35. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 914-959

The Queen's Hand

It takes Quentyn three days to die, and in the meantime the dragons wreak fiery havoc on Meereen. Only the rain prevents the city from being completely destroyed. Barristan now ponders the best way of getting the prince's remains back to Dorne.

He still holds faith that Daenerys is alive somewhere. Meanwhile, he has reluctantly assumed the role of the queen's Hand. Skahaz tells him that they have expelled all the Yunkai'i and sellswords from the city, and that the Unsullied are manning the watch. Meanwhile, the city nobles are demanding that Hizdahr be reinstated, and the Sons of the Harpy have resumed their attacks, with a death toll of twenty-nine in just two days. Skahaz presses Barristan to kill the hostages in retaliation, but he refuses.

Barristan goes to meet with the queen's council, and is pleased that Strong Belwas -- not so strong as he was before the poisoning -- makes an appearance. Barristan reports the death of Quentyn Martell and the imprisonment of Archibald Yronwood and Gerris Drinkwater. Various council members call for their deaths. Barristan sets that aside to discuss the mission of the Green Grace to the Yunkishmen to arrange for the return of their hostages. The plan is to offer gold for the three -- Daario, Hero, and Jhogo -- with the thought that the Yunkai'i will refuse whereas the leaders of the sellswords will accept, thereby driving a wedge between them. The idea had been Missandei's, Barristan recalls: "Eleven years of age, yet Missandei is as clever as half the men at this table and wiser than all of them."

And what will happen if the Green Grace returns with a refusal? "Fire and blood," Barristan replies very softly. He has had a beacon fire prepared on top of the pyramid, and if it is lighted that is the signal to attack the besiegers. He has maps of the enemy camps brought in, and they spend much of the rest of the day arguing over the best plan of attack. Finally someone asks what the dragons will do. Barristan believes the noise of the battle will attract the dragons, but he doubts that they will take sides: "The dragons will do what the dragons will do. If they do come, it may be that just the shadow of their wings will be enough to dishearten the slavers and send them fleeing."

After the others leave, Grey Worm remains behind to point out that if they attack, the Yunkai'i will kill the hostages. Barristan says he has considered that, as well as a way to prevent it. But he tells Grey Worm that he needs to visit the Dornishmen to tell them of Quentyn's death. Yronwood, whose hands were badly burned trying to extinguish the fire, takes the news stoically. But Drinkwater angrily denounces Daenerys: "He offered her his heart, and she threw it back at him and went off to fuck her sellsword."

Barristan will not allow any slanders of Daenerys. Privately, he thinks that she should have accepted Quentyn, but he tells Drinkwater that what they did was "folly ... buying sellswords, loosing two dragons on the city ... that was madness and worse than madness. That was treason." Drinkwater claims that Quentyn did it to prove his worthiness for Daenerys's hand, but Barristan knows better:

"I have spent my life around kings and queens and princes. Sunspear means to take up arms against the Iron Throne. No, do not trouble to deny it. Doran Martell is not a man to call his spears without hope of victory. Duty brought Prince Quentyn here. Duty, honor, thirst for glory ... never love. Quentyn was here for dragons, not Daenerys." 

Yronwood speaks up and agrees with Barristan, telling Drinkwater to shut up. He asks what is going to happen to them. Barristan tells them that the Shavepate wants them executed, but he would prefer their support. If they serve him, he will send them back to Dorne with Quentyn's bones. He asks what arrangement Quentyn had made with the Tattered Prince for the support of the Windblown in capturing the dragons. Yronwood admits that Quentyn was going to give him Pentos. So Barristan tells them that he wants to send them back to the Tattered Prince, along with some Windblown who are in the dungeons, and to tell him that he'll pay the price if he delivers their hostages unharmed. They agree to the plan.

Barristan returns to the queen's rooms and from the terrace sees Viserion's pale wings in the distance. Galazza Galare returns from her mission to the Wise Masters of Yunkai to say that they demand the reinstatement of Hizdahr. Barristan replies, "He shall be, if it can be proved that he did not try to kill our queen." He offers the Green Grace a seat on the council that will rule the city in the meantime. She declines, insisting that only the restoration of Hizdahr can bring about the peace the city needs.

As for the hostages, the Yunkai'i refused: "No amount of gold will buy your people back, I was told. Only the blood of dragons may set them free again." Barristan is disappointed but not surprised. Galazza Galare continues. Daenerys is dead, she says. "Let her dragons die as well." Their conversation is interrupted by the entrance of Skahaz, who announces that the Yunkai'i are preparing the trebuchets. Barristan says he's not concerned about them throwing stones.

But the Green Grace tells him they won't be throwing stones. "Corpses."

Daenerys

Drogon has taken her to the hill where he has made a home. She has been there a while as her burns begin to heal, but from it she has sighted a small stream. If she follows it, she reasons, it will take her to the river Skahazdhan, which she could follow to Slaver's Bay. "She would sooner have returned to Meereen on dragon's wings, to be sure. But that was a desire Drogon did not seem to share." Her efforts to steer the dragon had ended in frustration.

So she climbs down the hill, determined to return to her husband and the people they rule. Her clothes are rags, and having lost a sandal in the pit, she is barefoot. She finds wild onions and a cabbage-like plant to eat. "As she walked, she tapped her thigh with the pitmaster's whip. That, and the rags on her back, were all she had taken from Meereen." Her hair had burned off, and she feels the need of a hat in the midday sun, but her attempts to craft one have failed.

She turns and looks back at the dragon's hill, which she has come to call Dragonstone, and briefly thinks of going back there. She could eat whatever the dragon kills and ride out on him every day. But she decides against it, feeling that her duty lies elsewhere. During the first day she sees Drogon flying overhead and thinks that he has come for her, but he flies on.

