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."

28. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 741-768

The Iron Suitor

Victarion Greyjoy set out from the Shield Islands with ninety-three ships, and picked up half a dozen more along the way. Only about half of them remain as they draw near their goal. In Volantis, he had seen how the fever to conquer Daenerys had taken hold, and he is now determined to reach her before the Volantene fleet does. He is hoping that the storms will be as destructive to the Volantenes as they were to his ships.

He knows that Euron plans to claim Daenerys as his own, but Victarion has decided to defy his brother and take her for himself: "They had sailed too far and lost too much for Victarion to turn west without his prize." In his cabin he is tended to by Euron's gift, a "dusky woman" whose tongue Euron had cut out before presenting her to Victarion. The young maester, known as Kerwin, also arrives to dress the wound he had suffered to his hand in a swordfight. The wound is gangrenous, but in no uncertain terms Victarion rejects Kerwin's suggestion that he may have to amputate the hand.

As the dusky woman is binding the wound again, he gets word that the captain of the ship Grief has come on board with a man reputed to be a wizard. It is Moqorro, the red priest on the Selaesori Qhoran, thought to be dead after the storm that attacked the ship. He has been rescued, clinging to a spar after ten days adrift -- a claim that Victarion rejects as impossible. When Moqorro reveals himself as a priest of R'hllor there is much mockery and a call to "Send him down to the Drowned God before he brings a curse upon us." But Victarion thinks that perhaps the Drowned God sent Moqorro to them for a reason.

Victarion asks why they think he's a wizard, and is told that Moqorro claimed Victarion would die unless he agreed to see the priest. A spasm of pain from his hand makes Victarion stagger and almost fall, and he decides to have Moqorro taken to his cabin. When they enter, the dusky woman turns toward them and then hisses like a snake at the sight of Moqorro. Victarion knocks her down with his good hand.

Moqorro tells Victarion that he has seen him in the flames, "stern and fierce" but "blind to the tentacles that grasp you at wrist and neck and ankle, the black strings that make you dance." Victarion scoffs at the vision, but when Moqorro asks to see the wounded hand he shows it to him. Moqorro  tells him that he can heal it.

"I will need a blade. Silver would be best, but iron will serve. A brazier as well. I must needs light a fire. There will be pain. Terrible pain, such as you have never known. But when we are done, your hand will be returned to you." 

Victarion submits to the treatment, and the crew hears strange sounds of laughter, singing, and wailing coming from the cabin. At sunset Victarion comes out on deck, raises "a charred and blackened hand," and orders them to cut the throat of Maester Kerwin and throw him overboard. When they do that, he says, they will have fair winds all the way to Meereen. He bases that on what Moqorro has seen in his fires. Moqorro had also seen Daenerys's marriage in the fires, but Victarion isn't bothered by that: "She would not be the first woman Victarion Greyjoy had made a widow."

Tyrion

Yezzan zo Qaggaz is dying of "the pale mare," a dysentery-like disease that has been decimating the Yunkai'i. The slavemaster Nurse has already died, though with help from the poison mushrooms Tyrion has carried with him since Pentos.  Tyrion is now trying to figure out a way of escaping, but is hindered by the slave collar with its tinkling bells.

When Sweets, the hermaphrodite, sends them to fetch water for Yezzan, Tyrion tells Penny that Yezzan has nephews who will inherit his slaves, and that they may decide to put them on the auction block again. But the nephews have disappeared when the disease showed up in Yezzan's camp. Tyrion orders Scar, the sergeant of Yezzan's guard, to fetch the water, but is backhanded for his request. This gives him the opportunity to explain that he and Penny are too weak to carry the water Yezzan needs, so Scar suggests that they get their "bear," Jorah Mormont, to assist them.

Mormont is in terrible shape, having resisted at every opportunity that presented itself, but he follows Tyrion and Penny to the well. As they walk, Tyrion observes the preparations that are being made in case of the dragon's return, the weapons being trained at the sky. From his own studies of dragon lore, Tyrion knows the futility of these preparations: The only real vulnerability a dragon has is its eyes; the scales of the belly are too tough.

They find a line a quarter of a mile long at the well. Tyrion takes the opportunity to listen to the gossip, which is of course about Daenerys's disappearance and presumed death. He and Penny are recognized as the dwarfs who had jousted for the queen, and are pressed for information about her. But Tyrion had been more surprised to find her escorted by Barristan Selmy. He had almost tried to make contact with Barristan, but he was uncertain how he might have been received by the old knight. Unfortunately, they were being chained up after their performance while the dragon was making its appearance, so they have nothing to tell about it.

On their way back with the water, Tyrion and Penny carrying two pails and Mormont carrying four, Tyrion claims to know a shortcut. He has grown used to playing on Penny's innocence, and has even kept secret from her what he has learned: that they were going to set the lions loose on them. He figured it out when he and Penny returned from the pit and saw the look on Nurse's face: "Nurse did not expect us back. He had looked around at other faces. None of them expected us back. We were meant to die out there." And then he overheard an animal trainer talking about how hungry the lions were.

But it is Penny's turn to catch on: They are going the wrong way. They are heading for the camp of the Second Sons. Mormont warns him, "If you think to find help there, you don't know Brown Ben Plumm." But Tyrion assures him that he does. Penny frets about the dog and the pig, but Tyrion assures her that Sweets will take care of them, knowing full well that if he does anything Sweets will eat them. He and Mormont set off for Plumm's camp, and Penny reluctantly follows.

One of the men at the camp recognizes Tyrion and Penny as the dwarfs Plumm had tried to buy, so he lets the three of them enter. When they are taken to Plumm, Tyrion explains that Yezzan is dying, and that he has taken the opportunity to join him.

"House Plumm is sworn to Casterly Rock, and as it happens I know a bit of its history. Your branch sprouted from a stone spit across the narrow sea, no doubt. A younger son of Viserys Plumm, I'll wager. The queen's dragons were fond of you, were they not?"

Plumm is amused by Tyrion's self-assurance, as the dwarf goes on to warn him that if he takes his head and sends it to Cersei, she will deny that it's his and withhold his reward. He "was born a second son," he tells Plumm, and wants to join up. When one of Plumm's men says they need fighters, not mummers, Tyrion says he's brought a fighter, and indicates Mormont, whose "face might have been unrecognizable in its battered state, but his voice was unchanged." Plumm recognizes Mormont when he speaks, but it is Tyrion who takes charge of the situation, challenging Plumm to a game of cyvasse and asking for some wine: "My throat is dry as an old bone, and I can see that I have a deal of talking to do."

23. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 605-631

Let's see, where were we...?

A Ghost in Winterfell

The body of one of Ramsay Bolton's men is found, buried in the snow at the base of the inner wall, with a broken neck. Though the consensus is that the death was accidental, it stirs talk that Stannis may have already found a way to get his men inside Winterfell. The snowstorm has raged for days, making it impossible to see what is happening outside the walls. Ramsay is merciless in prosecuting dissent, including suggestions that Stannis is anything but starving and frozen out there in the wilderness beyond Winterfell. But as supplies dwindle, morale worsens.

One evening, as Theon is finishing his meager ration of porridge, a woman named Holly, one of the "washerwomen" accompanying the singer Abel, accosts him and asks to see the crypts. Theon suspects that Abel is looking for a way to get out of the castle, and since Theon is known to have found his way in to conquer Winterfell, he surely must know the escape route. He tells Holly to leave him alone.

He goes outside, and decides to take a look from the walls where Bolton had punished one of the dissenters by having him thrown off into a snowbank. The man broke a leg and was shot by a bowman, left to freeze to death. Theon thinks briefly of jumping, of taking his chances, but knows that Ramsay would hunt him down and inflict worse torments.

The next day, another man is found naked and frozen to death, and then a crossbowman is found with his head bashed in. The former death is attributed to drink, the latter to a kick from a horse, but Theon has his doubts. And the deaths begin to unnerve Bolton's lords, who argue that they should stop waiting for Stannis and go out to meet him, while others argue the opposite, pointing out that the scouts they have sent to reconnoiter have all disappeared. Lord Wyman Manderly even seems to go out of his way to pick a fight with Ser Aenys Frey, and when Roose Bolton is forced to make peace between them, Theon thinks he sees a glint of something like fear in Bolton's eyes.

That night, the roof of the stable collapses under the weight of snow, killing twenty-six horses and two men. Lord Bolton orders the remaining horses brought inside the Great Hall, compounding the stench and filth. And when the men have finished digging out the dead horses and butchering them for food, another body is found.

This one could not be waved away as some drunken tumble or the kick of a horse. The dead man was one of Ramsay's favorites, the squat, scrofulous, ill-favored man-at-arms called Yellow Dick. Whether his dick had actually been yellow was hard to determine, as someone had sliced it off and stuffed it in his mouth so forcefully they had broken three of his teeth.

Roose Bolton tries to hush this death up, but the story spreads, and Ramsay Bolton vows to flay the murderer and have him eat his own skin.

Escaping from the stench of the hall and the taunts of Ramsay's men, Theon goes outside into the snow, walking the pathways cut through snowbanks that now loom chest high. There he encounters a man in a hooded cloak who addresses him as "Theon Turncloak. Theon Kinslayer." Theon denies the epithets: "I'm not. I never ... I was ironborn." The man persists in his denunciation, and all that Theon, who wonders if this might be the murderer stalking Winterfell, can offer in his defense is that he is at Ramsay Bolton's mercy now: He shows the man his maimed hand and says, "Lord Ramsay is not done with me." The man laughs and says he will leave Theon to him.

