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

Davos

Salladhor Saan has brought the news to Stannis:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

17. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 556-589

Jon

Jon and the wildlings are moving through the Gift, and they come upon a somewhat familiar location: a tower in the middle of a lake near a deserted village. Ygritte is amazed at the size of the tower, and when Jon tells her there are towers three times its height at Winterfell, and one taller than the Wall in Oldtown, she doesn't believe him. He wishes he could take her to Winterfell, but she says she would be content to come back here and live in this tower: "Would you want that, Jon Snow? After?"

The word "after" haunts him, because to Ygritte it means "After the war. After the conquest. After the wildlings break the Wall...." -- things that he is sworn to prevent. But her entire world view is antithetical to his:

"The gods made the earth for all men t' share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs. My trees, they said, you can't eat them apples. My stream, you can't fish here. My wood, you're not t' hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I'll chop 'em off, but maybe if you kneel t' me I'll let you have a sniff. You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t' be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t' kneel." 

When Jon tries to argue with her, she answers with her usual line: "You know nothing, Jon Snow." It is her response to his attempt to persuade her that Mance Rayder can't win his war against the people on this side of the Wall: "I don't doubt that you're all very brave, but when it comes to battle, discipline beats valor every time. In the end Mance will fail as all the Kings-beyond-the-Wall have failed before him. And when he does, you'll die. All of you."

She refuses to hear him, and he knows from that point that his duty is going to prevail over their love. He is also aware that if he is forced to kill one of his own, a brother of the Night's Watch, he is doomed to remain with the wildlings. And he knows that Castle Black is defenseless except for the Wall, and as far as he can guess is sadly undermanned, with only the weakest and least-trained men left to guard it. "If the Magnar takes Castle Black unawares, it will be red slaughter, boys butchered in their beds before they know they are under attack." He has to find a way to warn them, and he worries what will happen to Ygritte when his betrayal is discovered.

He has also lost Ghost, and wonders if he really went to Castle Black or if he has joined a pack on the other side of the Wall. "He had no sense of the direwolf, not even in his dreams. It made him feel as if part of himself had been cut off."

It is dark and a storm is raging when they reach the village by the lake. He can see the tower when the lightning flashes. They have also spotted a fire in the ruins of the inn. A scout goes ahead and reports that it is "An old man with a horse." Jon knows that Styr will kill the old man and that he mustn't do anything to prevent it, so he finds shelter in the ruins of a cottage. Ygritte joins him there, and he tells her that he recognizes the tower. She says some of the Thenns say they have heard noises coming from it, like shouting. He says that they should go out to investigate the noise -- having recognized the tower, he knows about the causeway, too. When the lightning comes again, he points out the gilding on the top of the tower, and tells her the story of Queen Alysanne.

Jon is summoned by the Magnar, and Ygritte comes with him. Styr commands Jon to kill the old man, and he reluctantly draws Longclaw as the man begs for mercy. He hesitates, and Ygritte urges him, "You must. T' prove you are no crow, but one o' the free folk." But Jon picks up on the last phrase and refuses to follow through: "'You command Thenns,' Jon told [Styr], 'not free folk.'" Styr replies, "I see no free folk. I see a crow and a crow wife."

"I'm no crow wife!" Ygritte says, and takes her own knife and slits the man's throat. Then she shouts, "You know nothing, Jon Snow!" and throws the knife at his feet. Jon expects to be attacked by the Thenns, but at that moment there is a blinding flash of lightning and a wolf attacks. Jon thinks it's Ghost at first, but another flash reveals to him that the wolf is gray. He lashes out with Longclaw and manages at the same time to grab the mane of the old man's frightened horse and leap onto its back. Desperately clinging to the horse, he rides off through the storm. A spear flies past him, but the sounds of pursuit behind him grow more faint.

He rides as long as he can, not knowing what direction he's headed, and when the storm is ended and he finally stops he feels "a deep throbbing ache in his right thigh." He realizes that his leg has been pierced by an arrow, and when he tries to pull it out, the pain is too great. Then he thinks about the wolf attack: "Like a grey wind.... Could Robb have returned to the north?" But the pain makes it hard to concentrate on "the wolf, the old man, Ygritte, any of it...." He dismounts, and the wounded leg gives under him. He is bleeding profusely, and knows that the arrow has to come out. "Jon pushed back his bloody breeches to get a better grip, grimaced, and slowly drew the shaft through his leg. How he got through that without fainting he never knew."

He washes the wound in the stream the horse is drinking from, and binds his leg. He studies the arrow, but can't tell whether its fletching was gray or white. "Ygritte fletched her arrows with pale grey goose feathers. Did she loose a shaft at me as I fled?  Jon could not blame her for that." He rests for a while as the horse grazes, wondering how he had been able to leap on her back while carrying a sword in one hand. The sky has cleared, and he finds his way north by looking at the stars. He heads for the Wall and Castle Black. "I am going home, he told himself. But if that was true, why did he feel so hollow?"

Daenerys

She has ridden out with Ser Jorah to see the forces arrayed against hers to defend the city of Yunkai. They number about five thousand, she estimates, and Jorah confirms the number, pointing out that the flanks of the army are made up of mercenaries. The center is composed of Yunkai soldiers. He says they can be defeated easily, but at the risk of bloodshed on their side: "Astapor was complacent and vulnerable. Yunkai is forewarned." Daenerys decides to parley not only with the Yunkai slavers, but also with the two groups of sellswords, each separately: "The Stormcrows at midday, the Second Sons two hours later."

She returns to the camp to talk to Grey Worm, who had been designated the leader of the Unsullied after she set them free and told them to select officers. She had abolished the practice of having the Unsullied select new names each day, and Grey Worm had elected to keep the name he had drawn on the day he was set free, thinking it a lucky one. She tells him that they are to spare the life of any slave soldier who surrenders. "The fewer slain, the more remain to join us after."

After freeing the slaves of Astapor, she had left the city in the charge of "a council of former slaves led by a healer, a scholar, and a priest." But tens of thousands of the newly freed had chosen to follow her. They are "more burden than benefit," but she can't bring herself to turn them away since she had been the one to set them free.

She confers with Missandei about the Yunkai, and learns that they speak a dialect of Valyrian and that the slavers who rule the city are called the Wise Masters. Ser Jorah arrives with three captains of the Stormcrows, whose spokesman seems to be a Ghiscari named Prendahl na Ghezn. She learns of his contempt for the other group of sellswords, the Second Sons, and tells him that if he leaves the Yunkai and joins her, "you shall keep the gold the Yunkai'i paid you and claim a share of the plunder besides, with greater rewards later when I come into my kingdom. Fight for the Wise Masters, and your wages will be death."

Prendahl rejects the offer and insults Daenerys in the bargain, but she tells him to go back and present the offer to his men and to report his decision the next day. As they leave, one of the captains, a flamboyant Tyroshi named Daario Naharis, glances back at her "and inclined his head in polite farewell."

The commander of the Second Sons arrives two hours later. He is a Braavosi named Mero, but calls himself the Titan's Bastard. He makes indecent proposals to her but she parries them and makes him an offer to join her side, too. She can tell that his sexual swagger angers Ser Jorah, but says that she will await his answer tomorrow. Mero likes the wine she has served him and she sends him away with a wagon full of it. When he is gone, Arstan Whitebeard advises her not to trust him: "That one has an evil reputation, even in Westeros.... He will drink three toasts to your health tonight and rape you on the morrow." Jorah agrees, saying that under Mero's leadership the Second Sons have become "near as bad as the Brave Companions." But Daenerys says she doesn't want him for his reputation but for his numbers.

The Yunkai delegation is led by a man named Grazdan mo Eraz, who blusters, "I am told you have freed your eunuchs. Freedom means as much to an Unsullied as a hat to a haddock." He says they will re-enslave the survivors of the battle and retake Astapor, and sell Daenerys into prostitution: "There are pleasure houses in Lys and Tyrosh where men would pay handsomely to bed the last Targaryen." She shouldn't waste her effort on conquering Yunkai when she "will need every man to regain your father's throne in far Westeros. Yunkai wishes you only well in that endeavor. And to prove the truth of that, I have brought you a gift."