She finds the ruins of a village that provide shelter from the elements at night. The next day she continues following her stream. She comes across a bush filled with green berries, but an hour after eating them she vomits them up. Diarrhea follows, and when she falls asleep she wonders if she will be strong enough to wake up again. She dreams of her brother Viserys, his head smoking beneath the molten gold. When she wakes, there is blood on her thighs, and she is frightened until she realizes that she is menstruating.

Weak and feverish, she commands herself to walk. About midday she sees the grass moving as if the wind were blowing it, but there is no wind. She hears the tinkling of bells and recalls the ones Khal Drogo used to braid in his hair. She picks up a stone from the river to defend herself, but then thinks of her bloodriders. Perhaps they have come to rescue her.

Then she sees a lone rider, a scout riding ahead of the khalasar, and knows she must hide from him. But he doesn't see her, and suddenly the dragon appears in the sky. The horse is frightened, and the rider turns and races away. She calls for Drogon, and he comes to her. She climbs on his back, and though she has lost her whip she is able to make the dragon turn and fly in the direction the rider had taken.

They fly over a herd of horses, which begin to stampede in terror. One horse falls behind, and Drogon breathes flame on it, then seizes it in his claws. The kill is too large to take back to the lair, so Drogon eats it there, and Daenerys shares in the meal. Then, as the sun begins to set, riders approach. She goes and stands by the dragon as Khal Jhogo and his riders appear through the smoke.

Epilogue

Ronnet Connington has arrived in King's Landing with news of the return of his uncle Jon Connington with Aegon Targaryen. Mace Tyrell, as Hand, presides over the council assembled to discuss this development. He is inclined to dismiss the threat to Storm's End, which is currently held by Stannis. "Let the castle pass from one pretender to another, why should that trouble us? I shall recapture it after my daughter's innocence is proved."

Kevan Lannister is less sanguine, either about Jon Connington's strength or about Margaery's innocence. Tyrell wants Tommen to declare Margaery innocent "and put an end to the foolishness here and now," but Kevan cautions that if they overrule the High Septon "it will only drive the pious into the arms of one or the other of these would-be usurpers." As for Prince Aegon, Randyll Tarly calls him "A feigned boy," but Kevan recalls that the body of the infant said to be Aegon had been mutilated so badly that proper identification was impossible. Only Tywin Lannister's testimony asserted that the murdered child was Aegon. And then, Kevan says, "We have these tales coming from the east as well. A second Targaryen, and one whose blood no man can question. Daenerys Stormborn."

Grand Maester Pycelle notes that there have been too many stories about "A silver-haired queen with three dragons" to fully discount them. But Tyrell says she is "Queen of Slaver's Bay," which is "At the far end of the world." Still, Kevan insists that they should act now to quell Connington's attacks, before Daenerys decides to move on Westeros. Tyrell simply reiterates, "After the trial." Pycelle suggests trying to buy off the Golden Company from its support of Connington, but the treasurer, Harys Swyft, says "our vaults contain only rats and roaches."

Kevan changes the subject to Cersei's trial, with Ser Robert Strong as her champion. Tyrell wants to know exactly who this champion is: "He does not speak, he will not show his face, he is never seen without his armor. Do we know for a certainty that he is even a knight?" Kevan wonders if this Ser Robert is even living. Meryn Trant says he doesn't eat or drink and Boros Blount says he has never been seen to use the privy. He has his suspicions about the man, but he doesn't share them. All he can say is that Tommen named him to the Kingsguard "and Qyburn vouches for the man as well." The important thing is for him to win, so Cersei's innocence will be confirmed. If she is found guilty, this means that her children are illegitimate: "If Tommen ceases to be a king, Margaery will cease to be a queen." This is a potent argument to use on Mace Tyrell. Anyway, he tells the council, he will see to it that Cersei behaves, sending her back to Casterly Rock after the trial.

Kevan leaves the council with Pycelle and Harys Swyft, who complains about the cold: Snow has been falling on King's Landing. In his chambers, Kevan prepares himself to dine with Cersei and Tommen. Boros Blount is guarding them, but all of the attendants are novices chosen by the High Septon, who "had insisted that no girl spend more than seven days in the queen's service, lest Cersei corrupt her." His meal with them is interrupted by one of the novices who says that Grand Maester Pycell urgently requests to see Kevan.

The message was brought by a boy of eight or nine. Kevan gives him a penny and sends him to warm himself by a fire, saying that he knows the way to Pycelle's quarters. A girl shows him into Pycelle's chambers, where Kevan sees a giant white raven sitting in the open window. "The white ravens of the Citadel did not carry messages, as their dark cousins did. When they went forth from Oldtown, it was for one purpose only: to herald a change of seasons."

Kevan says, "Winter," but he has hardly spoken the word when something slams into his chest. He looks down and sees an arrow protruding from between his ribs. It is the way his brother died, he thinks. Then he sees Pycelle slumped over his desk, a bloody gash in his head. Kevan draws an obvious conclusion: "Tyrion." But a voice says that the dwarf is "Far away."

Varys is standing there, holding a crossbow.

"This pains me, my lord. You do not deserve to die alone on such a cold dark night. There are many like you, good men in service to bad causes ... but you were threatening to undo all the queen's good work, to reconcile Highgarden and Casterly Rock, bind the Faith to your little king, unite the Seven Kingdoms under Tommen's rule.... Your niece will think the Tyrells had you murdered, mayhaps with the connivance of the Imp. The Tyrells will suspect her. Someone somewhere will find a way to blame the Dornishmen. Doubt, division, and mistrust will eat the very ground beneath your boy king, whilst Aegon raises his banner above Storm's End and the lords of the realm gather round him."

Kevan still believes that Aegon is dead, but Varys assures him that he is alive and that he has been educated to rule. "Tommen has been taught that kingship is his right. Aegon knows that kingship is his duty, that a king must put his people first, and live and rule for them."

