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

Daenerys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!" 

14. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 372-394

Jon

Jon is sending out rangers beyond the Wall, and among them is his old enemy, Alliser Thorne, who says, "So the bastard boy sends me out to die." Jon keeps his cool, but Thorne threatens to come back as a wight and single him out. There are three groups of rangers, and Dywen is leading the one that includes Thorne. Jon thinks, "Thorne is in better hands than he deserves."

The commanders of the outlying posts have been seeing more activity from the wildings still to the north of the Wall, and have requested more men -- men that Jon doesn't have. He has sent some of the free folk who joined at Mole's Town, but this has only caused Cotter Pyke and Denys Mallister, the commanders of the castles, to complain. Pyke wrote, through Maester Harmune, "I wouldn't trust such to clean my chamber pot."

He sees Iron Emmett, the master-at-arms, training his men, and asks for his three best trainees. Then he spars with them, taking on all three at once. He demonstrates his skill, but when he's finished Rattleshirt is there, scoffing at Jon's taking on mere trainees and wondering if he has the skill to take on someone with experience. Jon accepts the challenge, telling Rattleshirt, "Stannis burned the wrong man," meaning Mance Rayder. But Rattleshirt replies, "He burned the man he had to burn, for all the world to see. We all do what we have to do, Snow. Even kings."

Jon orders real armor, not bones, for Rattleshirt, and observes that he seems taller and more muscular in mail and plate than in bones. The first blow Rattleshirt lands surprises him with its power and quickness, and he uses the two-handed greatsword he has chosen with more speed than Jon expected. Finally, both men lose their swords and wind up wrestling on the ground until two members of the Watch pull them apart. Rattleshirt snarls, "If I had me a dagger, you'd be less an eye by now."

When they have separated, Iron Emmett tells Jon, "he threatened your life, we all heard. He said that if he had a dagger--" Jon points out that Rattleshirt "does have a dagger. Right there on his belt." He recalls what Ser Rodrik, the master-at-arms at Winterfell, once told him and Robb: "There is always someone quicker and stronger.... He's the man you want to face in the yard before you need to face his like upon a battlefield."

They are interrupted by Clydas, who has a message from Ramsay Bolton. Jon reads it and learns that Moat Cailin has been taken, and that Roose Bolton is summoning the lords loyal to him to Barrowton to affirm their loyalty and to witness Ramsay's marriage to Arya. Jon is astonished at this news, having thought that Arya died in King's Landing. "By now she'd be eleven, Jon thought. Still a child." He tells Clydas that there will be no answer from him to the letter.

He is covered with bruises and that night "felt as stiff as a man of sixty years." His thoughts full of Arya, remembering when he had given her Needle, he goes out into the bitter cold. Ghost is there and follows him. Through Ghost he senses a thousand smells in the night, and then senses someone behind him: "Someone who smelled warm as a summer day." He turns and thinks he sees Ygritte, but when he speaks her name, Melisandre replies.

Then she tells him, "Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you." She says she has seen Arya in her fires, "fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse." Then she asks if she may touch Ghost. Jon warns her that he is not used to strangers, but the wolf comes to her, at first warily, but then shoves his nose into her warm hand. And when Jon calls to Ghost, the wolf looks at him as if he were the stranger.

Melisandre tells him, "Your Wall is a queer place, but there is power here, if you will use it. Power in you, and in this beast. You resist it, and that is your mistake. Embrace it. Use it." Jon is wary, and replies, "Dalla told me something once. Val's sister, Mance Rayder's wife. She said that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it." Melisandre says she was wise, but that even a sword without a hilt is a sword, "a fine thing to have when foes are all about." Then she tells him that of the nine raiders he sent out, three are dead. "They have not died yet, but their death is out there waiting for them, and they ride to meet it." Then she tells him to take her hand and let her save his sister.

Davos

He is in a cell in the Wolf's Den, waiting for Wyman Manderly to carry out his sentence. To his surprise, the cell is "large and queerly comfortable," and the food is excellent. His jailer/executioner, Garth, is disgusted at this: "The dead should not eat better than the living." He has warm, clean clothing, a fire, and when he asks for paper and ink and a book to read, they are supplied to him. He writes letters of farewell to his wife and his three sons, advising them to flee to Braavos if Stannis loses his war.