Theon climbs to the battlements and looks out on the nothingness, thinking,

The world is gone. King's Landing, Riverrun, Pyke, and the Iron Islands, all the Seven Kingdoms, every place that he had ever known, every place that he had ever read about or dreamed of, all gone. Only Winterfell remained. He was trapped here, with the ghosts. The old ghosts from the crypts and the younger ones that he had made himself, Mikken and Farlen, Gynir Rednose Aggar, Gelmarr the Grim, the miller's wife from Acorn Water and her two young sons, and all the rest. My work. My ghosts. They are all here, and they are angry. He thought of the crypts and those missing swords.

When he returns to his chambers, he is summoned by Lord Bolton, whom he finds with Lady Dustin, Roger Ryswell, and Aenys Frey. Roose Bolton comes to the point: Theon has been seen wandering the castle. Theon explains that he can't sleep, and that he is familiar with Winterfell from childhood. When Bolton points out that someone has been killing his men, Theon says he wouldn't do such a thing. Then Lady Dustin asks him to remove his gloves. He hesitates, but shows them that his left hand is missing two fingers and his right one. Aenys Frey observes that Theon could still hold a dagger with his right hand, but Lady Dustin scoffs, "He hardly has the strength to hold a spoon." Ryswell agrees that Theon isn't the killer, and Roose Bolton is inclined to agree.

They proceed to discuss who might be behind the murders, including Lord Wyman Manderly. Lady Dustin and Ryswell point out that almost everyone in the north, their own houses included, has a grudge against the Freys for the Red Wedding. Finally, Roose dismisses Theon, who goes out to walk the walls some more, trying to get tired enough to sleep.

Suddenly there is the sound of a horn, followed by the beat of a drum. But no one can see through the veil of falling snow. When one of the Freys suggests they ride out and meet the enemy -- everyone assumes the horn and drum have been sounded by Stannis -- Theon hopes they will: "Ride out into the snow and die. Leave Winterfell to me and the ghosts." Then he hopes that Roose Bolton will give him a sword and let him fight: "Then at least he might die a man's death, sword in hand."

Theon makes his way to the godswood, where the hot springs have continued to melt the snow. He can hear the drumming, but he also hears the leaves of the trees whispering his name. He kneels and begs to be allowed to "die as Theon, not Reek." A leaf falls and brushes his face: "It floated on the water, red, five-fingered, like a bloody hand. '...Bran,' the tree murmured." The face carved in the tree suddenly seems to be Bran's, and he begins to plead aloud that it hadn't been Bran and Rickon that he killed. "They were only miller's sons, from the mill by the Acorn Water."

Then someone speaks: "Who are you talking to?" He turns around and sees three of the washerwomen: Holly, Rowan, and an older woman whose name he doesn't know. They repeat the words he has spoken, his confession that he needed two heads to prove that he had captured Bran and Rickon, because otherwise he would have been laughed at. He sees that Holly has a knife, and he asks her to kill him. He realizes that they are the killers.

Rowan says, "You prayed, and the gods sent us. You want to die as Theon? We'll give you that. A nice quick death, 'twill hardly hurt at all.... But not till you've sung for Abel. He's waiting for you."

Tyrion

Tyrion and Penny are being sold at slave auction as "A pair of dwarfs, well trained for your amusement." The dog and the pig are being thrown in as part of the deal. When the bidding for them slows, they are ordered to put on a show for the bidders, and Tyrion takes a pratfall from the back of the pig that renews the competition. Finally, they are sold to an enormously fat man in yellow.

They are in the Yunkish camp within sight of the walls of Meereen. The overseer tells them that they are now "the property of the noble and valorous Yezzan zo Qaggaz, scholar and warrior, revered amongst the Wise Masters of Yunkai." The overseer himself, says that they should call him "Nurse," because he looks after the "special treasures" of Yezzan the way a nurse does the children under her charge.

Then Jorah Mormont is brought to the block, struggling against the handlers. He has been so badly beaten that he is almost unrecognizable, and the auctioneer suggests he should be bought as a contender in the fighting pits which were being reopened after Daenerys's marriage to Hizdahr. The bidding is not going well -- no one seems to want the obviously untamed Ser Jorah -- and he is about to be sold to an old woman who buys up fighters cheaply when Tyrion decides to intervene. He tells Nurse that Jorah is part of the act: He plays a bear in an act in which Tyrion is a knight who saves the fair maiden Penny. "I dance about and hit him in the balls. Very funny." So Nurse goes to tell Yezzan, who offers the winning bid.

Mormont is brought to the cart and thrown in with Tyrion and Penny, but he is no longer struggling. "All the fight went out of him when he heard that his queen had wed, Tyrion realized." They are taken to Yezzan's pavilion in the Yunkish camps, which form a crescent around the city of Meereen. Ships had brought the lumber for six giant trebuchets that tower over the camps. But Tyrion also sees evidence of the disease that has spread through the camps: "Disease could wipe out an army quicker than any battle, he had heard his father say once," and he resolves to try to escape as soon as possible.

Tyrion and Penny are housed inside Yezzan's vast pavilion, which is covered with lemon-colored silk. They are fitted with collars around their necks, and Penny cries because hers is so heavy. There are also bells attached to the collars. Mormont is chained to a stake outside the tent. Tyrion and Penny join "Yezzan's other treasures: a boy with twisted, hairy 'goat legs,' a two-headed girl out of Mantarys, a bearded woman, and a willowy creature called Sweets who dressed in moonstones and Myrish lace," and who demonstrates her private parts for them: "I'm both, and master loves me best." She warns them that Nurse "is the only true monster here." As for their master, Yezzan, he is slowly dying, and anyone who can make him forget that elicits his generosity.

That night they are called on to entertain Yezzan and his guests who include Yurkhaz zo Yunzak, the Yunkish supreme commander, and Brown Ben Plumm, whom Tyrion had seen at the auction. Plumm had in fact bid on the dwarfs against Yezzan, and although Tyrion knew that Plumm might be planning to take him back to Westeros and to Cersei, he figured he would rather take his chances with him than with Yezzan.

The act goes over well, and afterward the dwarfs are called on to serve the guests, Tyrion pouring wine and Penny water. Then someone mentions that Tyrion had boasted of his prowess at cyvasse, and he winds up playing against Brown Ben Plumm, who first wagers that if he wins, Yezzan should give Tyrion to him. But Yezzan says that if he can defeat Tyrion, he will pay Plumm the price he paid for him, in gold. Tyrion wins easily, but Yezzan has fallen asleep. Nevertheless, he was pleased by their performance, Nurse tells them. "To celebrate the signing of the peace, you shall have the honor of jousting in the Great Pit of Daznak. Thousands will come see you! Tens of thousands! And, oh, how we shall laugh!" 

20. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 524-548

Tyrion

He has given in, and is riding the pig, whose name is Pretty, jousting against Penny on the deck of the Selaesori Qhoran. The ship has been becalmed in the Gulf of Grief for twelve days, and the crew is restless and looking for a scapegoat. Penny has begged him to help her entertain the crew, lest they turn on them. But Tyrion has also decided that he and Penny will perform the jousting act as a means to approach Daenerys.

Ser Jorah scoffs at this idea: "Daenerys Targaryen is no silly child to be diverted by japs and tumbles. She will deal with you justly." But Tyrion, who knows the history of Jorah's relationship with Daenerys, asks how he intends to approach her. "You think Daenerys will execute me and pardon you, but the reverse is just as likely. Maybe you should hope on that pig, Ser Jorah."

Jorah gives him a blow that knocks him across the deck, and tells Tyrion to stay away from him for the rest of the voyage. Tyrion is rinsing the blood out of his mouth when he feels the ship move: The wind has come up. But when he goes on deck he looks to the west and thinks, "I have never seen a sky that color." Moqorro joins him and says it is "God's wroth."

Banished from Jorah's presence, Tyrion joins Penny in her cabin as the storm begins to hurl the ship about. To his surprise, Penny kisses him. He has no desire for her, and when he looks at her he realizes that she really has none for him. She tells him that she was afraid they would drown, and she has never kissed a man before. In case she is hoping for more, he tells her he is married. The excuse works because, he realizes, she is "still young enough to believe such blatant lies."

The storm lasts into the night, sweeping three members of the crew overboard, blinding the cook when hot grease is tossed in his eyes, and breaking both of the captain's legs when he falls from the sterncastle to the main deck. When it dies down, Tyrion goes to the deck and discovers that they are in the eye of the storm. The wind returns and this time it splits the mast. Tyrion clings for life to a rope, as splinters from the mast stab him in the neck and the thigh.
The
When the storm is over, the ship is just barely afloat, and nine men have died, including Moqorro, who had been on deck praying to R'hllor. The next day the captain dies and three days later the cook. They drift for nineteen days until a ship is sighted. Unfortunately, Ser Jorah informs him, it's a slaver.

The Turncloak

Snow begins to fall heavily at Winterfell, which puts Stannis's troops at a severe disadvantage, as Roose Bolton cheerfully announces. Theon has been considering escape, now that his usefulness to the Boltons is over, but he has no place to go. "The nearest thing to a home that remained to him was here, amongst the bones of Winterfell. A ruined man, a ruined castle. This is my place."

Jeyne/Arya hasn't been seen in the hall since the wedding, but Theon goes in every night to help her bathe, since she has no handmaids. He has seen the bruises Ramsay has left on her, and would like to help her escape, but he knows that when Ramsay tires of tormenting his wife, he will turn on Theon again.

He eats by himself, since no one cares for the company of Theon Turncloak. But one evening a woman sits down by him. She is one of the women accompanying the singer Abel. She asks him to tell her how he captured Winterfell, and if he had a secret way to get in. He doesn't tell her anything, but she persists, telling him her name is Rowan. Instantly he suspects that this is one of Ramsay's tricks: "He wants me to run, so he can punish me." So he gets up and leaves.