Then Varys apologizes for going on with his speech, prolonging Kevan's suffering. He whistles, and half a dozen children enter, "white-faced children with dark eyes, boys and girls together." In their hands are daggers.

33. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 860-886

Tyrion

Tyrion is signing a stack of promissory notes, promising the bearer a hundred golden dragons, as the price of joining the Second Sons. He knows the notes will be good only if he ever goes back to Westeros and claims the fortune of Casterly Rock. The notes at the bottom of the stack are for a thousand golden dragons, then ten thousand each for Kasporio the Cunning and Tybero Istarion. As a Second Son, his duties will be to work for Tybero, who is known as Inkpots, "Keeping books, counting coin, writing contracts and letters."

The final note is for "One hundred thousand golden dragons, fifty hides of fertile land, a castle, and a lordship." This one is for Brown Ben Plumm. Tyrion signs it, then adds his name to the roll book of the Second Sons, signing just below Jorah Mormont. He then returns to the tent he shares with Penny, who is grieving over the loss of the dog and the pig. He tells her that they need to find some armor to fit her -- she is to pose as a boy.

They are led to the armorer's by a boy named Kem, whose accent reveals to Tyrion that he is from King's Landing. When they reach the wagons full of odds and ends of armor, Jorah Mormont is there, dressed in mismatched pieces scavenged from the heaps in the wagons. He has recovered from his beatings, but his face is disfigured by a branded demon's mask on his right cheek, the sign of "a dangerous and disobedient slave." Tyrion and Penny sort through the pieces looking for something that will fit, and Tyrion finds a dirk that he likes.

Mormont observes that they will be fighting for the wrong side: "The Yunkai'i have lost this war, though it may take them some time to know it." Meereen has the Unsullied, as well as dragons: "Three of them, once the queen returns. She will. She must." Tyrion agrees:

"The Second Sons are on the losing side. They need to turn their cloaks again and do it now." He grinned. "Leave that to me."

The Kingbreaker

Barristan and Skahaz are meeting to discuss their next move. The Shavepate is convinced that Hizdahr planned to kill not only Daenerys but also her dragons, as a way of leaving the city defenseless when the Volantene fleet arrives. Skahaz wants to attack the Yunkai'i and end things, but Selmy argues that Daenerys signed the peace treaty, so they must not be the ones to break it. They must overthrow Hizdahr, he says, then form a council to present terms to the Yunkai'i, demanding the return of the remaining hostages and the withdrawal of their armies. "Should they refuse, then and only then will we inform them that the peace is broken, and go forth to give them battle."

Selmy says that Skahaz's way is "dishonorable." Skahaz replies that Barristan's way is "stupid." Their men are ready to fight, he says. Barristan admits that this is true, but they had agreed at the outset to do it his way. The Shavepate gives in, very reluctantly. They will overpower the two guards Hizdahr keeps at his bedchamber, both of them pit fighters who have been pressed into service as guards and were already bored at the routine of their duties. Skahaz will see to it that the Brazen Beasts support him.

Barristan wants to free their hostages, the Unsullied known as Hero, Daenerys's bloodrider Jhogo, and Daario Naharis, all of whom are deeply loyal to their queen. Skahaz argues that they are all expendable, particularly Daario. Barristan agrees that things would be simpler if Daario were out of the way, eliminating an impediment to Daenerys's marriage to someone who might aid in the conquest of Westeros, but he still argues for Hero and Jhogo. The Shavepate counters that if their hostages are killed, they can kill the ones they hold, the children of noble families. Barristan has come to know them, however, and balks at killing children, remembering the murder of Prince Rhaegar's children.

Despite their differences, the two agree to make their move that night at the hour of the wolf. He finds Missandei in the queen's chambers, reading, and warns her not to leave them that night, no matter what she sees or hears. The rest of the day he spends remembering events in his past that might have changed the course of his life one way or another. As the time draws near, he bathes and dresses all in white, then puts on the gilded armor and the long white cloak that Daenerys had given him. He decides not to wear his helmet, which impedes his vision.

He meets the Shavepate, who is accompanied by six Brazen Beasts wearing identical masks: locusts. The men in masks follow him as he goes to the king's chamber, guarded outside by the pit fighter known as Steelskin. Barristan says he needs to speak to Hizdahr and is told that he may enter but the Brazen Beasts must remain behind. In the chambers one of the cupbearers goes to wake the king, who appears, yawning.

Hizdahr asks if there has been news of Daenerys, but Barristan tells him no. Is there trouble in the city, then? Again, the answer is no. Finally, Barristan says he has come "To ask a question. Magnificence, are you the Harpy?" Hizdahr is startled, and seems to realize for the first time that Barristan is wearing armor. Barristan then asks, "Was the poison your work, Magnificence?" Hizdahr accuses Quentyn of poisoning the locusts: "They're all poisoners, these Dornish. Reznak says they worship snakes."

As Barristan persists, Hizdahr grows more agitated and confused in his denials, and tries to shift the blame to Daario Naharis: "Perhaps it was her precious captain who tried to poison her, for putting him aside." Barristan says, "If you are not the Harpy, give me his name," and draws his sword. Hizdahr calls out for the other guard, Khrazz, who emerges from his chamber sleepily, but with his weapon, a Dothraki arakh, drawn. Barristan observes that the weapon is not made for close combat, and tells Khrazz to throw it down. He is there for Hizdahr, and not to harm him.

Khrazz attacks. He is forty years younger than Barristan, and much heavier, but Barristan is wearing armor. The pit fighter is unprepared to do battle with an armored man, and when Barristan sees the opportunity, he kills Khrazz. He finds Hizdahr cowering behind a tapestry in the bedchamber and takes him into custody.