She opens the chest that is placed before her, which is full of gold coins. "Very pretty," she says. "I wonder how many chests like this I shall find when I take your city?" She says she has a gift in return: She gives him three days, at the end of which he is to free all of the city's slaves and allow them to take whatever they want from their masters as payment for their years of enslavement. Each of them is to "be given a weapon, and as much food, clothing, coin, and goods as he or she can carry." Then the Unsullied will enter the city and make sure that everyone has been freed. And if they have been, Yunkai and its people will be unharmed.

When Grazdan says she is mad, she says, "Dracarys," and the three dragons reply, with Drogon spitting fire that sets his robe aflame. Whitebeard douses the fire with a flagon of water. When Grazdan protests that he was under safe conduct, she says she'll buy him a new robe if he meets her demands about freeing the slaves. "Elsewise, Drogon will give you a warmer kiss."

When he is gone, she tells Ser Jorah to call the bloodriders, and when they are all assembled tells them that they will attack at an hour past midnight. "The Stormcrows will be arguing about my offer. The Second Sons will be drunk on the wine I gave Mero. And the Yunkai'i believe they have three days." The Unsullied will attack from right and left and the horsemen will move in a wedge through the center. When she asks what they think of the plan, Ser Jorah says, "I think you are Rhaegar Targaryen's sister," and Arstan agrees, "and a queen as well."

At midnight, Ser Jorah comes to her with the news that the Unsullied had caught Daario Naharis trying to sneak into the camp. When he is brought to her the Tyroshi informs her that he and the Stormcrows are hers, and presents her with the heads of the other two captains. At her request, he swears his sword to her service. Then she sends him back to lead the Stormcrows in an attack on the rear of the Yunkish forces.

When he is gone, Ser Jorah protests her decision, saying she can't trust a man like Naharis. But she sees the sexual jealousy behind his opinion, remembering the prophecy: "And I shall be betrayed twice more, once for gold and once for love." She asks if he is "the only man I should ever trust?"

"You have been a better friend to me than any I have known, a better brother than Viserys ever was. You are the first of my Queensguard, the commander of my army, my most valued counselor, my good right hand. I honor and respect and cherish you -- but I do not desire you, Jorah Mormont, and I am weary of your trying to push every other man in the world away from me, so I must needs rely on you and you alone. It will not serve, and it will not make me love you any better."

When she sends him off to prepare for the battle, she is filled with doubt and uncertainty and remembers that "Mirri Maz Duur had promised that she would never bear a living child. House Targaryen will end with me." She turns to her dragons and calls them her children, "my three fierce children."

She calls for Whitebeard and asks him to tell her about her brother Rhaegar. He says that "He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days." As he is elaborating on her brother's melancholy, the dragons hear the sound of horses and begin to roar. Ser Jorah enters to report on the victory, which had gone as Daenerys had foreseen. They "have several thousand captives" and their own losses amount to "A dozen. If that many."

The next day they march to the city, and on the third the gates open and the freed slaves emerge. Missandei tells them "that they owed their freedom to Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros and Mother of Dragons." People begin to cry out the word "Mhysa!" When Daenerys asks what it means, Missandei tells her, "It is Ghiscari, the old pure tongue. It means 'Mother.'"

11. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 382-412

Sansa

Being fitted for her new dress delights Sansa and fills her head with more romantic notions about Willas, the man she expects to marry. Then Cersei enters and surveys how Sansa looks, and suggests she wear the moonstones Joffrey had given her. Once that is added, she nods approvingly and says, "Yes. The gods have been kind to you, Sansa. You are a lovely girl. It seems almost obscene to squander such sweet innocence on that gargoyle."

Sansa is puzzled, and when Cersei adds a maiden's cloak -- a garment apparently worn by a bride -- to the outfit, she is terrified. Then Cersei says the septon and the wedding guests are waiting, and Sansa cries out "No." It's then that she learns she is about to be married to Tyrion. She thinks then that she should have taken Ser Dontos's advice and fled, but when she tries to run she is stopped. Ser Meryn Trant and Ser Osmund Kettleblack are there to escort her. Cersei tells them to carry her if they have to, but be careful with the gown -- "it was very costly."


When Ser Osmund tells her, "almost gently," to be brave: "Wolves are supposed to be brave, aren't they?" She pulls herself together and reminds herself that it was Tyrion who saved her from being beaten. When Joffrey meets her and says, "I'm your father today," she bristles and talks back to him, so he bullies her by reminding her that he can marry her off to "the pig boy" if he wants to. She begs Joffrey not to marry her to Tyrion, but just as she is doing so, Tyrion himself appears and asks if he may speak to her privately.


He takes her aside and tells her that he is sorry to be doing this, especially so suddenly, but his father "felt it necessary, for reasons of state." He tells her she has to marry either him or his cousin Lancel, whom he knows to be still recovering from his wounds and may not live. She doesn't want to marry any Lannister, but knows she has no choice in the matter. "You were kind to me, I remember," she tells him, and they go off to be married.


At the ceremony, she realizes that none of the Tyrells are present, having been thwarted in their plans to marry her to Willas. Joffrey cops a feel as he removes her maiden's cloak. Tyrion is a foot and a half shorter than she is, and when it comes time for him to place his cloak on her as a sign of his protection, he is unable to reach high enough. He tugs on her skirt, a suggestion that she kneel, but she stubbornly ignores him: "Why should I spare his feelings, when no one cares about mine?" she thinks. The guests begin laughing and Joffrey orders Ser Dontos to get down on his hands and knees. "And so it was that her lord husband cloaked her in the colors of House Lannister whilst standing on the back of a fool."


When she sees the look on Tyrion's face, however, she is ashamed, and she kneels in front of him as they exchange a kiss. Still, when the septon pronounces them wed, "She had to bite her lip to keep from sobbing."


The Tyrells are at the wedding feast, but only Margaery acknowledges her, giving her "a sad look." The Queen of Thorns never looks at her, and the other women and girls she had thought of as friends ignore her completely. She sits there, not tasting the food, dreading the custom known as "the bedding," in which she would be carried to the marriage bed by the men, who would undress her along the way, making ribald jokes, while the women performed the same task with Tyrion. When the dancing starts, she asks Tyrion if he wants to lead the dance with her, but he replies, "I think we have already given them sufficient amusement for one day, don't you?" She sits there with him, watching the others dance, until Ser Galan Tyrell asks if he may dance with her.


Ser Galan not only dances with her but also conveys the sympathies of the Tyrells. He adds, too, that he has noticed how she looks at his brother, the Knight of Flowers, and tells her, "Loras is valiant and handsome, and we all love him dearly ... but your Imp will make a better husband. He is a bigger man than he seems, I think." It's another glance at Loras's still-veiled homosexuality. The motions of the dance bring her into contact with others, and finally with Joffrey, who says, "You shouldn't look so sad. My uncle is an ugly little thing, but you'll still have me." When she protests that he's marrying Margaery, he says he can still "have other women," and "My uncle will bring you to my bed whenever I command it." She stumbles through the rest of the dance, and then Joffrey proclaims, "It's time to bed them! Let's get the clothes off, and have a look at what the she-wolf's got to give my uncle!"


Tyrion, who has been drinking all the while, looks up and says, "I'll have no bedding." Joffrey says that he will if he commands it, and Tyrion drives his dagger into the table and says, "Then you'll service your own bride with a wooden prick. I'll geld you, I swear it." Sansa pulls away from Joffrey, ripping her sleeve, and Cersei whispers to her father, "Did you hear him?" But Lord Tywin rises and says, "I believe we can dispense with the bedding. Tyrion, I am certain you did not mean to threaten the king's royal person." Tyrion apologizes and says he made a bad joke because he envied Joffrey's "royal manhood. Mine own is so small and stunted." And if Joffrey cuts out his tongue he "will leave me no way at all to pleasure this sweet wife you gave me."