He walks through the ruins of Winterfell and finds his way to the battlements on the inner wall where he sees the snow piling up everywhere. "Stannis Baratheon is out there somewhere, freezing," he thinks. He makes his way to the godswood, where the hot springs keep the snow from accumulating. Even though they are not his gods, he finds himself praying but he isn't sure for what: "Strength? Courage? Mercy?" He hears the sound of a faint sobbing, and thinks it must be Jeyne: "Who else could it be? Gods do not weep. Or do they?" There must be ghosts in Winterfell, and he is one of them.

In the kitchen, cooks are making stew and the dogs are gathered for the scraps. He has some stew, and listens in the hall as Roose Bolton's scouts report that Stannis's march has slowed. Then Lady Barbrey Dustin enters and calls for him. She wants to know how to get to the crypts. He leads her there, and on the way he recognizes the place where Bran Stark had fallen. He had been hunting that day, and when they returned they were told that Bran wasn't expected to live. He thinks, "The gods could not kill Bran, no more than I could."

It takes half an hour for Lady Dustin's men to uncover the entrance to the crypts and to batter down the frozen door with an axe. As he descends into the crypts, Lady Dustin comments that Lady Arya is weeping. Theon tells himself to be careful of another trap, but she says, "Roose is not pleased. Tell your bastard that." The northmen "love the Starks," she says, and they haven't forgotten how Ramsay Bolton's previous wife ate her fingers to keep from starving. "What do you think passes through their heads when they hear the new bride weeping? Valiant Ned's precious little girl."

Theon keeps silent until they reach the first level of the crypts. She asks if he knows the names of the lords buried there, and he recalls some of them. She asks for Ned Stark's tomb, and he tells her it's at the end. As they pass one tomb she notices that the king buried there is missing his sword. Theon is "disquieted" at this fact: "He had always heard that the iron in the sword kept the spirits of the dead locked within their tombs."

Suddenly he finds himself asking, "My lady, why do you hate the Starks?" She replies, "For the same reason you love them." He stumbles trying to answer, protesting that he took their castle and had Bran and Rickon killed, but she persists, "Why do you love the Starks?" And he admits, "I wanted to be one of them." And she replies, "We have more in common than you know."

When they reach Lord Rickard's tomb, she observes that his sword is missing too. And he points out that Brandon's is gone as well. "He would hate that," she says, and then tells Theon that Brandon, Ned's brother, had taken her virginity. She had hoped to marry him, but Rickard Stark pledged him to Catelyn Tully, ambitious to unite his house with one in the south. Her father had though she would marry Eddard, but after Brandon's death, he married Catelyn. So she married Lord Dustin, but he died when Ned Stark called out his banners in support of Robert Baratheon's rebellion.

"He told me that my lord had died an honorable death, that his body had been laid to rest beneath the red mountains of Dorne. He brought his sister's bones back north, though, and there she rests ... but I promise you, Lord Eddard's bones will never rest beside hers. I mean to feed them to my dogs."

Theon doesn't understand, and she explains that Catelyn had Eddard's bones sent north, but when Balon Greyjoy took Moat Cailin, their progress to Winterfell had been interrupted. "I have been watching ever since. Should those bones ever emerge from the swamps, they will get no farther than Barrowton."

When they return from the crypt, she warns him that he must repeat nothing of what she has said. He says, "Hold my tongue or lose it." And she replies, "Roose has trained you well."

16. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 420-447

Reek

Bolton is returning with his fellow hunters, and the hounds almost knock Theon off his feet as he hurries, as fast as his fetters will allow him, to greet his master. Bolton comments on how bad Reek smells, and he apologizes. But then Bolton says he has brought him a gift and throws him a rotting, maggot-covered head.

He is left to take care of Ramsay Bolton's horse, and Little Walder commands him to do the same for his and his cousin's horses. But Big Walder (actually the smaller of the two) says he can take care of his own: "Little Walder had become Lord Ramsay's best boy and grew more like him every day, but the smaller Frey was made of different stuff and seldom took part in his cousin's games and cruelties."

In the stables, Theon asks Big Walder whose head it was. He is told it had belonged to an old man driving some goats on the road, and Bolton had killed him because he called him "Lord Snow," a reminder of his bastard name.

A feast is being held after the sixteen-day hunt, and Reek is kept chained outside the hall because his smell would spoil the feasters' appetites. He is able to watch Ramsay through the doors. The dogs have the run of the hall, however. He has been told that the dogs are "all named after peasant girls Ramsay had hunted, raped, and killed back when he'd still been a bastard, running with the first Reek."

In the middle of the feast, Roose Bolton arrives and orders everyone out. Ramsay orders Reek unchained and taken out, but Roose says for him to stay. He is left alone in the hall with Bolton father and son, and listens as they discuss the coming wedding, and Wyman Manderly's slow progress toward it. Ramsay complains that the feast he had been holding "should have been in Barrow Hall, not this pisspot of a castle," which belongs to a petty lord named Harwood Stout. But his father reminds him that Barrow Hall belongs to Lady Dustin, who "cannot abide" Ramsay. He has to stay on the good side of Barbrey Dustin, and he is concerned about what might happen if Bran or Rickon Stark is discovered.

Hearing of this last possibility, Theon struggles to think like Reek:

Ned Stark's sons are all dead, Reek thought. Robb was murdered at the Twins, and Bran and Rickon ... we dipped the heads in tar.... His own head was pounding. He did not want to think about anything that had happened before he knew his name.

But Ramsay and Roose Bolton know the truth, and are determined to conceal it and to make sure that Theon continues to be blamed for the murder of the Stark boys. Roose also warns his son to try to act like a Bolton: "Tales are told of you, Ramsay. I hear them everywhere. People fear you." Ramsays says, of course, "Good," but Roose insists that he conceal his cruelties better: "A peaceful land, a quiet people. That has always been my rule. Make it yours."

Then he delivers his news: Stannis has taken Deepwood Motte and restored it to the Glovers, and the mountain clans have joined in supporting him. Ramsay is delighted to hear of this opportunity to crush their foe, and urges his father to let him attack Deepwood. Roose says he must marry first, and Ramsay wants to proceed with it: "We have a girl, we have a tree, and we have lords enough to witness. I'll wed her on the morrow, plant a son between her legs, and march before her maiden's blood has dried."

But Roose wants the wedding to take place at Winterfell. That will get Stannis's attention, and that of the clansmen who are following him, who "will not abandon the daughter of their precious Ned to such as you." They will march on Winterfell, and the Boltons will conquer them there. And Roose wants to take Reek from him: "if you have not ruined him beyond redemption, he may yet be of some use to us."

Ramsay reluctantly unchains Theon and rides with Roose to Barrow Hall, which is less than a mile away. As they ride, Roose Bolton comments on Reek's stench, and tells him, "I knew the first Reek. He stank, though not for want of washing. I have never known a cleaner creature, truth be told.... The smell was something he was born with." Ramsay's mother had asked for a servant for her son, and he had given him Reek as a joke, "but he and Ramsay became inseparable. I do wonder, though ... was it Ramsay who corrupted Reek, or Reek Ramsay?"

He tells Theon the story of Ramsay's conception: Roose had been hunting a fox and come upon the beautiful young wife of an old miller. He hanged the miller for getting married without his permission, and raped the wife "beneath the tree where he was swaying." A year later she appears at the Dreadfort with the baby, saying that her husband's brother had turned them out of the mill. So he cut the brother's tongue out and gave her the mill. Roose also tells Theon that he had a legitimate son, Domeric, but that Ramsay poisoned him. Theon observes that Roose has a new wife, Walda Frey, who could give him sons, but Roose predicts that Ramsay will kill them, too.

Theon asks why Roose wanted him. "I'm not even a man, I'm broken and ... the smell." Roose says he'll smell better after a bath and change of clothes, but this terrifies Theon: "I have ... wounds, I ... and these clothes, Lord Ramsay gave them to me, he ... he said that I was never to take them off, save at his command." Roose says, "I mean you no harm, you know. I owe you much and more." Theon thinks, "This is a trap, he is playing with you, the son is just a shadow of the father," but he can't help asking what Roose owes him, and gets a reply: "The north. The Starks were done and doomed the night that you took Winterfell."

When they reach Barrow Hall, Roose takes him inside and introduces him to its mistress, Lady Barbrey Dustin, who is appalled at the smell. Roose tells her, "He has been with Ramsay. Lady Barbrey, allow me to present the rightful Lord of the Iron Islands, Theon of House Greyjoy." Terrified that Ramsay will hear this, Theon falls to his knees:

"I'm not him, I'm not the turncloak, he died at Winterfell. My name is Reek." He had to remember his name. "It rhymes with freak." 

Tyrion

He and Ser Jorah have booked passage on the Salaesori Qhoran, and so has the dwarf Penny, along with her dog and her pig. Jorah has removed his chains as long as they are on the ship, whose passengers include a red priest, Moqorro, who holds sway over most of the crew.

Penny has stayed below for a week, and when Tyrion spots her peeking out at the deck where Moqorro is holding a service to R'hllor, she shies away. Though the crew thinks rubbing a dwarf's head is good luck, they also think having a woman on board is bad. Tyrion pities her because of the fate visited on her brother, being mistaken for him and having his head chopped off, but she keeps her distance from him.

When Moqorro finishes his services, Tyrion goes to talk to him. The high priest, Benerro, had specially chosen Moqorro as a kind of missionary to Daenerys. Tyrion asks him what he sees in the flames, and Moqorro tells him, "Dragons old and young, true and false, bright and dark. And you. A small man with a big shadow, snarling in the midst of all." Tyrion is flattered by being important enough to be part of Moqorro's visions.

He asks Moqorro about the ship's name, and the priest tells him that "Qhoran" is the title of a counselor or steward, and that "selaesori" means "fragrant." So the ship's name means "fragrant steward." (Tyrion is unaware, of course, of Quaithe's warning to Daenerys, "Beware the perfumed seneschal.") 