The king's cupbearers are standing there terrified, but one of them speaks up to tell Hizdahr that Reznak needs to see him, urgently. Skahaz was supposed to take the seneschal into custody, Barristan thinks, and wonders if something has gone wrong. He asks the cupbearer, "Where does the seneschal want His Grace to go?" The boy stammers that they should go outside to the terrace:

"The dragons have been loosed, ser."

27. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 717-740

Cersei

Imprisoned and watched over by three stern and pious septas, Cersei has lost touch with the outside world. She spends her time longing for Jaime to come rescue her and brooding over the treachery of her onetime followers, who have either yielded to torture and testified against her, or fled. "She stood accused of adultery, fornication, high treason, even murder, for Osney Kettleblack had confessed to smothering the last High Septon at her command."

Whenever she dozes off, a septa wakes her to demand that she confess to her crimes. And finally, worried about what will happen to Tommen and the realm, she does. As she is being taken to see the High Septon, she asks about Tommen and is told he is "well protected, day and night. The queen is with him, always." This angers and surprises her -- "I am the queen!" she thinks, and then she wonders if Margaery has somehow been exonerated of the crimes she was accused of -- but when she asks for more information, another of the septas admonishes the one who had told her that much.

She kneels before the High Septon to confess, and he tells Septa Unella, the sternest of the three, to stay and record what Cersei says. She confesses to adultery, and when he insists on the names, she lists Lancel Lannister, Osney Kettleblack, and his brothers Osfryd and Osmund, but claims she had sex with the Kettleblacks only to ensure protection for Tommen. As for Lancel, she blames her female frailty in the aftermath of her husband's death. But she swears that she was never unfaithful to Robert Baratheon while he was alive.

The High Septon then says that Osney claims she ordered the death of his predecessor and that she told him to lie about Queen Margaery and her cousins. She denies having engineered the accusations against Margaery and the others, and says she only complained about the High Septon: "He was Tyrion's creature, weak and corrupt, a stain upon our Holy Faith." Osney, she says, must have taken her complaints more seriously than she intended. Then the High Septon says she has been accused of conspiracy to murder her husband, Robert. She realizes that the source of this must be Lancel, and insists that Robert was killed by a boar. "Do they say I am a skinchanger now? A warg?" She denies it.

Finally, he tells her, "there are some who say your children were not fathered by King Robert, that they are bastards born of incest and adultery." She blames Stannis for spreading this story, which she calls "a palpable lie." The High Septon seems to be ready to accept this accusation as the product of Stannis's ambition for the throne: "Lord Stannis has turned from the truth of the Seven to worship a red demon, and his false faith has no place in these Seven Kingdoms." Cersei now sees a glimmer of hope.

But, the High Septon tells her, she will still have to stand trial. And when she asks to see Tommen, he tells her it wouldn't be right to let her near the king until after the trial has demonstrated her innocence. He will allow her other visitors, one a day. As they accompany her back to her cell, one of the septas says Cersei "must feel so much lighter now, clean and innocent as a maid on the morning of her wedding." Cersei thinks, "I fucked Jaime on the morning of my wedding," but tells them she feels "reborn." She asks about visitors, and tells them she would like to see her uncle, Ser Kevan.

He arrives the next morning, but sternly resists her blandishments, reminding her that their last meeting didn't end well, and that she corrupted his son Lancel. He has "hard tidings" for her, he says. She asks immediately about Tommen, but is told he is well, and then about Jaime. He tells her that Jaime has gone off somewhere with a woman, who may be Brienne of Tarth. Cersei can't imagine the clumsy, homely Brienne as a rival, so she is puzzled and dismayed.

Kevan goes on to inform her that companies of sellswords have been landing in the south. He assumes that they have been hired by Stannis, but Mace Tyrell refuses to deal with them until the matter with Margaery has been settled. Cersei would be happy to settle the matter by chopping off Margaery's head, but she holds her tongue. She pleads with her uncle to get her out of the prison, but he says the High Septon refuses to release her until she has atoned for her sins.

She protests that she has confessed, but he replies, "Atoned, I said. Before the city. A walk--". Cersei knows what that involves and refuses, "I am a queen, not some dockside whore." She would "sooner die," she tells him. It may come to that, he tells her: "His High Holiness is resolved that you be tried for regicide, deicide, incest, and high treason." The only one of the charges that surprises her is "deicide":  "When did I kill a god?" He explains that the murder of the High Septon is a form of deicide.

She will be tried by the Faith, he tells her, unless she chooses trial by combat, with a champion drawn from the Kingsguard.

"Whatever the outcome, your rule is at an end. I will serve as Tommen's regent until he comes of age. Mace Tyrell has been named King's Hand. Grand Maester Pycelle and Ser Harys Swift will continue as before, but Paxter Redwyne is now lord admiral and Randall Tarly has assumed the duties of justiciar." 

Redwyne and Tarly are bannermen of the Tyrells, she realizes. She asks why Margaery and her cousins have been freed and she hasn't, and is told that Randall Tarly brought his army with him and persuaded the High Septon to put them in his custody and swore to deliver them for trial. But the case against them has grown weaker: "All of the men named as the queen's lovers have denied the accusation or recanted, save for your maimed singer, who appears to be quite mad." Qyburn is in charge of them in the dungeons at the Red Keep, which makes her feel better.

Then Kevan breaks the news about Myrcella's mutilation. Cersei immediately jumps to the conclusion that Tyrion is behind it, but Kevan assures her the culprit is "a Dornish knight named Gerold Dayne." Ser Arys Oakheart was killed defending her. She realizes that this means there is an opening on the Kingsguard, so she urges her uncle to consult with Qyburn: He'll be able to name someone for the Kingsguard who can defend her in a trial by combat.