There is uneasy laughter, and Tywin excuses Tyrion on the ground of obvious drunkenness. Tyrion grabs Sansa and makes some bawdy jokes, then they leave quickly. Alone in the bridal chamber, Tyrion asks for another cup of wine, saying, "I am not truly drunk, you see. But I mean to be." Sansa pours herself a cup, hoping that things will go easier if she is drunk too. Tyrion tells her how different this wedding was from his first, and then asks Sansa how old she is. She says she will be thirteen "when the moon turns," and Tyrion is shocked at how young she is, but says, "Shall we get on with this, my lady?" He tells her, "My lord father has commanded me to consummate this marriage."


She clumsily undresses, and when she finally looks at him, "There was hunger in his green eye, it seemed to her, and fury in the black. Sansa did not know which scared her more." He says, "You're a child," and she says she has "flowered." He tells her that "abed, when the candles are blown out, I am made no worse than other men. In the dark, I am the Knight of Flowers." He is also, he says, generous and loyal, he has proved he is not a coward, and he is "cleverer than most." "Kindness is not a habit with us Lannisters, I fear, but I know I have some somewhere."


"He is as frightened as I am, Sansa realized." But she realizes that all she feels for him is "pity, and pity was death to desire." He tells her to get in bed, "We need to do our duty." She lies there with her eyes closed as he undresses, and shudders when his hand touches her breast. Then he tells her to open her eyes, and she sees him sitting there, naked and erect. But he tells her, "I cannot do this." He will wait, no matter what his father says, "Until you have come to know me better, and perhaps to trust me a little." And when she asks, "And if I never want you to, my lord?" he recoils for a moment and then says "that is why the gods made whores for imps like me" and leaves the bed.


Arya


They have reached the town of Stoney Sept, where Harwin says Arya's father won a battle known as the Battle of the Bells because the septons rang the bells to warn people to stay indoors. The town shows signs of more recent fighting, and it's only when the gatekeeper recognizes them that he opens a portal for them. They hear from the captain of the gate about the atrocities that have been committed in and around the town, and of the outlaw known as the Huntsman who is looking for revenge on the Lannisters for the rape of his wife and sister, the torching of his crops, and the killing of six of his dogs, whose bodies were thrown down his well.


In the marketplace there are a dozen "crow cages" in which naked men are held, unable to sit or lie or to defend themselves against the attacks of the crows, until they die. They were caught by the Huntsman, and when Arya hears that they are men loyal to Robb she is shocked. As they pass, some of the living men in the cages beg for water. Arya gets down from her horse and goes to the fountain to take a cup to one of them. A townsman protests, but Harwin says to let her be, and Lem says that Beric Dondarrion "don't hold with caging men to die of thirst." Gendry gives her a boost as she lets them drink by pouring the water on them. Then Anguy takes his bow and arrow and puts all of the prisoners out of their misery. "Valar morghulis," Arya thinks.


There is an inn on the market square, and "The buxom red-haired innkeep howled with pleasure at the sight of them," greeting most of the men by name. She spots Gendry, and comments on his strong arms, making him blush. Tom Stevenstrings says, "Tansy, you leave the Bull alone, he's a good lad." They are welcomed into the inn where Arya notices that there are "more serving wenches than any inn could want, and most of them young and comely. And come evenfall, lots of men started coming and going at the Peach." Tansy has two of the women carry Arya off to be bathed and then dressed "like one of Sansa's dolls in linen and lace" before they allow her to sit down and eat.


Arya whispers to Gendry, "I bet this is a brothel," which makes him blush again and say, "A brothel's no place for a highborn lady." One of the girls overhears this and says she's "a king's daughter.... They say King Robert fucked my mother when he hid here, back before the battle."

The girl did have hair like the old king's, Arya thought, a great thick mop of it, as black as coal. That doesn't mean anything, though. Gendry has the same kind of hair, too. Lots of people have black hair.

Her name is Bella, she says, and she tries to get Gendry to go with her. But he refuses and goes outside.  She overhears Tansy telling Lem and Harwin that Catelyn "and this other wench, the one who slew Renly" had spend the night in Jaime's cell, and that the next morning "Lady Catelyn cut him loose for love." To herself Arya denies that it's true, and feels "sad and angry and lonely, all at once." Then a drunken man sits down beside her, taking her for one of the prostitutes, but Gendry returns and scares him away by saying she's his sister. Arya is angry, not because he saved her from the man's attentions but because he said he was her brother. This makes Gendry angry: "I'm too bloody lowborn to be kin to m'lady high." She denies that that's how she meant it, but he tells her to go away, and she does.


In the room at the top of the house where they sleep, she gets out of the linen and lace and into her tunic, then lies down to sleep.

She dreamed of wolves that night, stalking through a wet wood with the smell of rain and rot and blood thick in the air. Only they were good smells in the dream, and Arya knew she had nothing to fear. She was strong and swift and fierce, and her pack was all around her, her brothers and her sisters. They ran down a frightened horse together, tore its throat out, and feasted. And when the moon broke through the clouds, she threw back her head and howled.

She wakes in the morning to the barking of dogs. There are dozens of them in the square, and a dozen riders open the crow cage and pull the fat man out of it and feed him to the dogs. One of the men says, "Here's your new castle, you bloody Lannister bastard" to a bound prisoner.


The noise wakes the others, and Tom says, "The Mad Huntsman's come back with another man for the cages." Arya says she heard them say he was a Lannister, and Gendry asks if they have caught the Kingslayer. Then Arya recognizes the prisoner. "The gods had heard her prayers after all."


Jon


Ghost is still gone when the party begins to scale the Wall. The forest grows right up next to it, giving them a start on the climb. Jon notices that the Thenns are increasingly uneasy as they get nearer to the Wall. "They have never seen the Wall before, not even the Magnar, Jon realized. It frightens them." But Jarl and his group are not afraid, having made the climb before. There are a dozen of them, including Jarl, and he divides them into three teams of four. He tells them that Mance has promised a sword for each of the members of the first team to reach the top.


Jarl's team climbs a tree that has grown up next to the Wall, and Jon watches as Jarl moves from the treetop onto the side of the Wall, then kicks toeholds in the surface of the ice with his spike-tipped boots. Using hammers, axes, and iron stakes, the first two men begin climbing the Wall while the third is just reaching the top of the tree. The other two teams are farther behind, not having found trees that were so well-placed.


Styr complains that they're not climbing fast enough and worries that they'll be spotted by a patrol of the Watch. Jon knows that climbing ice is harder than climbing stone and that the blocks of which the Wall is composed may be frozen solid, but their surfaces are wet and slick and that air gets trapped when the ice refreezes, making it fragile. They hit bad ice around noon when a piece that Jarl has looped his rope around gives way and big chunks fall on the climbers in his team. But they hold on, and Jarl is left dangling below the team until he regains a handhold.


The team led by Grigg the Goat catches up with Jarl's team. The four led by Errok are still behind. Jarl's and Grigg's teams move up side by side, but after six hours Jarl has moved ahead again. But then there is a loud crack and "a sheet of ice a foot thick and fifty feet square broke off from the Wall and came tumbling, crumbling, rumbling sweeping all before it." The ice landed even were Jon was watching, and he pulls Ygritte down to shield her from it. A chunk of ice breaks the nose of one of the Thenns. Jarl and his team have disappeared.


They find Jarl impaled on a splintered tree branch and the three other men still roped to him. One of them is still alive, but so badly injured that one of the Thenns responds to his plea of "Mercy" by putting him out of misery with a blow to the head from a stone mace. They gather wood and build a pyre. "The dead were burning when Grigg the Goat reached the top of the Wall. By the time Errok's four had joined them, nothing remained of Jarl and his team but bone and ash."


As the sun is setting, the teams on top of the wall lower ropes, which are attached to rope ladders that are uncasked below. The Thenns begin the climb, and by midnight Jon and Ygritte have joined them at the top. Two of the Thenns have fallen from the ladder, but they are the only other casualties of the climb.

10. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 344-381

Davos

Davos's cell is warm and full of rats, but he is regaining his strength, thanks to a visit from Maester Pylos. He is also eating regularly, and can count the days by the visits of the two jailers who bring him his meals. He calls one Porridge, because he brinks breakfast, and the other Lamprey, because he once bought half a lamprey pie, though it was too rich for the still-malnourished Davos to keep down. The jailers, however, never answer any of his questions about the war or whether his son Devan is still alive. Still, the regular attention makes him believe, "They are keeping me alive, for some purpose of their own."

And then one day he has a visitor, though not one he's particularly eager to see: Melisandre. She comments that the cell is a dark place, and points to the torch burning outside of it: "This is all that stands between you and the darkness, Onion Knight. This little fire, this gift of R'hllor. Shall I put it out?" He says no, of course, but he refuses to beg. Then she says that she is like the torch: "We are both instruments of R'hllor. We were made for a single purpose -- to keep the darkness at bay."

He retorts that she is "the mother of darkness," as he saw when she gave birth to the terrible shadow at Storm's End. She replies that it takes light to give birth to shadow, and anyway, he needn't fear that happening any time soon: "the king's fires burn so low I dare not draw off any more to make another son." Davos, on the other hand, she proposes, has enough fire left, and if he really wants to serve Stannis, he should come to her chambers. "I could give you pleasure such as you have never known, and with your life-fire I could make...." He completes her sentence: "...a horror." And he calls on the Seven to protect him.

She proclaims them false gods, and proclaims a Manichean creed:

"The night is dark and full of terrors, the day bright and beautiful and full of hope. One is black, the other white.There is ice and there is fire. Hate and love. Bitter and sweet. Male and female. Pain and pleasure. Winter and summer. Evil and good." She took a step toward him. "Death and life. Everywhere, opposites. Everywhere, the war." 

He is puzzled by her reference to the war, and she explains that she doesn't mean the conflict over the throne of the Seven Kingdoms: She's not there just "to put yet another vain king on yet another empty throne." (So much for Stannis.) She is there to fight on behalf of "R'hllor, the Lord of Light, the Heart of Fire, the God of Flame and Shadow" against "the Great Other whose name may not be spoken, the Lord of Darkness, the Soul of Ice, the God of Night and Terror." She asks which side he is on. All he can say is that he is "full of doubts."

But this pleases her: "The good knight is honest to the last, even in his day of darkness. It is well you did not lie to me.  I would have known." And she asks why he wanted to kill her. He says he'll tell her if she tells him who betrayed him. She replies that no one betrayed him: "I saw your purpose in my flames." So if she's so good with fire, he asks, why did she let them burn in the attack on King's Landing. Those weren't her flames, she says. She wasn't even there, she reminds him, and things would have turned out differently if she had been. It was Stannis's fault: "his pride proved stronger than his faith," and he surrounded himself with unbelievers. But he has learned his lesson.

Davos reflects bitterly that it took the deaths of his sons to teach Stannis a lesson. But she prophesies a future victory for Stannis: "He is the Lord's chosen, the warrior of fire. I have seen him leading the fight against the dark, I have seen it in the flames." She leaves him to reflect on her prophecy. "And because R'hllor is the source of all good, I shall leave the torch as well."

Left alone he reflects on what she has said, and for a while stares at the torchlight trying to see something in it, "but there was nothing, only fire, and after a time his eyes began to water."

Then three days later, he receives a cellmate. There is the sound of a struggle, and Ser Axell Florent and two guardsmen arrive with the prisoner, who pleads his innocence and demands to see the queen. And when he cries out, "I am the King's Hand!" Davos recognizes Alester Florent, Axell's brother and Queen Selyse's uncle. Alester is able to answer Davos's questions about what happened on the Blackwater, including the loss of the ship Fury which had been captained by Alester's nephew, Imry, and on which Davos's son Maric had been oarmaster. Imry had led the fleet up the Blackwater.

Alester has been imprisoned for treason because he believes the loss of the fleet and of Stannis's allies means defeat for the king. "The best hope that remains is to try and salvage something with a peace. That is all I meant to do. Gods be good, how can they call it treason?" So he has written a letter to Tywin Lannister, proposing that Stannis give up his claim on the throne, retract his words about Joffrey's illegitimacy and incestuous birth, in exchange for being allowed to remain as Lord of Dragonstone and Storm's End. He also proposed marrying Stannis's daughter, Shireen, to Tommen. "The terms ... they are as good as we are ever like to get."

Davos agrees that they are probably good terms, but asks what the king thought of them. Alester says the king "is not in his right mind." He is under the sway of Melisandre. "This talk of a stone dragon ... madness, I tell you, sheer madness." Davos is as ignorant as we are of this talk, though we know more about what's happening with live dragons than either of them does. So given the king's debility, Alester took it upon himself to sue for peace: "Stannis gave me his seal, he gave me leave to rule. The Hand speaks with the king's voice." About this, Davos knows better: "It is not in Stannis to yield, so long as he knows his claim is just." And he would never marry Tommen, born of the same incestuous relationship as Joffrey, to his daughter.

Alester insists, "He has no choice." But Davos knows better about this: "He can choose to die a king."

Jon

Jon has gone to look for Ghost, and to bid him goodbye. There is no way the direwolf can cross the Wall. So Jon tells him to go to Castle Black and wait for him there. "They will know you at Castle Black, and maybe your coming will warn them." Ghost bounds away, but Jon doesn't know whether he has understood the command or is just chasing after a hare.

He judges from the terrain that they are somewhere between Castle Black and the Shadow Tower at the westernmost end of the Wall, and probably closer to the latter. As he returns to the camp, he berates himself for not killing Mance Rayder when he had the opportunity, even if it meant losing his own life. But instead he has ridden off with Styr the Magnar, Jarl, and a company of Thenns and raiders, as well as Ygritte. They have become lovers, and though he is torn with guilt for breaking his vow of chastity as a member of the Watch, he also cannot resist her. "Was this how it was for my father, he wondered. Was he as weak as I am, when he dishonored himself in my mother's bed?"

He is summoned to Magnar by one of the Thenns. Jarl, who is the lover of Mance Rayder's sister-in-law, has joint command with Magnar, who resents sharing the power. But Jarl had crossed the Wall a dozen times, so his skill is particularly valuable on this mission. Magnar wants to know more details about how often the Watch patrols the Wall, and Jon tells him what he has to, though he tries to hold back as much information as possible. He also overestimates the strength of the Watch at the places which are guarded. Jarl challenges these numbers, but Jon doesn't back down.

They are camped in a system of caverns, and Jon finds Ygritte in one with a pool fed by a waterfall. She tells him legends of the caverns that supposedly go under the Wall, and of a King-beyond-the-Wall named Gorne who supposedly found it, as well his his brother Gendel who supposedly got lost in the caverns and whose descendants still live there, feeding on the unwary humans who come upon them. Ygritte has developed a catchphrase, "You know nothing, Jon Snow," whenever she has a bit of lore that he is unfamiliar with, and she uses it often. On the other hand, there's something she knows nothing of, which is cunnilingus, and when Jon practices it on her, she is duly impressed.

When the torch starts to burn down, he suggests that they leave. But they don't.

His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good?

 
Danerys

Daenerys has gone to the Good Masters of Astapor with an astonishing offer: to buy all of the Unsullied. She is wearing a Qartheen gown that bares her left breast, and after she makes her offer, "She could not quite make out all that they were saying, but she could hear the greed."

There are eight slave brokers, each with a company of body slaves, and she has brought Irri and Jhiqui, Whitebeard and Belwas, her bloodriders, and Ser Jorah. Kraznys mo Naklos asks if by all she means, in addition to the eight thousands, the six centuries who are waiting to make up another thousand once the trainees are promoted to their ranks. She says she does, "and the ones who are still in training as well. The ones who have not earned the spikes."