When he goes below, he tells Jorah that he had caught sight of Penny, whose name Tyrion hates because she and her brother, Oppo, had taken as their stage names the two smallest coins, Penny and Groat. But Jorah reveals to us that it was Tyrion who insisted that they bring Penny with them, afraid of what might befall her if she stayed in Volantis. Otherwise, Jorah is indifferent to her fate, and tells Tyrion that she is his responsibility. Tyrion thinks, "The man is cold, brooding, sullen, deaf to humor. And those are his good points." But he has learned of Jorah's passion for Daenerys, and feels some sympathy for him.

Life on the open sea bores Tyrion, who hates to sleep because of his bad dreams. He thinks of ending it all by jumping overboard, "But what if there is a hell and my father's waiting for me?" There is nothing to do but read and reread the three books on board, and he's rereading one of them, "about the erotic adventures of a young slave girl in a Lysene pillow house," at his table in the galley where he dines, when Penny enters.

He asks her to sit down and eat with him, but she apologizes for interrupting and starts to leave. He asks, "Do you mean to spend your whole life running away?" This causes her to get angry, and to say that he is the reason she and her brother had to run away. If he had obeyed Joffrey's command and jousted with them at the wedding feast, she says, thinks might have turned out differently. When he says that people would have laughed at him, she retorts, "My brother says that is a good thing, making people laugh." But speaking of her brother makes her cry.

Tyrion's apology only makes her angrier. She says that they fled King's Landing because her brother had been afraid they would be blamed in Joffrey's death. They went to Tyrosh, where they knew a juggler, another dwarf, but he had been murdered and his head taken too. Tyrion apologizes again, but she insists, "His blood is on your hands."

It is Tyrion's turn to get angry, and he says, "His blood is on my sister's hands, and the hands of the brutes who killed him." He admits that he has "killed mothers, fathers, nephews, lovers, men and women, kings and whores. A singer once annoyed me, so I had the bastard stewed. But I have never killed a juggler, nor a dwarf, and I am not to blame for what happened to your bloody brother." Penny picks up a cup of wine and throws it in his face, then leaves.

Days pass without seeing her again, but then a storm comes up. Remembering the misery of being below in his cabin during the stormy crossing of the narrow sea, he determines to stay on deck. "If the gods wanted him, he would sooner die by drowning than choking on his own vomit." He winds up soaked but exhilarated, especially when he goes to the cabin and finds Jorah Mormont lying in a pool of vomit. After drinking a good deal of rum and playing several games of cyvasse with the ship's cook, he goes on deck where he finds Penny.

He turns to leave her alone, but she speaks to him and apologizes for throwing the wine in his face and for her accusations that he killed her brother and the man in Tyrosh. She says that she thought she wanted to die, but the storm made her realize that she wanted to live. He thinks, "I have been there too. Something else we have in common."

She asks if he really did stew a singer. He says he doesn't cook, but she asks why he wanted him dead. "He wrote a song about me," he says, remembering the words. He asks about her family, and she says that her mother was not a dwarf but her father was. They're dead now, and she has no family left. She worries about what will happen to her now. "I have no trade, just the jousting show, and that needs two."

Tyrion flinches from what he perceives to be a suggestion that he might team with her in the act. But she continues to reminisce, telling about how the Sealord of Braavos once "laughed so hard that he gave each of us a ... a grand gift." He asks if Cersei had found them in Braavos, but she says it was a man, "Osmund. No, Oswald. Something like that." He came to them in Pentos. He tells her that now they're going to Meereen. She corrects him, "Qarth, you mean. We're bound for Qarth, by way of New Ghis." No, he insists, she will be performing for the dragon queen in Meereen. He assures her that Daenerys is kind-hearted and will find a place for her at court. "And you will be there too," she says. He agrees, "I will."

They strike up a friendship, and she introduces him to her pig, Pretty. They start taking meals together. He tries, and fails, to teach her cyvasse. And finally she asks him "if he would like to tilt with her." He turns her down, and later wonders if she meant something else by "tilt." He would have turned her down for that, too, "but he might not have been so brusque."

That night he can't sleep and goes on deck. The sky is red in the northeast, and he asks Moqorro why. "The sky is always red above Valyria," Moqorro tells him. They are closer than the crew would like to the volcanic region where the ancient kingdom had been destroyed. Tyrion's uncle Gerion Lannister had sailed for Valyria when Tyrion was eighteen, and never returned.

There is supposedly a curse on the Valyrian coast that afflicts any ship that sights it. But Moqorro tells Tyrion that he has ordered the captain to sail the shortest course: "Others seek Daenerys too." Tyrion wonders if Griff has changed his plans about sailing west, and asks Moqorro if he has seen them in his fires.

"Only their shadows," Moqorro said. "One most of all. A tall and twisted thing with one black eye and ten long arms, sailing on a sea of blood." 

It sounds like the kraken, the sigil of Euron and House Greyjoy.

13. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 332-371

The Wayward Bride

At Deepwood Motte, which Asha Greyjoy had conquered, she receives a message sent by raven from Ramsay Bolton. "A scrap of leather" falls out of it. Bolton has taken Moat Cailin, she reads. Bolton also warns her, "I send you a piece of prince. Linger in my lands, and share his fate." She burns the piece of her brother Theon's skin in a candle, and thinks, "If my father still lived, Moat Cailin would never have fallen."

Her uncle Euron is not interested in any of the conquests her father, Balon, had inspired. If Moat Cailin has fallen, Torrhen's Square will be next, and then Deepwood Motte. She takes her mind off of the problem by having rough sex with her lover, Qarl, but afterward the reality returns: "My father's dead, my mother's dying, my brother's being flayed, and there's naught that I can do about it. And I'm married. Wedded and bedded ... though not by the same man." The one possibility that comes to her is some sort of alliance with Stannis, who had conquered Balon during his first rebellion against the Iron Throne but is now the enemy of her enemy, Bolton.  

Euron had forced her to marry Erik Ironmaker, known as the Anvil-Breaker, who is ruling the Iron Islands while Euron went off on his quest for Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons. "With one stroke, Euron had been turned a rival into a supporter, secured the islands in his absence, and removed Asha as a threat." She had been married by proxy, and the union had not been consummated.

She leaves Qarl asleep and goes to the kitchens to find something to eat. The sound of the wind in the trees unnerves her -- she is used to waves crashing. Tristifer Botley, a former lover, finds her there. He had sailed away from Euron's fleet and followed her to Deepwood, which means he can never return to the islands. He urges her to run away with him and become a trader. She can't go back to the islands either, he tells her, unless she wants to submit to Erik.

She tells him she could return to Pyke and find her uncle Aaron Damphair, join forces with him and retake the islands. Her uncle had disappeared after Euron was crowned. But Tris believes Damphair is dead, killed by Euron. Erik Ironmaker is supposedly searching for him, and has imprisoned and killed the Drowned Men, Damphair's followers. Tris thinks "Ironmaker's search is just to make us believe the priest escaped. Euron is afraid to be seen as a kinslayer."

Tris comments that it's too bad Asha participated in the kingsmoot that selected Euron. Otherwise she could declare it unlawful, as an ancient king named Torgon the Latecomer did. He succeeded in overthrowing the illegitimate king and then ruled for forty years. Asha kisses Tris for reminding her of this, but then hears a warhorn sounded by the watch. "The Drowned God loves me after all," she tells him. "Here I was wondering what to do, and he has sent me foes to fight."

She finds the guards with two northmen, one dead and the other dying. The guards tell her they killed three others. She questions the dying man and he tells her there are thousands more behind him. She kills him, and thinks of what the maester at Deepwood had told her, that "the mountain clans were too quarrelsome to ever band together without a Stark to lead them. He might not have been lying. He might just have been wrong."

She sends for Lady Glover and the maester, then addresses the ironmen preparing to do battle. The warhorn sounds again. She goes to the watchtower and sees the woods moving toward the castle: The northmen have cloaked themselves with branches. Some of the men propose that they stand and fight, but Asha knows they can't win. She says, "Let the wolves keep their gloomy woods. We are making for the ships." Tris says the enemy may already have taken the ships, and Asha replies, "at least we'll die with our feet wet. Ironborn fight better with salt spray in their nostrils and the sound of the waves at their backs."

A battering ram attacks the north gate, so she orders the south gate opened and they ride out. She hears the sound of trumpets, which puzzles her, but keeps going. The ships are to the north of them, and Asha commands them to ride west, then turn north. She sends scouts ahead to find the position of the northmen. They find a place to camp and wait for the dawn, but the head of one of the scouts is flung into their midst before the northmen attack.

"Somewhere in the ebb and flow of battle, Asha lost Qarl, lost Tris, lost all of them." She is fighting with a northman when her feet get tangled in the roots of a tree and he lands a glancing blow on the side of her head. Before she passes out, she hears a trumpet. "She dreamt of red hearts burning, and a black stag in a golden wood with flame streaming from his antlers."

Tyrion

Tyrion's captor is, of course, Ser Jorah Mormont, who has lashed him to a saddle and ridden to Volantis. Mormont tells him, "I have done things I am not proud of, things that brought shame onto my House and my father's name ... but to kill your own sire? How could any man do that?" Tyrion shrugs the question off, however. He still has the poison mushrooms hidden in his boot, and thinks of eating them himself: "Cersei will not have me alive, at least," he thinks, still under the impression that Mormont is taking him back to Westeros.

As they ride through the city, they see crowds of slaves moving in one direction. When Tyrion asks where they're going, Mormont tells him that there are sunset services at the Temple of the Lord of Light, where the High Priest Benerro will be speaking. They have to pass the temple, which Tyrion estimates to be three times the size of the Great Sept of Baelor. Benerro is on the steps, and the plaza in front of it is jammed as Mormont guides his horse through the throng.