The Queensguard

Daenerys's disappearance has thrown her court into turmoil. Already, Barristan has been informed that he has no place at court in her absence -- she is presumed to be dead, which he refuses to believe. Strong Belwas is being cared for by the Graces, after his collapse from eating the honeyed locusts. Skahaz has been relieved of his command, and the Unsullied remain in their barracks. The hostages remain in the hands of the Yunkai'i, including Jhogo, while the other members of Daenerys's khalasar have gone off to search for her. Hizdahr has also dismissed Missandei from service.

Reznak mo Reznak remains, acting as a liaison between Hizdahr and Daenerys's people, and he tells Barristan that Hizdahr has chosen pit fighters as his personal guard. Barristan knows that this is because Hizdahr doesn't trust either the Unsullied or Skahaz's Brazen Beasts. But Barristan is to be kept around to command forces against external enemies, Reznak says. Barristan knows this is nonsense, but he hides his real feelings: "I am His Grace's to command," he says, only to be corrected by Reznak: The proper address is "His Magnificence, His Radiance, His Worship." He takes his leave of the perfumed seneschal, hiding his contempt.

Hizdahr has not occupied Daenerys's chambers, however, preferring a more secure location. Barristan goes there and finds only Missandei -- Irri and Jhiqui have joined the other Dothraki in the search. He is full of regret: "I came to bring Daenerys home. Yet he had lost her, just as he had lost her father and her brother. Even Robert. I failed him too." He had seen Drogon fly off with Daenerys on his back, and had learned later that the dragon had turned his fire on the people who had shot arrows at him, killing more than two hundred and burning or wounding three times that number.

Missandei assures him that Daenerys has not flown to Westeros, that she would not abandon her followers. She also tells him that Skahaz mo Kandaq wants to speak with him. He doesn't trust the Shavepate but agrees to the meeting. Alone, he thinks about his failures:

Jaehaerys, Aerys, Robert. Three dead kings. Rhaegar, who would have been a finer king than any of them. Princess Elia and the children. Aegon just a babe. Rhaenys with her kitten. Dead, every one, yet he still lived, who had sworn to protect them. And now Daenerys, his bright shining child queen. She is not dead. I will not believe it.

That evening he goes out to the meeting Missandei has arranged with Skahaz, uncertain whether he shouldn't arrest him for conspiring against Hizdahr, his queen's consort. He finds the Shavepate wearing the mask of a Brazen Beast: a cat. He tells Barristan that he has discovered who poisoned the honeyed locusts: "The Sons of the Harpy tood his daughter and swore she would be returned once the queen was dead." Belwas's taste for the locust saved Daenerys, as did the dragon. But the poisoner's girl was returned to him "in nine pieces. One for every year she lived."

Moreover, he says, Volantis has launched its fleet and is sailing to Meereen. "The king will open the city gates to the Volantenes when they arrive. All those Daenerys freed will be enslaved again. Even some who were never slaves will be fitted for chains. You may end your days in a fighting pit, old man." He urges an attack on the Yunkai'i, who are fat and complacent, and says Barristan must contact the Unsullied.

Barristan is cautious about getting caught up in a treasonous plot, but Skahaz insists that Hizdahr is behind the attempt to poison Daenerys: He always wanted the crown, and once he gained it had no interest in sharing it. Barristan remembers Hizdahr urging Daenerys to try the locusts, "yet he never touched so much as one himself." He wants to talk to the man who prepared them. Skahaz agrees, and says he won't make a move against Hizdahr until they are certain of his guilt. And Barristan agrees to talk to Grey Worm, the leader of the Unsullied.

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

Daenerys

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


Melisandre


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

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

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

6. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 148-178

Daenerys

Daenerys has been dreaming of Daario Naharis when she is awakened by Irri. Grey Worm, Reznak and Skahaz have brought word of more murders conducted by the Sons of the Harpy. Nine of her followers have been killed, including Missandei's brother. Daenerys demands a strengthening of the guard and hostages from the noble family of Meereen. Then she comforts Missandei.

Filled with anger and longing for Daario, she is unable to go back to sleep. She goes out to the pool on the terrace to bathe, but she hears a sound and sees a woman wearing a lacquered wooden mask: Quaithe. Daenerys pinches herself, but she isn't dreaming.

"Hear me, Daenerys Targaryen. The glass candles are burning. Soon comes the pale mare, and after her the others. Kraken and dark flame, lion and griffin, the sun's son and the mummer's dragon. Trust none of them. Remember the Undying. Beware the perfumed seneschal." 

The last-named is Reznak, Daenerys knows, but she asks Quaithe to "speak plainly" if she has something to tell her. She remembers Quaithe's other advice, to "go north to go south, east to go west, back to go forward. And to touch the light I have to pass beneath the shadow." But she's tired of riddles, she tells Quaithe. Then Missandei appears to ask whom Daenerys is talking to, and Quaithe vanishes. Daenerys wonders if she is going mad, like her father.

After breakfast, for which Daenerys finds she has no appetite, Reznak and Skahaz appear, stirring her memory of Quaithe's warning. She takes her seat in the council hall, where Ser Barristan has thoughtfully provided cushions for her, and tries to fight off sleep as she hears about the city's problems. Hizdahr zo Loraq returns, once again to plead for the reinstatement of the fighting pits. He brings with him prominent fighters, all of them freed slaves -- "it had been the fighting slaves, freed from their shackles by her sewer rats, who led the uprising that won the city for her." She feels obliged to listen to their arguments for reopening the pits. She tells them she will consider their arguments, and the meeting is adjourned.

Ser Barristan accompanies her back to her chambers, and she asks him to tell her about how Joffrey dismissed him from the kingsguard and how he fled the country. He says he watched the beheading of Eddard Stark, which convinced him to leave. When Daenerys objects that Stark was a traitor, Barristan objects:

"Your Grace," said Selmy, "Eddard Stark played a part in your father's fall, but he bore you no ill will. When the eunuch Varys told us that you were with child, Robert wanted you killed, but Lord Stark spoke against it. Rather than countenance the murder of children, he told Robert to find himself another Hand." 