This sets off an argument among the brokers, some of whom say they can't sell boys who aren't fully trained, while others insist, "We can, if her gold is good." Moreover, if they sell them all, it will be ten years or more before they can train enough new Unsullied, but one fat man argues, "Gold in my purse is better than gold in my future." Kraznys tells her the consensus: She can have the eight thousands and the six centuries now, and in a year they'll have another two thousands to sell her. But she insists on all of them: "Tell the Good Masters that I will want even the little ones who still have their puppies. Tell them that I will pay as much for the boy they cut yesterday as for an Unsullied in a spiked helm."

When they say no, she says she will pay double. One of them who speaks the Common Tongue asks if she really has the gold and the goods to pay that much. She says they have inspected the cargo on her ships; does she have enough?  They say she has enough for one thousand, but only five centuries if she pays double. She offers to throw in the three ships, and they say that would add up to two thousands, but that they are being generous in offering that. Finally, reluctantly, she plays her trump card: "'Give me all,' she said, 'and you may have a dragon.'"

The members of her retinue are shocked, and Whitebeard goes down on one knee to beg her not to do this. She orders Jorah to take him away, and apologizes to the brokers for the interruption. She knows that she has them where she wants them. Finally one of the brokers calls it a deal, as long as they can choose which dragon. And the one they want is Drogon, the largest. When it is agreed on, Kraznys even throws in the slave girl, his interpreter, as "a token of a bargain well struck."

She leaves them, feeling ill, but when she sees Whitebeard, she tells him he may disagree with her all he wants in private, but never to question her judgment in front of others. He submits. Then she asks the slave girl, in High Valryian, if she has a name. When the girl realizes that Daenerys has spoken the language that she was supposedly translating, she says, "Oh." Daenerys asks if that's her name, and the girl asks her forgiveness and says, "Your slave's name is Missandei, but...." Daenerys tells her she isn't a slave anymore, and tells her to ride in the litter with her. If she wants to leave her, she may, but if she stays she will be one of her handmaids. Missandei decides to stay.

Daenerys warns her that the journey will be difficult and she might be killed. Missandei replies, in High Valryian,"Valar morghulis." Daenerys translates the phrase: "All men must die."

She learns more from her new handmaid about the Unsullied: It is true that they have no fear and that the "wine of courage" has removed all sense of pain. They are so obedient that, "If you told them not to breathe, they would find that easier than not to obey." And what will she do with them once she has won her war and claimed her throne. They make excellent guards and watchmen, Missandei says, and she can always sell them. Daenerys says that men are not bought and sold in Westeros, and even if she did sell them, could their new owners tell them to fight against her. Missandei says, first, that Unsullied aren't men, and second that they do whatever their owner commands: "They do not question, Your Grace. All the questions have been culled from them." The only solution to that problem would be to have them kill themselves, which they would do.

Daenerys realizes that this last troubles Missandei, and she asks why. "Three of them were my brothers once, Your Grace," she replies.

Back at the ship and in private, Daenerys gives way to tears. But then she argues with the captain, Groleo, about trading the ships, and the anger gives her strength. She calls her bloodriders and Ser Jorah to her cabin, and later goes out on deck where Jorah joins her. She asks him, "Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can't protect themselves?" He has no answer, and she goes back to her cabin, where she dreams that she is Rhaegar, mounted on a dragon, confronting "the Usurper's rebel host" who are armored in ice. The dragonfire melts them.

She awakes feeling triumphant, but she senses someone in her cabin. She calls out for her handmaids, but a woman tells her that they are all asleep. Then she says,

"Remember. To go north, you must journey south. To reach the west, you must go east. To go forward you must go back, and to touch the light you must pass beneath the shadow."

She recognizes the words, and cries out, "Quaithe?" But when she opens the door, letting in the light and waking Irri and Jhiqui, there is no sign of the "woman in a red lacquer mask." She tells the girls she had a dream, and to go back to sleep, but she doesn't sleep again that night.

The next morning she and all of her people, including the Dothraki and the captains and crews of the ships, enter Astapor in a caravan transporting the goods from the ships. The three dragons are chained and restless. In the Plaza of Punishment, where slaves are "racked, and flayed, and hanged," the Unsullied and the trainees are all gathered, and the slave brokers are waiting. At a command from Ser Jorah, the trade goods are unloaded from wagons and piled before the slavers. When this is done, Daenerys tells them that there is much more on the ships, which are also part of the deal, so that the only thing remaining is the dragon.

Daenerys gives Kraznys mo Nakloz the end of the chain that restrains Drogon, and in exchange he gives her the whip that signifies her authority over the Unsullied. "The handle was black dragonbone, elaborately carved and inlaid with gold. Nine long thin leather lashes trailed from it, each one tipped by a gilded claw. The gold pommel was a woman's head with pointed ivory teeth." Kraznys calls it "The harpy's fingers."

Daenerys mounts her horse and raises the whip, then rides among the ranks of the Unsullied, crying out "YOU ARE THE DRAGON'S NOW! YOU'RE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR! IT IS DONE! IT IS DONE!" Only one of the slavers notices that she is speaking Valyrian. The others are struggling to control Drogon. She rides back to them, accompanied by her bloodriders. Kraznys says, "He will not come." She replies, "There is a reason. A dragon is no slave," and she lashes out at Kraznys with the whip. "The harpy's fingers had torn his features half to pieces with one slash." And then she calls out to Drogon, "Dracarys."

The dragon incinerates Kraznys, and the bloodriders take care of the rest of the slavers. Then she calls to the Unsullied to kill the Good Masters, the soldiers, and the slave drivers but to "harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." She calls out, "Dracarys," and the Unsullied echo the word. "And all around them the slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire."

6. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 188-226

Catelyn

Robb has arrived at Riverrun, and Catelyn is eagerly awaiting her son. She can't go to meet him because she is still denied the run of the castle, and the return of Ser Robin Ryger after his boat was sunk by Brienne, foiling the recapture of Jaime, has only put her in more disrepute. Moreover, some news has come that caused a stir, making about forty men leave the castle in what seems to be anger, but no one will tell her what it was.

Finally the summons comes to meet Robb in the Great Hall. It's crowded when she arrives, and she has an uneasy feeling as she moves through the crowd. Robb, on the dais, looks harder and leaner and battle-worn, but also regal. There are several people on the dais she doesn't recognize, including Robb's squire. She wonders if they are prisoners, but realizes that they wouldn't be on the dais with Robb. As she approaches him, "it seemed to her that it was not anger she saw in her son's eyes, but something else ... apprehension, perhaps? No, that made no sense. What should he fear? He was the Young Wolf, King of the Trident and the North."

Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, comes down from the dais and hugs her, and Robb greets her as "Mother." He tells her about the wound, an arrow through the arm, that he suffered, and assures her that it has healed. And she says, "They will have told you what I did. Did they tell you my reasons?" He knows it was an attempt to rescue his sisters, and she says, "I had five children. Now I had three."

But Lord Rickard Karstark comes forward to remind her of his sons, killed by Jaime, and to say, "You have robbed me of my vengeance." Jon Umber, the Greatjon, interposes himself between Catelyn and Karstark to say, "It was a woman's folly. Women are made that way," but Karstark rejects that excuse: "I name it treason." Robb cries out, "Enough," and Catelyn tells Karstark she "would gladly make amends" for what she did. But Karstark is not satisfied, and leaves the hall angrily.

Robb tells her they must talk and signals for the steward, Utherydes Wayn, to dismiss the audience. As the company leaves, she realizes what she has been missing in the hall: Grey Wind, Robb's direwolf, is not there. Finally she is there with only Robb, her three uncles, and the six strangers she had seen on the dais. Robb presents the Lady Sybell Westerling, her brother Ser Rolph Spicer, her son Ser Raynald Westerling, his sister Elenya, his brother and Robb's new squire Rollam Westerling. And finally a shy young woman: "'Mother,' he said, 'I have the great honor to present you the Lady Jeyne Westerling, Lord Gawen's elder daughter, and my ... ah ... my lady wife.'"