Tyrion asks what Benerro is saying, and Mormont interprets: "That Daenerys stands in peril. The dark eye has fallen upon her, and the minions of night are plotting her destruction." Tyrion thinks that the prophecy doesn't bode well for Prince Aegon. They make their way to a stable, where Mormont sells the horse and saddle. Then he takes Tyrion to a smithy, where he is cut loose from his bonds and fitted with heavy iron manacles.

He clumsily follows Mormont across the Long Bridge over the Rhoyne to a place called the Merchant's House, the city's biggest in. Tyrion is glad to see this, hoping that he'll run into Griff and the others, who will set him free. They go to one of the cheap rooms on the top floor, the fourth, where Mormont chains him to an iron ring set in the wall. Tyrion takes this opportunity to tell Mormont that he knows who he is, and that they are both acquainted with Varys, who had sent him on this journey. Mormont doesn't care: "I took the Spider's coin, I'll not deny it, but I was never his creature. And my loyalties lie elsewhere now." He leaves to get some food.

When Mormont returns with a roast duck and two tankards of ale, Tyrion asks if some sort of festival is going on. Mormont says it's the third day of the city's elections, which go on for ten days. He tells Tyrion that he had spent most of a year here after he was exiled from Westeros, first going to Lys to please his second wife, who got so deeply in debt that he was threatened with being sold into slavery. She had taken a lover, and he fled to Volantis.

He tells Tyrion that he will look for a ship tomorrow, and falls asleep. Tyrion is unable to lie down on the floor because of his chains, but finally succumbs to fatigue. In the morning they go down to the common room, where Tyrion sees another dwarf. When the dwarf reacts with surprise, Tyrion realizes that he has been recognized. As they eat, Mormont says, "Last night the talk here was all of Westeros. Some exiled lord has hired the Golden Company to win back his lands for him." It is Tyrion's turn to be surprised, and he wonders if Mormont knows about Connington and Aegon, and whether Aegon has taken his advice about returning to Westeros instead of pursuing Daenerys.

A serving girl comes to their table and tells Mormont "The widow will see you next, noble ser." When Tyrion asks, Mormont says she is "The widow of the waterfront," and points out a woman sitting in the corner of the courtyard. She has a "vulpine" and "reptilian" look to her, and thin white hair. Mormont tells her, "We need swift passage to Meereen." Tyrion is startled: "Deliver me to the queen, he says. Aye, but which queen? He isn't selling me to Cersei. He's giving me to Daenerys Targaryen. That's why he hasn't hacked my head off. We're going east, and Griff and his prince are going west, the bloody fools."

She comments that all the other ships are going west, and suspects that he is in quest of dragons: "I have heard it said that the silver queen feeds them with the flesh of infants while she herself bathes in the blood of virgin girls and takes a different lover every night." Mormont suppresses his anger and tells her she shouldn't "believe such filth."

Tyrion is distracted by voices behind him and turns to see two men and the dwarf, "who was standing a few feet away staring at him intently. He seemed somehow familiar." He turns back to listen to Mormont and the widow, but when he glances back at the dwarf again he has moved closer and seems to have a knife in his hand. The widow wants to know why Mormont is going to see Daenerys, and he says, "To serve her. Defend her. Die for her, if need be." She laughs at this, and asks if he is taking the dwarf to please her. Then she says she knows who Tyrion is: "Kinslayer, kingslayer, murderer, turncloak, Lannister." When she asks Tyrion what he offers Daenerys, he replies, "I will lead her armies or rub her feet, as she desires. And the only reward I ask is I might be allowed to rape and kill my sister."

She smiles at his honesty, but tells Mormont she has no help to offer him. Then all of a sudden there is a scream and Tyrion sees the dwarf rushing toward him. "She's a girl, he realized all at once, a girl dressed up in man's clothes. And she means to gut me with that knife." Tyrion grasps a flagon of wine and throws the contents into her face, then falls to the floor, where he rolls to avoid her knife. Mormont grabs her and lifts her into the air, and snatches the dagger from her hand.

Tyrion asks the girl what he did to her, and she says sailors from the Seven Kingdom had seen her and her brother jousting and they took him and cut his head off. Suddenly Tyrion realizes that she was one of the dwarfs performing at Joffrey's wedding. He asks if she rode the pig or the dog. "'The dog,' she sobbed. 'Oppo always rode the pig.'" He tells Jorah to put her down, but she continues to urge someone to kill Tyrion because of what happened to her brother.

The widow asks the girl what her name is, and she says it's Penny. Then she tells the landlord to take her to her rooms and find some clothes for her. And she looks at Tyrion and says, "I think I had best help you after all. Volantis is no safe place for dwarfs, it seems." She tells them to go to the Selaesori Qhoran which is sailing for Qarth by way of New Ghis. Mormont says that Qarth isn't their destination, but she tells him, "She will never reach Qarth. Benerro has seen it in his fires." And if they see Daenerys, she says, touching the scar where her slave tattoo had been removed, "Tell her we are waiting. Tell her to come soon."

11. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 276-305

Tyrion

Griff fished Tyrion out of the river, and Septa Lemore revived him. He awakes under a blanket smelling of vinegar, which Lemore claims helps prevent greyscale. Haldon gives him a knife and tells him to prick his toes and fingers; if he doesn't feel pain, he may have greyscale. He should also look for patches of grey skin: "If you see such signs," Haldon tells him, "do not hesitate. Better to lose a toe than a foot."

Tyrion passes the test, but Haldon tells him because he swallowed so much water he may be "turning to stone from inside out, starting with your heart and lungs." When they sit down to eat some broth, Tyrion notices that Haldon the table between them. But when Septa Lemore appears, she hugs him.

They have docked at the town of Selhorys, and Yandry and Ysilla have gone ashore for provisions. Young Griff, or rather Prince Aegon, has been told he has to remain on the Shy Maid for his own safety: Dothraki horsemen have been spotted as they sailed downriver from the Sorrows. They have also seen warships. Selhorys is on the eastern bank of the river, and therefore more vulnerable to Dothraki raiders.

Lemore is no longer dressed as a septa, and Tyrion wonders what she really is. She explains that the septa's robes identify her as from Westeros, and she doesn't want to attract too much attention. Tyrion invites the prince to play cyvasse, and gives him pointers on the game, telling him, "Your father knew the dangers of being overbold." Aegon asks if Tyrion knew Rhaegar, and Tyrion says he glimpsed him one or twice, but was only ten when he was killed. He comments that Lord Connington must have been a truly good friend of Rhaegar's to risk his life protecting his son, after Rhaegar's father confiscated Connington's lands and sent him into exile. If he hadn't done so, Connington "might have been on hand when my father sacked King's Landing, to save Prince Rhaegar's precious little son from getting his royal brains dashed out against a wall."

Aegon explains that he had been substituted for "some tanner's son from Pisswater Bend whose mother died birthing him." Varys had bought the baby from the tanner "for a jug of Arbor gold. He had other sons but had never tasted Arbor gold. Varys gave the Pisswater boy to my lady mother and carried me away." Tyrion knows the rest: that Varys smuggled the infant Aegon to Pentos and put him in custody of Illyrio, who then gave him to Connington to raise. He says the singers will love making songs about it if Daenerys agrees to take Aegon as her consort.

Aegon says, "She will. She must." But Tyrion cautions him that "must" isn't "a word queens like to hear." Daenerys, he says, "is the widow of a Dothraki khal, a mother dragons and sacker of cities, Aegon the Conqueror with teats. She may not prove as willing as you wish." Daenerys is strong and fierce, he says.

"Now, how do you suppose this queen will react when you turn up with your begging bowl in hand and say, 'Good morrow to you, Auntie. I am your nephew, Aegon, returned from the dead. I've been hiding on a poleboat all my life, but now I've washed the blue dye from my hair and I'd like a dragon, please ... and oh, did I mention, my claim to the Iron Throne is stronger than your own?'"

Aegon gets angry at Tyrion's words. "I have a gift for angering princes," Tyrion thinks, remembering Joffrey. Aegon says he trusts Lord Connington to help him claim Daenerys as his bride, but Tyrion warns him, "Trust no one, my prince." He suggests a different approach from the one Connington and his other advisers had been planning: "I would go west instead of east. Land in Dorne and raise my banners. The Seven Kingdoms will never be more ripe for conquest than they are right now." Tommen is a boy, the north is full of rival factions, the riverlands are in ruins, and winter is about to bring famine. "Westeros is torn and bleeding, and I do not doubt that even now my sweet sister is binding up the wounds ... with salt." Cersei is busily undoing all the alliances that Tywin had created.

He advises Aegon to land and gather all the disaffected lords to him, but to be quick about it. "Be certain you reach Westeros before my sister falls and someone more competent takes her place." Aegon objects that they need Daenerys and her dragons to win, but Tyrion explains that all he need to do is build up support "until Daenerys arrives to join her strength to yours." And she'll do that, he says, when she hears that he's alive and fighting to "reclaim the Iron Throne for House Targaryen, hard-pressed on every side.... You are the last of her line, and this Mother of Dragons, this Breaker of Chains, is above all a rescuer" who frees slaves. When she arrives in Westeros she will recognize him as her equal.

At this point, Tyrion moves a piece and announces that he has won the game. Aegon says he advised him against making the move that just won for Tyrion. "I lied," Tyrion says. "Trust no one. And keep your dragon close." Angrily, Aegon knocks over the board and commands Tyrion to pick up the pieces. Tyrion complies, thinking, "He may well be a Targaryen after all."

Yandry and Ysilla return to the boat with supplies and news: Daenerys is under siege in Meereen, and Volantis is going to join the war against her. When Griff hears this, he dispatches Haldon to gather more information, and Haldon takes Tyrion with him. As they move through the streets, a man grabs Tyrion around the neck and quickly rubs his head. Haldon, who speaks the language, asks the man why and tells Tyrion it's because rubbing a dwarf's head is good luck.

