for him to King Tommen. He remembers Tommen, heavily padded, as a little boy fighting Bran with wooden swords: "Yet Bran's dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled among his golden curls." Sam observes that Jon hasn't signed the letter. Jon admits that he is worried about the implications: "No letter will make the Lannisters love us better. Not once they hear that we've been helping Stannis." But in the end he agrees to sign it.

Sam says that he saw Gilly almost in tears as he was arriving, and Jon says he is sending her and "the boy" away -- not indicating that the boy is Mance's son, not hers. He asks Sam about what he has learned from his reading about the Others. Much of it is what they already know: The Others are vulnerable to obsidian, or dragonglass, and their thralls must be burned. "Some accounts speak of giant ice spiders too. I don't know what those are." But he has also read an account that speak of Others being slain by "dragonsteel." Jon wonders if this means Valyrian steel, and Sam says that was his guess, too. He needs more time to research it.

Jon breaks the news that Sam doesn't have more time: He is going with Gilly, along with Maester Aemon. If Melisandre needs royal blood for her spells, Aemon Targaryen fits the profile. Sam is to take Aemon to Oldtown, and either send Gilly on to his family at Horn Hill or Aemon will find a position as servant at the Citadel, where Sam is to study to become Jon's new maester. Sam's various fears come rushing out, but Jon shuts him up, forcing himself to be stern with his friend and with himself: "Kill the boy, Jon thought. The boy in you, and the one in him. Kill the both of them, you bloody bastard."  Sam leaves in distress, and Jon reflects on how difficult it was to follow the advice Maester Aemon had given him: "Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born." He goes outside, where he hears that Stannis has sent a pair of men, Ser Richard Horpe and Ser Justin Massey, south on the kingsroad. He decides to let Stannis have his secrets.

In the morning he sees off Sam, Aemon, and Gilly before dawn. When they have left, he goes to meet with Bedwyck, a small man facetiously known as Giant, whom he has sent for. He tells Giant that he is garrisoning Icemark, one of the castles on the Wall, and putting him in charge of it, particularly to watch for climbers. When Giant asks if he is garrisoning all the castles he says yes, "but for the moment, it will just be Icemark and Greyguard." He intends to put Janos Slynt in charge of Greyguard.

Slynt, whom Jon had commanded to meet him at first light, doesn't show up until half the morning is gone. And when Jon tells him he is putting him at Greyguard, he is surprised, and then angry:

Slynt's face had turned the color of a prune. His meaty jowls began to quiver. "Do you think I cannot see what you are going? Janos Slynt is not a man to be gulled so easily. I was charged with the defense of King's Landing when you were soiling your swaddling clothes. Keep your ruin, bastard."

Jon tells him, "That was a command, not an offer," but Slynt continues to refuse.

Jon bides his time, and the next morning finds Slynt at breakfast with Ser Alliser Thorne. Jon enters accompanied by his supporters, and tells Slynt that he has had Slynt's horse made read for his ride to Greyguard. When Slynt defies him again, Jon asks if he is refusing the order, and Slynt replies, "You can stick your order up your bastard's arse." Jon orders Slynt taken to the Wall and hanged.

Slynt is dragged out, protesting, as the residents of Castle Black, including Stannis, come out to watch. Then Jon calls out, "Stop." He orders Dolorous Edd to fetch a block, and draws Longclaw. When he chops off Slynt's head, he looks at Stannis. "For an instant their eyes met. Then the king nodded and went back inside his tower."