Catelyn thinks first that Robb's only a child, second that he is already pledged to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's daughters, and third, "Mother have mercy, Robb, what have you done?" But she has no choice except to welcome her new daughter-in-law, and to remember that the girl is now a queen. At least, she observes, she has "good hips" and "should have no trouble bearing children, at least."

When the Westerlings have left, Catelyn observes that Lady Jeyne's father, Lord Gawen, is sworn to Tywin Lannister and is now imprisoned by Jason Mallister, held as a hostage at Seagard. "We wed without his consent, I fear," Robb admits, "and this marriage puts him in dire peril." She also observes that by the marriage, he has lost the allegiance of the Freys, and asks how many swords he gained by the marriage.

"Fifty. A dozen knights." His voice was glum, as well it might be. When the marriage contract had been made at the Twins, old Lord Walder Frey had sent Robb off with a thousand mounted knights and near three thousand foot. "Jeyne is bright as well as beautiful. And kind as well. She has a gentle heart."

Catelyn is flummoxed by what she sees as Robb's stupidity, but she just asks him "how this came to be." He replies that when they took the Crag, the Westerling castle, he was wounded and the wound festered. Jeyne nursed him through the fever, and when the news came of the fall of Winterfell and the deaths of Bran and Rickon, "That night, she ... she comforted me, Mother." "And you wed her the next day," Catelyn says.

Robb insists that "It was the only honorable thing to do" and that he's "made a botch of everything but the battles." She agrees that he has: "Not only have you broken your oath, but you've slighted the honor of the Twins by choosing a bride from a lesser house." Robb replies that the Westerlings are "an ancient line, descended from the First Men," but Catelyn says this will only make Lord Walder angrier: "It has always rankled him that older houses look down on the Freys as upstarts."

Brynden Blackfish diplomatically interrupts these recriminations and suggests that they go somewhere more private. As they are leaving, she asks Robb where Grey Wind is. He says he is outside, and that "Jeyne's anxious around him, and he terrifies her mother." This doesn't make Catelyn feel any better about the marriage: "He is part of you, Robb. To fear him is to fear you." And when he tells her that Grey Wind bares his teeth when Jeyne's uncle, Ser Rolph, come around, Catelyn is even more concerned: "Send Ser Rolph away. At once." When Robb resists, she insists:

"Robb." She stopped and held his arm. "I told you once to keep Theon Greyjoy close, and you did not listen. Listen now. Send this man away. I am not saying you must banish him. Find some task that requires a man of courage, some honorable duty, what it is matters not ... but do not keep him near you.... Any man Grey Wind mislikes is a man I do not want close to you. These wolves are more than wolves, Robb. You must know that. I think perhaps the gods sent them to us. Your father's gods, the old gods of the north. Five wolf pups, Robb, five for five Stark children."

Robb reminds her there was a sixth, for Jon, whom Catelyn has conveniently omitted. And he argues that he stopped believing in the wolves when he heard of Bran and Rickon's deaths: "Small good their wolves did them." But he agrees that he'll find some pretext for sending Ser Rolph away, "Not because of his smell, but to ease your mind. You have suffered enough."

When they are in private, it is Edmure Tully's turn to be scolded, first by the Blackfish and then by Robb. Edmure had been commanded only to defend Riverrun, and not to wage a campaign against the Lannisters at the fords, which Edmure had been boasting about. Robb's aim had not been to attack Lannisport or Casterly Rock, but to lure Lord Tywin further west, and distract him from what was happening at King's Landing: "'Lord Stannis was about to fall upon King's Landing,' Robb said. 'He might have rid us of Joffrey, the queen, and the Imp in one red stroke.'" When Edmure delayed Lord Tywin it gave time for word to reach him about what was happening in the east, so that he could turn and rescue King's Landing.

Once the wedding of Joffrey and Margaery is over, Robb says, the Lannisters will turn their attention to him instead, and they'll have the Tyrells on their side, and possibly the Freys. Catelyn says that Robb's "first duty is to defend your own people, win back Winterfell, and hang Theon in a crow's cage to die slowly. Or else put off that crown for good, Robb, for men will know that you are no true king at all." Robb says that the last news he had had was that Ser Rodrik was about to retake Winterfell, and that he may have done it already. "We must win back the Freys," he says. "I am willing to give Lord Walder whatever he requires ... apologies, honors, lands, gold ... there must be something that would soothe his pride...."

"'Not something,' said Catelyn. 'Someone.'"

Jon

He is watching giants riding mammoths. The giants are "more bearlike than human," as much as fourteen feet tall, covered with hair. "Their sloping chests might have passed for those of men, but their arms hung down too far, and their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper." They also smell very bad, "but perhaps that was the mammoths." Tormund, who is with Jon, is full of tall tales about the giants and of his other exploits, but he is also teasing Jon for not having sex with Ygritte, who has been sleeping next to him every night and making her availability plain. But Jon is still trying to keep his vow of chastity, and he has tried to get Ghost to sleep between them. He is also shocked by the sexual mores of the wildlings, who don't regard bastardy as a stigma. He gives as his excuse for not having sex with Ygritte his determination not to bring another bastard into the world.

He is coming to know the various subcultures among the wildlings, most of whom, he has discovered, have never even seen the Wall and don't speak the Common Tongue of Westeros. He is following Qhorin Halfhand's order to "Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them.... And watch." He is becoming more aware of the difficulty of his task, and of the possibility that he may have to kill their leader, Mance Rayder, "a man he half admired and almost liked," to save Winterfell and the north from "Rattleshirt and Harma Dogshead and the earless Magnar of Thenn."

He knows they are drawing near to the Fist of the First Men and that "Mormont will not run.... He is too old and he has come too far. He will strike, and damn the numbers." He also knows that it's not the thousands of wildlings they need to kill but just one: Mance Rayder. "The King-beyond-the-Wall was doing all he could, yet the wildlings remained hopelessly undisciplined, and that made them vulnerable." The vast majority of them are on foot, not on horseback or on mammoths.

He is riding beside Ygritte, and she and others have been singing a song, "The Last of the Giants," when suddenly she cries out: "JON!" There is the sound of wings and "Blue-grey feathers filled his eyes, as sharp talons buried themselves in his face." He falls from his horse, but the eagle clings to his face, flapping and pecking. When he comes to, Ygritte is bending over him and the eagle has disappeared. He can't see out of one eye, but Ygritte tells him it's blood from the lacerations to his face. Tormund is there as Rattleshirt rides up and the eagle reappears and settles on the giant's skull he wears as a helmet. He orders Jon to come with him to see Mance Rayder.

As they ride, Jon sees the Fist of the First Men rising above the trees, and wonders if Mormont has attacked the wildlings. But as they get closer, he sees first one dead horse and then another. Blood is everywhere inside the garrison, and ravens are flapping around the dead animals. Jon wonders what has happened to Sam. A few tents are still standing, and Mance Rayder is in one of them. He gives Jon a "grim and cold" look as he enters, and says, "tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell."

With the pain from his wounds, Jon finds it hard to think, but he decides that his only recourse is to stick to the truth: "There were three hundred of us." Rayder says he should never have lied to them, and asks whose tent this was. Jon says, "You did not find his body?" Rayder says, "The next time you answer me with a question, I will give you to my Lord of Bones." As Rayder moves closer, Jon's hand moves toward his sword, but Rayder notices. Finally, Jon tells him: "The Old Bear." And when Rayder asks who is commanding at Castle Black, Jon tells him that Bowen Marsh is, which elicits derision from Rayder. But he also admits that if he had tried to storm the hill, he would have lost five men for every one defending it.

Rayder also knows that the garrison has been attacked by the wights, and "when the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing," so the Watch may have done him a favor by drawing their attention away from his own forces. He dispatches various of his men to see if the wights can be located, making sure that they all have torches.