Daenerys reminds him of the murder of Princess Rhaenys and Prince Aegon, but Barristan says that was done by the Lannisters, not the Starks. Daenerys sees no difference between the two houses, and then asks Barristan to take her to see her dragons. She senses his disapproval, but he obliges.

Rhaegal and Viserion are chained there, and she notes how they have grown. "What sort of mother lets her children rot in darkness?" she asks herself. But she knows that she must keep them there after meeting with the man whose child was eaten. It was a four-year-old girl called Hazzea, he told her. She had questioned his story, thinking that the child's death might have been faked by the Sons of the Harpy to discredit her, but she observed that the man had come forward after the hall had emptied. "If his purpose had been to inflame the Meereenese against her, he would have told his tale when the hall was full of ears to hear." She had paid him handsomely not to spread the story.

Drogon had presumably been the dragon responsible, and he is still at large. Daenerys is conscience-stricken, but feels responsible for the dragons, too. "Without dragons, how could she hope to hold Meereen, much less win back Westeros? I am the blood of the dragon, she thought. If they are monsters, so am I."

Reek

Ramsay Bolton has imprisoned him after torturing and mutilating him, and now he is reduced to capturing rats and eating them raw. But now two boys have come to his cell, and he is terrified that he is about to be taken back to Bolton for more abuse. The boys "were squires, both were eight, and both were Walder Frey. Big Walder and Little Walder, yes. Only the big one was Little and the little one was Big, which amused the boys and confused the rest of the world."

He thinks of overpowering them and taking the keys, but knows that he'll be caught and that Bolton "will take another finger from me, he will take more of my teeth." He had escaped from Ramsay Bolton before, but discovered that it was only a trap: "Lord Ramsay loved the chase and preferred to hunt two-legged prey."

Little Walder asks if they should bathe him before taking him wherever he was going, but Big Walder says that Ramsay "likes him stinky.... That's why he named him Reek." We remember now that when Ramsay Bolton was still a bastard named Snow, he had disguised himself as the filthy creature known as Reek. The new Reek has to remind himself of his name constantly with mnemonics: "My name is Reek, it rhymes with bleak," he tells himself now. So he submits to the Freys, who guide the ragged Reek out of the dungeon.

As he goes with them, he wonders how long he has been imprisoned. "The boys were still boys. If it had been ten years, they would have grown into men," he reasons. They take him to the great hall, where the garrison is dining. Bolton is sitting at the high table, and he tells the men sitting beside him that "Reek has been with me since I was a boy. My lord father gave him to me as a token of his love." One of the men says he thought Reek was dead, that he had been killed by the Starks, but Bolton says, "The ironmen will tell you that what is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger."

But the other man sitting there tells the first one to take a good look at Reek: "His hair's gone white and he is three stone thinner, aye, but this is no serving man." And the first man recognizes Reek as Theon Greyjoy, though he doesn't speak his name: "Stark's ward. Smiling, always smiling." Bolton says he doesn't smile much anymore since he broke Theon's teeth, and he notices blood on his mouth and asks if he has been "chewing on your fingers again, Reek?" (Bolton's late wife had starved to death, eating her own fingers to try to stay alive.) Reek/Theon swears that he hasn't been doing that, though he had tried to bite his ring finger off after Bolton had flayed the skin from it.

He confesses to having eaten a rat, which brings a reprimand: "All the rats in the Dreadfort belong to my lord father. How dare you make a meal of one without my leave." Reek doesn't know how to reply to avoid further mutilation: "Thus far he had lost two fingers off his left hand and the pinky off his right, but only the little toe off his right foot against three from his left." But Bolton is more interested in giving him some news: "I am to be wed. My lord father is bringing me a Stark girl. Lord Eddard's daughter, Arya. You remember little Arya, don't you?"

Theon remembers the real Arya -- we know this one is an imposter -- and recalls "a time when he had thought that Lord Eddard Stark might marry him to Sansa and claim him for a son, but that had only been a child's fancy." Now Bolton tells him that he is to serve him at the wedding, and that he will be cleaned up and fed to get his strength back. Though he fears a trap, Theon says he will be glad to serve him. Bolton tells him, "I ride to war, Reek. And you will be coming with me, to help me fetch home my virgin bride."

Bran

They are traveling again through deep snow and bitter cold, and they are afraid. "Even Summer was afraid." Coldhands tells them they have to climb, and it will be dark soon. The entrance to the cave they are headed for is halfway up the hill, and Bran sees ravens flying in and out of it. Meera estimates it's about a thousand yards away, but Bran recognizes that "all those yards are upward." Still, it's his destination, the place where he is to meet the three-eyed crow, the greenseer. 

It had been twelve days since the elk had collapsed for the third and final time, since Coldhands had knelt beside it in the snowbank and murmured a blessing in some strange tongue as he slit its throat.... As gaunt and starved as the elk had been, the steaks the ranger carved from him had sustained them for seven days, until they finished the last of them huddled over a fire in the ruins of an old hillfort.

Hodor begins the ascent with Bran on his back and Coldhands beside them. Summer follows, and then Meera, who has been carrying Jojen for quite a while.  Bran loses sight of Meera and Jojen as they fall behind. Only a dozen of the ravens that had been accompanying them remain, and Bran sees one of them fly into the cave. "Only eighty yards now, Bran thought, that's not far at all."

But Summer stops suddenly and snarls and backs away. Bran tells Hodor to stop, but Coldhands continues the climb, so Hodor follows. When they are sixty yards from the entrance, Bran sees the flicker of a fire in the cave's mouth. But suddenly Hodor screams and falls, and Bran realizes that something has hold of Hodor's leg. A wight bursts from under the snow. They are rolling down hill, and wights are bursting from beneath the snow.