In the busy market square, a red priest is preaching, and Haldon listens to him. He tells Tyrion that the priest is calling for war, but on the side of Daenerys. The high priest of R'hllor, Benerro, has proclaimed Daenerys "the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy.... She is Azor Ahai returned." Tyrion thinks of Thoros of Myr, the only red priest he has known, and tells Haldon, "Give me priests who are fat and corrupt and cynical, ... the sort who like to sit on soft satin cushions, nibble sweetmeats, and diddle little boys. It's the ones who believe in gods who make the trouble."

Haldon takes Tyrion into an inn, where two men are playing cyvasse. He boasts, "My dwarf plays better cyvasse than both of you combined." Tyrion plays along, pointing out a bad move by one of the players. He's right, and the other player quickly wins. The winner then challenges Tyrion to a game. Haldon knows him as the customs officer in Selhorys, Qavo Nogarys.

As they are setting up their pieces, Haldon asks if there will be a war, and Qavo says that the Yunkai'i who call themselves the Wise Masters are preparing for it. They have gained the support of one of the triarchs in Volantis, Nyessos. Qavo says the stories are that Daenerys is a bloodthirsty monster, a sorceress who feeds babies to her dragons, and that she is sexually insatiable who possesses the souls of her lovers. Of course, her real sin is her attempt to end the slave trade. "The Old Blood cannot suffer that. Poor men hate her too. Even the vilest beggar stands higher than a slave. This dragon queen would rob him of that consolation."

Qavo says that although the priests of R'hllor are preaching against the attack on Daenerys, she will be greatly outnumbered, even with three dragons. Then he wins the game and takes Tyrion's silver. Outside, Tyrion persuades Haldon to let him find a whore, and Haldon agrees to wait for him in a tavern by the gate to the town. In the brothel he finds a woman and gets drunk. As he's coming down the stairs afterward, he loses his balance and falls, but he manages to turn the fall into a cartwheel, attracting attention from the patrons in the bar.

"'Imp,' a deep voice said, behind him." Tyrion sees a burly, hairy man with a whore on his lap at a table in a dark corner. Tyrion introduces himself as Hugor Hill, but the man knows who he is, and says he intends to deliver him to the queen. 

Daenerys

The Green Grace, Galazza Galare, comes to dine with Daenerys, attended by a dozen of the young priestesses, the White Graces. Galazza remarks on how tired Daenerys looks, and she admits that the attacks on the city are weighing on her. They talk about the hostages Daenerys has taken from the wealthy citizens of Meereen, two of whom are waiting on their table. Skahaz has been urging her to kill some of the children to deter the attacks of the Sons of the Harpy, but Daenerys has refused. The priestess approves of her mercy, and says it has earned her gratitude in the city.

Then the priestess gets to the point of her visit: She urges Daenerys to marry Hizdahr zo Loraq. He comes of distinguished ancestors, she says, which carries weight among the Meereenese. Their offspring will dispel her enemies. But Daenerys remembers the prophecy of Mirri Maz Duur, that she will remain barren until "the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, when the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves." Still, if a marriage could  stop the killing, it would be worth it.

The priestess has brought Hizdahr with her, so Daenerys summons him. He claims that their marriage would put an end to strife in the city, and when she asks why he would want to help her do that, says, "Is it so strange that I would want to protect my own people, as you protect your freedmen? Meereen cannot endure another war, Your Radiance." She observes that he has said nothing about loving her, and he asks, "What is love? Desire?" Who wouldn't desire a woman as beautiful as she? Besides, she has brought new life to Meereen, which was a crumbling city of desiccated old rulers before she arrived. "Custom and caution had an iron grip upon us till you awakened us with fire and blood. A new time has come, and new things are possible. Marry me."

She tells him to kiss her, but she feels nothing when he does. "I do not love you," she tells him. He says she may learn to do so, but she doubts it, especially when Daario is still around. Finally she proposes that if ninety days and nights pass without a murder, she will consider that he is "worthy of a throne." He accepts the challenge and tells her to have her seneschal prepare for a wedding on the ninety-first day. She remembers the warning: "Beware the perfumed seneschal," and wonders if Reznak is in cahoots with Hizdahr and has set a trap for her.

When he leaves, Barristan appears. She tries to get him to say whether he approves of the marriage, but he is distant and evasive on the subject. She tells him, "Marriage or carnage, those are my choices. A wedding or a war." But he proposes a third choice: Return to Westeros and take the Iron Throne. Marrying Hizdahr would be an obstacle to that.

"She wanted Westeros as much as he did, but first she must heal Meereen." Hizdahr may fail to bring about the peace, but when Barristan asks what she will do if he doesn't fail, she says she will do her duty. She asks if her brother Rhaegar married for love or duty, and he hesitates in his answer, finally saying that "the prince was very fond of" Elia. But he adds that there was no fondness in the marriage of her father and mother, "and the realm paid dearly for that." They married, he tells her, because of the prophecy of a woods witch that a prince "would be born of their line." This is news to Daenerys.

And now Barristan has more news: Daario Naharis has returned while she was meeting with the priestess. She tells him to send Daario to her "at once," dismisses him for the evening, and sends for Irri, Jhiqui, and Missandei to help her get ready for him. "She always felt a little foolish when she was with Daario. Gawky and girlish and slow-witted." They talk of his fighting and of the troubles in the city. He suggests bringing out her dragons, but she doesn't want to talk about them: "Farmers still came to her court with burned bones, complaining of missing sheep, though Drogon had not returned to the city." In their confinement, Viserion and Rhaegal are growing more restless, and one day they heated the iron doors to their pit red hot.

She tells him of the plan to marry Hizdahr, and of the ninety days she has given him to keep the peace. Daario says he'll take care of the problem in nine days by killing her enemies. She tells herself he is "Fickle, faithless, brutal. He will never be more than he is. He will never be the stuff of kings." She is shocked when he proposes staging a wedding and then murdering all the assembled guests from the Meereenese nobility. And when he says, "Most queens have no purpose but to warm some king's bed and pop out sons for him. If that's the sort of queen you mean to be, best marry Hizdahr."

She gets angry at his insolence and dismisses him, then calls for Barristan and says she wants the Stormcrows sent out into the field again. As for Daario, he is to report to Barristan. "Give him every honor that is due him and see that his men are well paid, but on no account admit him to my presence." But she is restless that night, filled with longing for Daario, but tormented by the idea of the "butcher queen" that he would like her to be.

But then she thought of Drogon far away, and the dragons in the pit. There is blood on my hands too, and on my heart. We are not so different, Daario and I. We are both monsters.

9. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 232-252

Tyrion

The Shy Maid is enveloped in a thick fog and is moving downstream cautiously through the stretch of the Rhoyne known as the Sorrows. Ysilla says the fog "stinks of sorcery," and Tyrion doesn't disagree. Haldon Halfmaester warns against even breathing the fog because of "Garin's Curse," which Tyrion scoffs at: "Garin's Curse is only greyscale," a calcification of the skin that usually afflicts children, such as Stannis's daughter. But there is a severer and fatal form of the disease, as well as a swift-acting version known as the grey plague.

They tell one another various creepy stories about the stone men and the Shrouded Lord, until something disturbs the surface of the river. Young Griff, who is wielding one of the poles to push the boat away from submerged obstacles, tells them "cheerfully" that it was only a turtle. (Martin seems to slip here: He refers to Young Griff as "the prince," anticipating the revelation that comes a few pages later.)  Tyrion briefly observes something: "A half-seen shape flapped by overhead, pale leathery wings beating at the fog." But it is gone before he can get a better look. Then they encounter a boat going upstream, and there is an exchange between Yandry and someone on the other boat about Volantis, which is preparing for war between rival factions.

Tyrion and Griff have been getting on each other's nerves: When Tyrion makes one wisecrack too many, Griff tells him to shut up. Tyrion, who still has the poisonous mushrooms he found at Illyrio's, is tempted to slip them into Griff's food, though he has noted that Griff seldom eats very much. They come upon the ruins of a vast castle that Tyrion recognizes from his reading as "The Palace of Love." Haldon says that was the Rhoynar name for it, "but for a thousand years this has been the Palace of Sorrow. Then Young Griff calls out that there is a light ahead, and as they grow nearer to it the light becomes three beacons.

Griff identifies it as "The Bridge of Dream." It is inhabited by "stone men," people afflicted with the mortal version of greyscale, which spreads from the extremities throughout the body, eventually causing blindness, madness, and, when it reaches the inner organs, death. Griff warns that the stone men are usually weak and harmless, but can become aggressive when madness sets in. "On no account let them touch you."

As they grow closer to the bridge, Griff orders Young Griff to take Septa Lemore to her cabin. Young Griff argues that he wants to stay, and points out that "Haldor is staying, and Ysilla. Even Hugor." Tyrion says, "I'm less than half of Haldon, and no one gives a mummer's fart whether I live or die." But then he adds, pointedly, "You, though ... you are everything," which angers Griff. The argument is interrupted by a wail that comes from the bridge, and they nearly crash into it.

Once they are clear, Young Griff grabs Tyrion's arm and asks what he means, "Why am I everything?" Tyrion replies that if Young Griff is lost, "this whole enterprise is undone, and all those years of feverish plotting by the cheesemonger and the eunuch will have been for naught ... isn't that so." Young Griff says to his supposed father, "He knows who I am." And Tyrion thinks, "If I did not know before, I would now."

Tyrion takes his torch and shines it in Young Griff's face for a better look. He says that anyone might wonder why the son of a sellsword need instruction in the faith from "a soiled septa" and lessons in history and languages from a failed maester. "I must admit, you have noble features for a dead boy." Tyrion says his father "wrapped your corpse in a crimson cloak and laid you down beside your sister at the foot of the Iron Throne, his gift to the new king." Young Griff is confused until Tyrion reveals that his father was Tywin Lannister.