Rattleshirt wants to kill Jon, but Ygritte steps forward to defend him. He asks Jon if he and Ygritte are lovers, and Jon lies, "Yes." So he says they are to go with Jarl and Styr, "Over the Wall. It's past time you proved your faith with something more than words, Jon Snow." Styr protests, but Rayder points out that Jon "knows the Watch and he knows the Wall, ... and he knows Castle Black better than any raider ever could."

Rattleshirt threatens Jon, but Ygritte points out Ghost on top of the ringwall, glaring at Rattleshirt, so he moves off. When they are alone, Jon says he didn't ask her to lie for him, and she says didn't. She said "that we fuck beneath your cloak many a night. I never said when we started, though." And then she tells him to find another place for Ghost to sleep that night.

Sansa

Sansa is being fitted with a new gown, and is surprised to hear that the orders have come from Cersei and not from Margaery or her grandmother. She has been spending time with the ladies of the Tyrell court and enjoying herself, though she feels a little superior to them: "Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father's head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them."

Margaery has been talking to her about her brother Willas, and calling Sansa sister, which has led her to give Margaery more warnings about Joffrey's cruelty. But Margaery dismisses her fears: She has her brother Loras to protect her, she says. Sansa is not so sure:

Joff might restrain himself for a few turns, perhaps as long as a year, but soon or late he will show his claws, and when he does ... The realm might have a second Kingslayer, and there would be war inside the city, as the men of the lion and the men of the rose made the gutters run red.

She has also been warned by Ser Dontos not to marry Willas: "I tell you, these Tyrells are only Lannisters with flowers." He wants her to go through with their plan to escape: "The night of Joffrey's wedding, that's not so long, wear the silver hair net and do as I told you, and afterward we make our escape." But Sansa says she doesn't want to escape now. Ser Dontos tries to make her see reality: The Tyrells want her to marry Willas because it gives them a claim to Winterfell. She leaves him and avoids the godswood after that, but he has planted a doubt in her mind. She assures herself that Robb will get married and produce an heir. "Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?"

She fills her head with romantic images of being married to Willas, though occasionally she brings herself back to reality: "Willas Tyrell was twice her age, she reminded herself constantly, and lame as well, and perhaps even plump and red-faced like his father. But comely or no, he might be the only champion she would ever have." And then she dreams she marries Joffrey instead and on their wedding night he turns into Ilyn Payne, the headsman. She worries again about Margaery and when she goes to the sept she prays to the Mother to protect Margaery and to the Warrior for Loras.

Then she thinks of the new dress Cersei has ordered for her, and assumes it is for the wedding. "She could scarcely wait to wear it."

3. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 75-104

Sansa

The marriage of Joffrey to Margaery Tyrell has relieved Sansa of one anxiety: having to be married to him, but not, as both Cersei and Ser Dontos warned her, of his power over her. So an invitation to dine with Margaery is not exactly welcome: "She's to be queen now, she's beautiful and rich and everyone loves her, why would she want to sup with a traitor's daughter?" She has paranoid thoughts that it's a trick being played by Joffrey to further humiliate her.

But she has to accept, feeling alone and unprotected now that the Hound has disappeared. She wishes she had accepted his offer to help her escape, and she has kept his white cloak as a remembrance of him. He is disgraced now, wherever he is, because of his apparent cowardice during the battle, though she knows the story of how his brother, Gregor, burned his face, and fully understands why the fire terrified him so.

On the night of the dinner, she is escorted to it by Margaery's brother, Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, now dressed in the white of the Kingsguard. He tells her that their grandmother, Lady Olenna, will be there too. "The Queen of Thorns, she's called," Sansa says. "Isn't that right?" He laughs and warns her not to use that name around her. She's embarrassed at having said it, but also charmed by the warmth of his laughter and by his beauty.

On the way, they see his brother, Garlan, practicing swordsmanship against three opponents. Loras tells her that Garlan is a better swordsman than he is, but that he's better with a lance, which gives her the opportunity to comment on the time she saw him unhorse Ser Robar Royce at a tourney. He had given her a rose after the victory. But he doesn't seem to remember, and instead he mentions that he killed Robar at Storm's End.

"That was when Lord Renly was killed, wasn't it? How terrible for your poor sister," she says, but his reaction is not what she expects: "'For Margaery?' His voice was tight. 'To be sure. She was at Bitterbridge, though. She did not see.'" She's puzzled by the reply, and although she apologizes for bringing up what is evidently a sad memory, he seems to cool to her. She admonishes herself and reminds her to keep her tongue from now on.

When they reach the hall, Margaery comes to greet her graciously, and sends her brother away. She takes Sansa in to the room where a dozen women are seated and makes the introductions. There is her mother, Lady Alerie, several cousins, and other members of the Tyrell entourage. And finally, at the head of the table, there is a "wizened white-haired doll of a woman." Margaery says, "I am honored to present my grandmother the Lady Olenna, widow to the late Luthor Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, whose memory is a comfort to us all. 

Sansa is deceived by the old lady's scent of rosewater and her diminutive stature into thinking that "There was nothing in the least bit thorny about her." Lady Olenna tells Sansa to kiss her, and says that she knew her grandfather, Lord Rickard. She comments that Sansa has "had your share of grief, I know. We are sorry for your losses." Sansa turns to Margaery and express her condolences on the death of Lord Renly. "He was very gallant."

Lady Olenna gives a snort.

"Gallant, yes, and charming, and very clean. He knew how to dress and he knew how to smile and he knew how to bathe, and somehow he got the notion that this made him fit to be king. The Baratheons have always had some queer notions, to be sure. It comes from their Targaryen blood, I should think."

Margaery replies that "Renly was brave and gentle," and that her father and Loras liked him. She doesn't say anything about her own feelings for her late husband. And when Lady Olenna speaks somewhat scornfully of Loras and of his and Margaery's father, Mace Tyrell, it is Lady Alerie who protests, "Mother." Lady Olenna only reminds her that she is not her mother: "If I'd given birth to you I'm sure I'd remember. I'm only to blame for your husband, the lord oaf of Highgarden."

Margaery scolds her grandmother: "what will Sansa think of us?" Lady Olenna replies, "She might think we have some wits about us. One of us, at any rate." And she turns to Sansa to assert that the claim of Renly to his brother Robert's throne was "treasonous," as long as Robert had two sons and an older brother. After a long diatribe on the subject, she asks Sansa what she thinks, and Sansa can only come up with the observation that the Tyrells can trace their lineage to Garth Greenhand, which Lady Olenna dismisses with the assertion that any number of noble families could do so. "Garth liked to plant his seed in fertile ground, they say. I shouldn't wonder that more than his hands were green."

Lady Alerie tries to rescue Sansa by suggesting that they eat. Lady Olenna bids Sansa sit by her, and orders the fool Butterbumps in to entertain them. Her irreverent remarks about her son and her husband leave Sansa open-mouthed in astonishment, but not nearly so much as when Lady Olenna says, "I want you to tell me the truth about this royal boy.... This Joffrey." Sansa panics, knowing that she can't tell her the truth. But that is exactly what Lady Olenna expects of her, and she persists: "We have heard some troubling tales.... Is there any truth to them? Has this boy mistreated you?"

Frightened, Sansa looks around as Butterbumps is entertaining the other guests, but Lady Olenna is insistent: "I asked a question, I expect an answer. Have the Lannisters stolen your tongue, child?" Sansa tries to dissemble, but the old lady is having none of it. She asks if Sansa is frightened, and assures her, "Tell me the truth, no harm will come to you." When Sansa says, "My father always told the truth," Lady Olenna sees the point: Eddard Stark told the truth and got his head cut off for it. Sansa breaks down under the old woman's piercing gaze: "'Joffrey,' Sansa said. 'Joffrey did that. He promised me he would be merciful, and cut my father's head off.'" He took her up to the wall to force her to see her father's head, she says, and then stops, certain that she has already said too much.

But it is Margaery who intervenes and urges her, "Go on." This terrifies Sansa even more. "What if she tells him, what if she tells? He'll kill me for certain then, or give me to Ser Ilyn." When Margaery points out how frightened Sansa is, Lady Olenna orders Butterbumps to sing a song, and then says to Sansa: "Even when I was a girl, younger than you, it was well known that in the Red Keep the very walls have ears. Well, they will be the better for a song, and meanwhile we girls shall speak freely."