A wight grabs Bran, but Summer attacks and tears off its arm and bites into its throat. Bran begins to drag himself uphill toward the cave, as Coldhands slashes out at the wights surrounding him and Summer continues his assault on the one that grabbed Bran. He hears Hodor call out, and Bran slips inside Hodor's body, drawing Hodor's sword. "Deep inside he could hear poor Hodor whimpering still, but outside he was seven feet of fury with old iron in his hand." Meera arrives and jabs at the wight attacking Hodor with her frog spear. Through Hodor's eyes, Bran sees Jojen lying helpless, and he guides Hodor to rescue the boy.

Up ahead, wights are burning, and Bran realizes that someone has set them on fire. He sees Summer snarling at a burning wight and realizes that he -- Bran -- is lying on the ground and Summer is protecting him. He wonders if Bran dies, will he remain Hodor forever. He feels Hodor stumble as ravens pour from the mouth of the cave and he sees "a little girl with a torch in hand, darting this way and that." For a moment he thinks the girl is Arya. Then the snow falls from a tree and buries him.

He wakes inside the cave and sees Hodor, Summer, Meera and Jojen with him, tended to by the girl. When she speaks he knows she isn't Arya, and he notices that her eyes are "large and liquid, gold and green, slitted like a cat's eyes." He realizes that she is "A child of the forest," as he tells Meera when she asks. The girl says that the First Men called them children, but they aren't. "Our name in the True Tongue means those who sing the song of earth. Before your Old Tongue was ever spoken, we had sung our songs ten thousand years."

She tells them that the ranger, Coldhands, can't enter the cave, and when Bran protests that the wights will kill him, says, "They killed him long ago." They must follow her now to meet the greenseer. As they descend into the cavern, Bran sees what seems to be giant white snakes in the walls of the cave, but he realizes that they are weirwood roots. There are passages off to the side, and in them Bran sees, by the light of the girl's torch, the shining eyes of other children of the forest. Hodor's feet begin to crunch on something and he stops suddenly. Bran realizes that they are walking on bones, and in niches there are skulls of animals, men, and giants, as well as of the children of the forest.

The last part of the journey is the steepest, and Hodor slides down in on his buttocks. He sees the girl waiting by a natural bridge across a chasm, and he hears running water. Bran is afraid that he will have to cross the bridge on Hodor's back, but the girl tells him no, and lifts her torch, telling him to look behind.

Before them a pale lord in ebon finery sat dreaming in a tangled nest of roots, a woven weirwood throne that embraced his withered limbs as a mother does a child. His body was so skeletal and his clothes so rotted that at first Bran took him for another corpse, a dead man propped up so long that the roots had grown over him, under him, and through him. 

His hair is white and so long that it reaches the floor, leaves sprout from his skull, and mushrooms from his forehead. Bone pokes through his desiccated skin.

Bran asks, "Are you the three-eyed crow?" The pale lord answers slowly, in a dry voice, and says that he was one once. "I have been many things, Bran," he says, but he has been this for a very long time. "I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father." He had witnessed Bran's fall. "And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late."

Bran asks for the thing he wants most: his legs.

"You will never walk again, Bran," the pale lips promised, "but you will fly."

2. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 31-59

Daenerys

Despite the insistence of Ser Barristan that she doesn't need to do so, and the fears of her handmaids Irri and Jhiqui that "It is bad luck to touch the dead," Daenerys insists on seeing the body of one of the Unsullied who has been found dead. He is a victim of the assassins known as the Sons of the Harpy, who are waging a guerrilla war against Daenerys's regime. The dead man is known as Stalwart Shield, and although he is a eunuch, his body was found in a brothel. Grey Worm, the captain of her Unsullied, tells her that eunuchs often go to brothels just to be held by the women: "Even those who lack a man's parts may still have a man's heart."

Ser Barristan informed Daenerys that this is a type of warfare for which even the Unsullied are ill-trained, being used to the battlefield rather than to terrorist acts. She realizes that maintaining her hold over Meereen will be more complicated than she had thought. She returns to her quarters in the Great Pyramid and walks restlessly on her terrace, pondering this face. Her dragons Viserion and Rhaegal are there, but they have been growing wilder lately -- and growing in size as well. She thinks, "I have left them too much to themselves, but where am I to find the time for them?"

Irri and Jhiqui help her prepare for an audience with the Meereenese public, which involves donning the Ghiscari tokar, a clumsy fringed garment that is wound around the body and makes walking difficult. "It was not a garment meant for any man who meant to work. The tokar was a master's garment, a sign of wealth and power." It also includes a headdress that looks rather like a pair of floppy rabbit ears. Daenerys wanted to get rid of the tokar, but Galazza Galare, the high priestess known as the Green Grace advised her that it would be a public relations disaster to do so. "These Meereenese were a sly and stubborn people who resisted her at every turn," so Daenerys conceded this point.

She is attended by her seneschal, Reznak mo Reznak, a flattering, perfumed courtier, and by the head of her city watch, Skahaz mo Kandaq, who has shaved his head as a sign of acceptance of Daenerys's new regime. He is known as the Shavepate. Daenerys doesn't fully trust these advisers: "The Undying of Qarth had told her she would be thrice betrayed. Mirri Maz Duur had been the first, Ser Jorah the second. Would Reznak be the third? The Shavepate? Daario? Or will it be someone I would never suspect, Ser Barristan or Grey Worm or Missandei?"

In the meeting hall, she is announced by Missandei, the scribe she had rescued from slavery in Astapor, and the first person to present his request to her is an Astapori, "a former slave who called himself Lord Ghael, though no one seemed to know what he was lord of." He gives her a pair of slippers from the current king at Astapor, Cleon the Great. She puts them on, but they pinch her feet. He urges her to join in an attack on Yunkai, which reverted to slavery after Daenerys left. But Daenerys knows that Astapor is no better, and suggests that Cleon find a way to feed his people before making war.