"Men will tell you that I am a kingslayer, a kinslayer, and a liar, and all of that is true ... but then, we are a company of liars, are we not? Take your feigned father, Griff, is it?" The dwarf sniggered. "You should thank the gods that Varys the Spider is part of this plot of yours. Griff would not have fooled the cockless wonder for an instant, no more than it did me.... Who better to raise Prince Rhaegar's infant son than Prince Rhaegar's dear friend Jon Connington, once Lord of Griffin's Roost and Hand of the King?"

Griff, or Connington, tells him, "Be quiet."

But Tyrion is in the grip of something like déjà vu:  They seem to be sailing past places they have already passed. And when the light ahead turns into three lights again and the Bridge of Dream once again come into view, they all realizes something is wrong. The current takes them toward the bridge again, and Yandry shoves the boat away, through a curtain of moss that dangles from the bridge. Then there is a crash behind Tyrion and the boat tilts, almost throwing him into the river.

Two stone men have leaped to the boat, one landing on the roof of the cabin, the other near the tiller. Duck knocks one of them off the boat with his pole, and the stone man sinks. Griff drives the other back with a torch and his sword, and Duck and Haldon come to Griff's aid. Griff's sword cuts off the stone man's arm, and Yandry and Duck drive the creature overboard as they get clear of the bridge.

But then they see that a third stone man is on board. He reaches out of Young Griff, who freezes at the sight of him. Tyrion knocks the boy down, and jumps over him, thrusting his torch into the creature's face and driving him backward. They are at the edge of the deck when the stone man suddenly grabs the torch out of Tyrion's hand and throws it overboard. There is a cry behind him of "The prince! Protect the boy!" Tyrion's only option is to throw himself at the stone man, who falls backward from the deck into the river, taking Tyrion with him.

As he sinks, Tyrion thinks, "I'll haunt the Seven Kingdoms.... They would not love me living, so let them dread me dead."

Davos


Wyman Manderly has agreed to see him, but Davos has been under house arrest for several weeks before he finally is ushered into his presence in a crowded hall. "Gods be good, though Davos, when he saw Lord Wyman's face, this man looks half a corpse." He is also enormously fat.


Davos requests a private audience with Lord Wyman, but it is denied. "Stannis may have enemies in this hall," he says. "I do not." Davos points out the half-dozen Freys in the room: "Not even the men who slew your son?" One of the Freys steps forward and claims that the events at the Red Wedding have been misrepresented, that Robb Stark "changed into a beast before our eyes and tore out the throat of my cousin Jinglebell, a harmless simpleton. He would have slain my lord father too, if Ser Wendel had not put himself in the way."


Davos is astonished at the claim that Wendel Manderly was killed by Robb Stark, and when the man continues in his story to assert Robb's attendants all changed into wolves and attack the company, Davos asks his name. On learning it, he says, "Jared of House Frey, I name you liar." Ser Jared draws his sword, but Lord Wyman commands him to put it away.


The Lady Leona, Wyman's daughter-in-law, wife of the son held hostage at Harrenhal, urges him to send Davos away for fear of angering Cersei. Wyman assures her, "The Iron Thron shall have no cause to doubt us." But Davos has decided to be defiant, and calls Tommen "a usurper" and proclaims himself "the Hand of Stannis Baratheon, the First of His Name, the trueborn King of Westeros." Maester Theomore, who is in attendance on Lord Wyman, opines that Tommen, as "the issue of Robert's body," has prior claim over Stannis, to which Wyman assents. But Davos goes further, calling Tommen "bastard-born" and "sired by the Kingslayer, in defiance of all the laws of gods and men."

One of the Freys calls this "treason," and Ser Jared demands to meet Davos "on the field of honor." But Davos retorts, "What would a Frey know of honor?" sending the Frey contingent into fury until Wyman halts them. Lady Leona continues to proclaim that the Manderlys are loyal to the throne, and Davos realizes that she is afraid that the Lannisters will kill her husband if Lord Wyman declares for Stannis. He realizes the predicament that the Manderlys are in, but reminds Wyman of his fealty to the Starks: "Lord Stark has fallen, but his war goes on."

Lady Leona now plays the religion card, pointing out Stannis's conversion to Lady Melisandre's faith. Davos counters that most of Stannis's followers, himself included, still worship the Seven. Wyman then asks what Stannis offers in return for his support. Davos thinks, "War and woe and the screams of burning men," but speaks as the Hand of the king, not as himself: "The chance to do your duty." The answer doesn't carry much weight, and Ser Marlon Manderly, Wyman's cousin, and Maester Theomore advance their substantial objections. Finally, Wyman decides to put an end to the interview, and asks Davos if he has anything else to say: "I grow weary of your face."

Davos admits that supporting Stannis means that more will die, but he blames it on the Lannisters' theft of the throne. "What does Stannis offer you? Vengeance. Vengeance for my sons and yours, for your husbands and your fathers and your brothers. Vengeance for your murdered lord, your murdered king, your butchered princes. Vengeance!" And the speech earns an enthusiastic "Yes" from the young girl standing behind Wyman's throne. She urges Wyman to support Stannis because "They killed Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn and King Robb."

Her older sister urges Lady Wylla Manderly to keep quiet, and reminds her that she will be married to a Frey. But Wylla insists she won't, and asks Maester Theomore to remember the old fealty of the Manderlys to the Starks. Theomore says this was true, but "House Stark has been extinguished." Wylla retorts, "That's because they killed them all!" Rhaegar Frey speaks up to say that "loyalty is a virtue" and that he hopes Wylla "will be as loyal to Little Walder when you are joined in wedlock." And to add that the Starks have been "extinguished only in the male line," and that Arya Stark is on her way to marry Ramsay Bolton. Wylla retorts, "Ramsay Snow," but Rhaegar says that Ramsay will be Lord of Winterfell.

Wylla replies, "He won't ever be my lord! He made Lady Hornwood marry him, then shut her in a dungeon and made her eat her fingers." There are murmurs of agreement with Wylla in the hall. But Rhaegar persists, turning the blame back on Robb Stark: "He was a vile dog and died like one." There is quiet in the hall until Lord Wyman, who "was looking down at Rhaegar as if he were a roach in need of a hard heel," suddenly nods agreement. Rhaegar seems to have won the day, and only Wylla voices disagreement with his pronouncement that the Iron Throne is Tommen's by rights.

Then Wyman turns to Davos and pronounces him a traitor and a smuggler, "come to steal my gold and blood. You would take my son's head. I think I should take yours instead. Guards! Seize this man!" He orders Davos's head and hands brought to him before he dines. "I shall not be able to eat a bite until I see this smuggler's head upon a spike, with an onion shoved between his lying teeth."

7. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 179-202

Tyrion

Griff has cut off Tyrion's wine, and he is suffering "sweats and shakes" after drinking himself into a stupor on the ship, at Illyrio's, and on the overland journey. He has taken to sleeping on the roof of the Shy Maid's cabin because the air is fresher than below, and Duck snores. He would like to bathe in the river, but doesn't want Septa Lemore to see him naked. She, on the contrary, has no compunction about slipping out of her robes and slipping into the water before the boat gets under way for the day.

Tyrion watches her, of course, and he notices that she has stretch marks that indicate she has borne at least one child. When she comes back on board and dries off, she asks him if he has seen the big ridgeback turtle -- the Rhoyne is alive with all kinds of turtles. But he has missed it: he was watching her.

As the boat's owners, Yandry and Ysilla, get under way, Young Griff comes on deck, and Ysilla serves them breakfast. Afterward, Duck and Young Griff spar with blunted longswords, and Tyrion notices how skilled the handsome young man is becoming, especially when he lands a blow that knocks Duck overboard. When Tyrion laughs, Duck throws him over. But Tyrion can swim, and when when Young Griff extends a pole to allow him to climb on board, Tyrion turns a cartwheel as well. He says he learned how when he was performing with a mummer's troupe, but in fact his uncle had taught him when Tyrion was six or seven. Tywin put a stop to it, however: "The gods made you a dwarf. Must you be a fool as well? You were born a lion, not a monkey." Now Tyrion is glad for the opportunity to pretend to be a traveling entertainer, and Septa Lemore has helped refashion his clothes into suits of motley.

Duck has also told Tyrion to write down everything he knows about dragons, about which he had read a great deal. He also aids Haldon the Halfmaester with the lessons in languages, geometry, and history that Haldon is giving Young Griff. Tyrion listens as the boy recites something of the history of Volantis, particularly the two rival factions, the tigers and the elephants, that have competed to rule the city. Afterward, Tyrion plays cyvasse with Haldon, and observes, "Languages, history, songs, sums ... a heady stew for some sellsword's son." Tyrion continues to hint about his suspicions of the true identities of Griff and Young Griff by suggesting that he and Haldon play the game for secrets.

The river widens when the Noyne flows into it, and Tyrion realizes that they are passing the ruins of Ny Sar and Nymeria's palace. A giant turtle surfaces near the boat and lets out a loud bellow. Ysilla is thrilled, and calls it a blessing. Yandry tells him and the others that it is "The Old Man of the River." And Tyrion thinks, "Gods and wonders always appear, to attend the birth of kings."

Davos

He is sailing into White Harbor on an old boat called the Merry Midwife, disguised as a sailor. He notices that the banners flying from the New Castle include neither the Lannister lion nor the Stark direwolf, which gives him hope that Lord Wyman Manderly can be persuaded to Stannis's cause. But then he sees a warship called Lionstar, which is flying the arms of King Tommen. "The Freys were here, and he would need to face them."

The captain asks how long Davos will be in White Harbor, and tells him he will wait only three days. If it takes him longer, Davos tells him, he shouldn't wait. Davos makes his way into the city and is surprised at the crowds. A merchant tells him that they have taken refuge there: "With that Bastard o' Bolton running loose, they all want to be inside the walls." Davos also learns that Manderly is raising an army, but not whether it's because he intends to join forces with Bolton.