He is rereading his letters when the cell door opens and a man enters, telling Davos to come with him. He is surprised when the man says "please," a courtesy not usually extended to condemned prisoners. He asks the man's name and learns that he is Robett Glover, who tells him that Stannis has retaken Deepwood Motte, that Moat Cailin has fallen and that Ramsay Bolton is to marry Arya Stark and lay claim to Winterfell.

Still confused, Davos asks that his letters be delivered when he dies, but Glover informs him that he's not about to die. Glover leads him through a long series of cellars and tunnels and finally into a room where Wyman Manderly is sitting. Manderly apologizes for his treatment of Davos, and asks him to drink to the safe return of his son Wylis. A feast is being given for him now, and Manderly has excused himself from it on the pretext of visiting the privy.

He informs Davos that he has been executed and his head and hands displayed. They had executed a criminal who looked enough like Davos that when his head was dipped in tar no one will question it, and had trimmed the fingers of his hand to match Davos's. "My lord," he says, "I bear you no ill will. The rancor I showed you in the Merman's Court was a mummer's farce put on the please our friends of Frey." He had to pretend that he supported the Lannister claim to the Iron Throne for the sake of his hostage son, Wylis. If he had refused, "Wylis would die a traitor's death, White Harbor should be stormed and sacked, and my people would suffer the same fate as the Reynes of Castamere." Even after Tywin was killed, the Freys still threatened him unless he proved his loyalty, which he did by his treatment of Davos.

Davos comments on the risk he had taken, but Manderly assures him that if any of the Freys had climbed up and taken a closer look at the head over the gate, he would have blamed the jailers and executed Davos after all. He can't trust anyone, even his maester, who is a distant kin of the Lannisters, so he can't write to Stannis about his real situation. But he hates the Freys for murdering his son Wendel.

Davos assures him that Stannis can provide the justice he wants, but Glover and Manderly say that "Stannis Baratheon remains your king, not our own." But Robb died at the Red Wedding, Davos protests. That's true, Manderly says, "but that brave boy was not Lord Eddard's only son." He tells Glover to "bring the lad." Davos is confused, and when the boy appears Davos knows that he isn't Bran or Rickon, whom he assumes to have been murdered by Theon Greyjoy. He's much older than they would be, and he doesn't look like a Stark at all. He asks the boy for his name.

Glover explains that the boy is mute, and since there is no parchment to write on in the room, he hands the boy a dagger. He carves his name in a beam on the wall: Wex, Theon Greyjoy's squire. Through Wex they have learned that Theon is still alive, and have heard much about the Boltons' destruction of Winterfell and the atrocities committed by Ramsay Bolton.

Davos hopes that all of this will turn Lord Wyman to Stannis's side, but Wyman says he is still forced to submit to the Boltons and the Freys, and to attend the wedding of Ramsay and "Arya." However, "I can deliver King Stannis the allegiance of all the lands east of the White Knife, from Widow's Watch and Ramsgate to the Sheepshead Hills and the headwaters of the Broken Branch. All this I pledge to do if you will meet my price." He needs a smuggler, he says.

Davos is still confused, and Glover takes over the story. Wex had been at Winterfell when Ramsay Bolton killed the men of Winterfell as well as Theon's ironmen. He climbed a tree in the Winterfell godswood, where he hid until he heard Bran and Rickon, Hodor, Osha, Meera, and Jojen. "Four went one way, two another. Wex stole after the two, a woman and a boy. He must have stayed downwind, so the wolf would not catch his scent."

Davos realizes what Lord Wyman wants: Rickon. "Roose Bolton has Lord Eddard's daughter," Wyman says. "To thwart him White Harbor must have Ned's son ... and the direwolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is, should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him." If Davos can bring Rickon and Shaggydog to him, he will swear allegiance to Stannis.

Glover tells Wex to show Davos where the boy is, and Wex throws the dagger at the map on Manderly's wall. The location makes Davos want to ask to be sent back to his prison cell. It is a place "where men were known to break their fast on human flesh."

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."