Reznak next introduces a wealthy merchant named Hizdahr zo Loraq. When she conquered Meereen, she closed the fighting pits where men battled to the death; Hizdahr owns most of them, and want her to reopen them. She has already refused the request five times, and makes it a sixth. She repeats Hizdahr's earlier arguments to him: The pits are historic, they are part of the religious ritual of blood sacrifice to the gods of Ghis, they are a demonstration of athletic skill, reopening them would win her good will, they draw visitors and trade to Meereen, they satisfy people's innate blood lust, and they serve as a venue for trial by combat as part of the system of justice.

Hizdahr compliments her recital: "I see that you are eloquent as well as beautiful." Reznak also whispers to her that they are a significant source of tax revenue. But Daenerys refuses him again. Still, she observes to herself that Reznak and the Green Grace had been urging her to marry a Meereenese noble to solidify her authority over the city, and she thinks it might be worth taking a good look at Hizdahr.

The next petitioner is Grazdan zo Galare, a cousin of the Green Grace. "The priestess was a voice for peace, acceptance, and obedience to lawful authority," so Daenerys knows she should be careful in listening to and answering him. He wants a share of the profits of some of his former slaves, women who had been trained in weaving at his household and who now have opened a shop of their own. Daenerys asks him the name of the slave who taught the women to weave, and he can't remember it. She orders that he not only have no share in their profits, but that he buy them the finest loom available: "That is for forgetting the name of the old woman."

She tells Reznak to call on a freedman next, and to alternate between former masters and former slaves from now on. The cases she hears are a parade of grievances, and Daenerys thinks, "I am queen over a city built on dust and death." She grows tired, her crown grows heavy, and the bench she sits on grows hard: "I have too many councillors and too few cushions." Finally, there is a throng of claimants for compensation for livestock killed by her dragons.

Some claims were false, she did not doubt, but more were genuine. Her dragons had grown too large to be content with rats and cats and dogs. The more they eat, the larger they will grow, Ser Barristan had warned her, and the larger they grow, the more they'll eat. Drogon especially ranged far afield and could easily devour a sheep a day. "Pay them for the value of their animals," she told Reznak, "but henceforth claimants must present themselves at the Temple of the Graces and swear a holy oath before the gods of Ghis."

The claimants file out, grumbling, but one man, holding a sack, remains behind. Missandei proclaims an end to the hearing, but Daenerys notices the man and asks what he wants. He opens the sack and empties the bones, saying, "It were the black one...." Reznak tells him to get his compensation tomorrow, but Barristan tells him to shut up. Those aren't sheep bones, he says.

"No, Dany thought, those are the bones of a child."

Jon

Jon is dreaming he is Ghost, racing through a moonlit forest. As he races, the moon calls out, "Snow."

Once they had been six, five whimpering blind in the snow beside their dead mother, sucking cool milk from her hard dead nipples whilst he crawled off alone. Four remained ... and one the white wolf could no longer sense.

The moon continues calling out, "Snow, snow, snow!" until finally Lord Commander Mormont's raven wakes Jon. His steward, Dolorous Edd Tollett enters to ask if he wants breakfast. Jon asks him if there has been any trouble with the wildlings penned in the stockade, many of whom were women who were being sneaked out by the guards to sleep with them. Dolorous Edd says no, but there were more wildlings arriving.

Jon remembers his wolf dream, which like others of its kind had been stronger than ever before. Ghost knows of Grey Wind's death, he realizes, but he also knows that Summer and Shaggydog, Bran and Rickon's direwolves, are still alive. It was Summer who saved his life at Queenscrown, and he wonders "if some part of his dead brothers lived on inside their wolves."

On his way to the King's Tower, he meets Samwell Tarly, who has just delivered a letter to Stannis. Jon asks Sam about his longbow practice, and Sam says he's been reading up on it, but he gets blisters when he practices. At the entrance to the king's quarters, he is forced by the guards to surrender his weapons. Inside, Stannis is poring over a map; Melisandre is sitting by the fire. Stannis is angry because he has sent out ravens to all of the Stark bannermen asking for their support, but only the Karstarks have come around to his support. Jon knows this is because Rickard Karstark has no choice, having alienated both the Starks and the Lannisters.

Stannis angrily probes Jon about ways to enlist the support of the bannermen and of the wildlings, but receives no satisfactory answers from him. He is already vexed with Jon for refusing his offer to make Jon legitimate and the lord of Winterfell. Jon now tells him that he is sending Gilly and her baby south from Eastwatch, and he continues to refuse to cede the abandoned castles along the Wall to Stannis. In fact, he asks Stannis for men to garrison them. They don't need to join the Watch, "so long as they obey my officers as they would your own."

Stannis retorts that Jon is "only lord commander by my sufferance. You would do well to remember that." When Jon replies that he was chosen by his brothers, Stannis says that Alliser Thorne and Janos Slynt dispute that. "Your Grace knows that I was fairly chosen," Jon replies. "The Wall is mine." Stannis threatens that if any of the castles on the Wall fall to the enemy, Jon's head will follow, and orders him out.

Melisandre says she will accompany Jon to his chambers, and as they go down the steps says, "His Grace is growing fond of you." Jon replies, "I can tell. He only threatened to behead me twice." She tells him that she has seen Jon in her fires, and that he has enemies:

"It is not the foes who curse you to your face that you must fear, but those who smile when you are looking and sharpen their knives when you turn your back. You would do well to keep your wolf close beside you. Ice, I see, and daggers in the dark. Blood frozen red and hard, and naked steel. It was very cold."

And her final words to him are the same as Ygritte's: "you know nothing, Jon Snow."