In a tavern he listens to the gossip, and learns that one of Manderly's sons, Ser Wylis, is still alive and a captive of the Freys. He also overhears gossip about dragons, and someone comes up with the name of Daenerys. Having heard enough, and feeling that his attempt to get Manderly to side with Stannis is futile, he goes outside, trying to decide whether to make his plea anyway. It is too late to return to the ship, so he climbs the hill and presents himself at the postern of the New Castle: "'I need to see Lord Manderly at once,' he said. 'My business is with him, and him alone.'"

5. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 112-147

Tyrion

Tyrion awakes to find luggage being unloaded and readied for transfer to the river part of his journey. He is introduced to Haldon, who is known as Halfmaester, and to Ser Rolly Duckfield, known as Duck. Illyrio calls Tyrion Yollo, but Tyrion knows that's a Pentoshi name, and it's clear he isn't from Pentos, so he says he's called Hugor Hill.

Leaving Illyrio behind, Tyrion and the two men ride cross-country. They ride all night, Tyrion seated in front of Duck on the horse, and reach the Rhoyne the following day. As they near the river they are hailed by a boy standing on the roof of the cabin of the Shy Maid, their riverboat. It is Young Griff, "a lithe and well-made youth, with a lanky build and a shock of dark blue hair. The dwarf put his age at fifteen, sixteen, or near enough to make no matter." Also on board are an older couple and "a handsome septa in a soft white robe."

But when Griff himself makes an appearance, Tyrion thinks, "This one will be trouble." Griff immediately demands an explanation for the dwarf's presence, and Haldon gives him a letter that Illyrio had sent. In the cabin, Griff reads the letter, which tells about Tyrion's killing Tywin. Tyrion notices that although Griff claims to be a sellsword, he can read, which most of the mercenaries can't. In response to Griff's surprise at Tywin Lannister's death, Tyrion says,

"Lord Tywin was sitting on a privy, so I put a crossbow bolt through his bowels to see if he really did shit gold. He didn't. A pity, I could have used some gold. I also slew my mother, somewhat earlier. Oh, and my nephew Joffrey, I poisoned him at his wedding feast and watched him choke to death.... I mean to add my brother and sister to the list before I'm done, if it please your queen." 

Griff asks why Daenerys "should welcome the service of a self-confessed kingslayer and betrayer," and Tyrion points out that the king he killed -- or rather, claims to have killed -- was sitting on her throne. He asks if he can see the letter, but Griff burns it instead.

Tyrion has already begun to figure out the true identity of Griff and Young Griff, but he only hints at his suspicions now. When Griff asks how he plans to serve Daenerys, Tyrion says he knows how Cersei thinks ("if you call it thinking"), that he understands how one can beat Jaime in battle, and that he is well-acquainted with the loyalties of Tommen's court. Griff tells him to hold his tongue, and Tyrion replies, "As you say, my lord." Griff replies that he isn't a lord, and Tyrion thinks, "Liar."

Griff agrees to take Tyrion as far as Volantis, and beyond if he proves "obedient and useful."

Davos

In the town of Sisterton, where he is seeking passage to White Harbor, Davos has been taken prisoner and is escorted to see Godric Borrell, Lord of Sweetsister. The fleet that Stannis dispatched has been wrecked and scattered by storms, enraging Salladhor Saan, whose fleet it was. Saan had sent Davos ashore in a small boat, then set out to regroup his fleet.

Godric brings Davos up to date on the news of Tywin Lannister's death, but refuses to let Davos send a raven to Stannis to inform him. "I'll not have it said that I gave Stannis aid and comfort." But he accepts Davos as a guest and has food brought for him. This pleases Davos, because "even robber lords and wreckers were bound by the ancient laws of hospitality." He is less pleased when Godric tells him that Lord Wyman Manderly, whom Stannis has dispatched Davos to see, tells him that Wyman intends to cast his lot with the Lannisters. A contingent of Freys is on their way to White Harbor to bring Lord Wyman the bones of his son, who was killed at the Red Wedding, in atonement. "Lord Wyman and Lord Walder have made a pact, and mean to seal it with a marriage."

White Harbor is essential to Stannis's plans: "If Winterfell was the heart of the north, White Harbor was its mouth." So Davos pleads for Godric's help in getting there to compete with the Freys. Godric is stubborn, so Davos begins to play on his doubts about the stability of Cersei's rule. "This child king will not prevail against" Stannis, Davos argues. Godric points out that Tommen has the wealth of Casterly Rock and the support of Highgarden and the Boltons and Freys, but he admits that "in this world only winter is certain. Ned Stark told my father that, here in this very hall."

At the beginning of Robert's Rebellion, with a price on his head, Lord Eddard had been on his way home but was shipwrecked. A fisherman's daughter rescued him. "They say he left her with a bag of silver and a bastard in her belly. Jon Snow, she named him, after Arryn." Ned had made it to Sisterton and met with Godric's father, who saved him from being captured and beheaded.

Jon

Jon has tried to persuade Stannis not to execute Mance Rayder because of the King-Beyond-the-Wall's knowledge of the lands north of the wall and of the people who remain there. But Stannis and Melisandre are unmoved, and now she is presiding over his burning. He is placed in a cage over "a deep pit filled with logs, leaves, and kindling." When he sees this, he pleads, "This is not right. I'm not the king, they --" but a rope around his neck chokes off the words. The queen's men also bring out the Horn of Joramun, which was supposed to destroy the Wall.

Melisandre proclaims to the gathering, which includes a thousand captives in the stockade, "If the Wall falls, night falls as well, the long night that never ends. It must not happen, will not happen! The Lord of Light has seen his children in their peril and sent a champion to them, Azor Ahai reborn." She gestures toward Stannis.

The horn is set afire, and in the cage Mance Rayder "screamed incoherently of treachery and witchery, denying his kingship, denying his people, denying all that he had ever been." The wood in the pit catches fire and Mance's "screams become one long, wordless shriek of fear and pain." Jon notices that Val doesn't betray any emotion or look away. He gives an order and his men shoot arrows into Mance, cutting short his agony. Stannis looks displeased.

Then Melisandre commands the watchers, "Your false king brought you only death, despair, defeat ... but here stands the true king. BEHOLD HIS GLORY!" Stannis draws his sword, Lightbringer, which glows like "the sun made steel." He promises "food, land, and justice" to those who bend the knee to him, and orders the gates of the stockade opened. Queen's men hand each of the wildlings as they approach the fire pit a piece of weirwood: "A piece of the old gods to feed the new," Jon thinks.

A few people flee back toward the woods, but most come forward. "Behind them was only cold and death. Ahead was hope." Sigorn, the new Magnar of Thenn, is the first to kneel before Stnnnis, then Rattleshirt, who, Jon thinks, is "A small, malicious, treacherous man, as stupid as he is cruel." Others follow, and a deputation of Night's Watch show them the way through the Wall. But Jon wonders whether they will stay loyal to Stannis when Tormund Giantsbane and his followers arrive. Ser Alliser Thorne mutters his disapproval of this union with the wildlings.

Melisandre leads a chant of "One realm, one god, one king!" but Jon notices that Val doesn't join in the chant. Neither do the Night's Watch, who are sworn not to take part in political matters. A few wildlings, including four giants, remain at the stockade, and then disappear into the forest, leaving only corpses, which Jon orders burned. Bowen Marsh asks Jon if he really thinks the wildlings "will keep faith," and Jon admits that some will and some won't. "We have seen the face of our real foe, a dead white face with bright blue eyes. The free folk have seen that face as well. Stannis is not wrong in this. We must make common cause with the wildlings." But Marsh worries about letting "tens of thousands of half-starved savages through the Wall."

Marsh also warns Jon that there has been talk that he is "too friendly with Lord Stannis." Jon knows what he's been called: "A rebel and a turncloak, aye, and a bastard and a warg as well." He tells Marsh that Stannis helped them when they needed it, but Marsh worries that Stannis is a rebel and that they may have found themselves on the losing side. Jon says he isn't choosing any side, but that Tywin Lannister's death has changed things. He remembers his meeting with Tyrion, who had called him a friend, and finds it "hard to believe the little man had it in him to murder his own sire." He leaves Marsh to supervise the burning and tells him he will think about what he has said.

In the dining hall, Jon finds his old friends, Pyp and Grenn and Toad, making fun of Melisandre and her rituals, but he scolds them, remembering, "A lord may love the men that he commands, he could hear his lord father saying, but he cannot be a friend to them. One day he may need to sit in judgment on them, or send them forth to die." He goes outside, where he sees Val walking the battlements of the tower she is held in, and thinks of the choice Stannis had offered him: to become Lord of Winterfell and to take Val as his wife. "Instead he had chosen a black cloak and a wall of ice. Instead he had chosen honor. A bastard's sort of honor."

Ghost appears, and Jon tastes the hot blood in the wolf's mouth, but reminds himself, "I am a man, not a wolf." He goes to see Aemon's steward, Clydas, who talks to him about the cowardice Mance Rayder had shown. He drinks a cup of wine with Clydas and talks about Stannis brandishing Lightbringer. He had read about Azor Ahai in the book Maester Aemon left him, The Jade Compendium, and remembers Azor Ahai fighting a monster with Lightbringer, which made the creature's blood boil "and its body burst into flame." He wishes he could see how Stannis's sword performs in battle.

He returns to his room with Ghost, and reads a letter Ser Denys Mallister had written from the Shadow Tower asking for more men. He writes to Ser Denys and to Cotter Pyke, telling them that he is sending his friends Halder and Toad to the Shadow Tower and Grenn and Pyp to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea. "This is my lot, he realized as he undressed, from now until the end of my days."