When Sansa mentions Varys, Lady Olenna tells Butterbumps to sing louder, and under cover of the song he bellows, Sansa answers her question, "What sort of man is this Joffrey, who calls himself Baratheon but looks so very Lannister?"

To her other side, Margaery was listening as well. A shiver went through her. "A monster," she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. "Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher's boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well."

Lady Olenna and Margaery exchange glances, and then Sansa realizes that if they call off the wedding, Joffrey will know that she told them about him. But they assure her that she needn't worry about that, and thank her for the truth. Then Margaery suggests she visit Highgarden, and describes its delights. "Once you see it, you'll never want to leave. And perhaps you won't have to." Sansa says she would love to visit, but Cersei would never let her go. But Lady Olenna says that the Lannisters are depending on their alliance to keep Joffrey on the throne, so Cersei can't refuse any request that Lord Tyrell makes -- and intimates that she will see to it that he makes the request. "Of course, he has no hint of our true purpose."

Sansa is puzzled about their true purpose. And Lady Olenna reveals that is is to see Sansa "safely wed ... to my grandson." Sansa immediately thinks that she means Ser Loras, and is thrilled at the idea. Margaery chimes in, "Oh, please say yes, please say that you will consent to marry my brother." Sansa bursts out happily that she would be delighted to marry Ser Loras, but Lady Olenna quickly disabuses her of that notion: "We were speaking of my grandson Willas. He is a bit old for you, to be sure, but a dear boy for all that. Not the least bit oafish, and heir to Highgarden besides."

Sansa is bewildered, and abashed. She doesn't know Willas, she says, and asks, "Is he ... is he as great a knight as his brothers?" Margaery says, "He has never taken vows," and Lady Olenna bluntly explains, "The poor lad is crippled, and that's the way of it." His leg was shattered in his first tourney. But Margaery assures her that Willas "has a good heart" and "You will love him as much as we do, Sansa." So it's arranged that Sansa will go to Highgarden with Lady Olenna after the wedding.

Jon

He has followed through with the plan to infiltrate the wildlings in the guise of a turncloak, which necessitated his killing Qhorin Halfhand, and now he is riding with Rattleshirt and the others on the way to meet the legendary King-beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder. Rattleshirt is no friend of his, but Ygritte, whose life Jon spared, assures him, "When Mance hears how you did for Halfhand, he'll take you quick enough" as one of them.

Among Rayder's outriders who come to meet them is "a fleshy blond man with watery eyes who bore a great curved scythe of sharpened steel." Jon recognizes that this must be the Weeper, one of the famous wildling leaders about whom the brothers of the Night's Watch told tales. When he's told how Jon killed Halfhand with the help of his wolf, the Weeper says to bring him to Mance.

Jon reminds himself of his mission, "to play the part of turncloak, and find whatever it was that the wildlings had been seeking in the bleak cold wilderness of the Frostfangs." As they ride, he observes that people are fashioning weapons and practicing fighting, and that a group of women were "fletching arrows. Arrows for my brothers, Jon thought. Arrows for my father's folk, for the people of Winterfell and Deepwood Motte and the Last Hearth. Arrows for the north." But there are also peaceful domestic scenes along the way.

When they make camp, Rattleshirt tells Ygritte and Longspear to come with him as they take Jon to Mance Rayder. Jon observes how huge the camp is, and how it's only one of more than a hundred camps, all of them undefended. "They had numbers, but the Night's Watch had discipline, and in battle discipline beats numbers nine times of every ten, his father had once told him."

Rayder's tent is three times as large as any of the others, with two guards posted at the entrance, one of whom says that Ghost must stay outside. Jon orders Ghost to stay, and he does. Rattleshirt tells Longspear to watch the direwolf as well, and motions Jon and Ygritte inside. There are six people already in the tent, including a young man and woman drinking mead, a pregnant woman grilling fowl over a brazier, and a man with gray hair playing a lute and singing. "Beside the brazier, a short but immensely broad man sat on a stool, eating a hen off a skewer." Another man, tall and lean, is studying a map. He is bald and might have been handsome if he had not lost both of his ears, "whether to frostbite or some enemy's knife could not tell." Jon assumes that one of these men, both of them evidently warriors, is Mance Rayder.

The bald, earless man looks up from his map and listens as Rattleshirt explains who Jon is, and Ygritte tells him that he killed Qhorin Halfhand. This angers the man: "This boy? ... the Halfhand should have been mine." He asks Jon's name, and Jon tells him, adding, "Your Grace," having decided that this must be the King-beyond-the-Wall. This causes the shorter man to laugh "so hard he sprayed bits of chicken everywhere." He tells Jon to turn around, and when Jon does the gray-haired man who had been playing the lute and singing and introduces himself: "'I'm Mance Rayder,' he said as he put aside the lute. 'And you are Ned Stark's bastard, the Snow of Winterfell.'"

Jon is astonished, and asks how Rayder knew. Rayder puts off the answer and asks if it is true that he killed Qhorin Halfhand. Jon says yes, thinking, "Though it was his doing more than mine." Rayder asks if he should thank Jon for killing Halfhand or curse him, given that they had both been brothers of the Night's Watch. Jon finally says, "You ought to thank me for killing your enemy ... and curse me for killing your friend," which gets approval from the short, white-bearded man eating the chicken, and from Rayder as well.

Rayder identifies the earless man as Styr, Magnar of Thenn, and explains "Magnar means 'lord' in the Old Tongue." The "ferocious chicken-eater here is my loyal Tormund," who demands that Rayder enumerate his many titles: "Giantsbane, Tall-talker, Horn-blower, ... Breaker of Ice[,] Thunderfits, Husband to Bears, the Mead-king of Ruddy hall, Speaker to Gods and Father of Hosts." Tormund tells Jon, "I am fond o' wargs, as it happens, though not o' Starks." The woman at the brazier is Dalla, who is pregnant with Rayder's child, and the man and woman drinking mead are Jarl and Dalla's sister, Val.

In response to Rayder's questions, Jon tells him that the Lord Commander had sent him with Halfhand to be trained as a ranger. When Styr asks why they were in the Skirling Pass, Jon says that they had found all the villages deserted and they wondered where the people had gone. Rayder asks who told him where they had gone to, but Tormund says it must have been Craster, which irritates Rayder, who says he knew the answer but wanted to see if Jon would tell him. So he sends the others away, except for Dalla, so he can talk with Jon alone.

When Jon calls him "Your Grace," Rayder says that the free folk just call him Mance or "the Mance." Then he tells Jon how he knew him: He had seen his face before, once when Jon was a boy and he was still with the Watch. They had come to see Jon's father at Winterfell and caught Jon and Robb after a snowfall, waiting to push a mountain of snow off the wall onto the guard known as Fat Tom. Jon remembers that Rayder had promised not to spoil the surprise.

The second time was more recent: When Robert Baratheon came to Winterfell to persuade Ned Stark to become the Hand. Rayder had heard of the king's visit because Jon's uncle Benjen had been sent for, and word had spread from the brothers of the Watch to the wildlings. Rayder wanted to see the king for himself, so he scaled the Wall, bought a horse on the other side, and managed to mix in with the freeriders who had attached themselves to the procession. "The night your father feasted Robert, I sat in the back of the hall on a bench with the other freeriders," getting a good look at Jaime and Tyrion as well as the Stark children and their wolf pups.

"So tell me truly, Jon Snow. Are you a craven who turned your cloak from fear, or is there another reason that brings you to my tent?" Jon knows he has to be careful answering the question, so he decides to take advantage of Rayder's obvious pleasure in "the sound of his own voice," and says, "Tell me why you turned your cloak, and I'll tell you why I turned mine." The trick works, and Rayder says that he did it for a cloak: They were out on a ranging and had killed and were skinning an elk when they were attacked by a shadow-cat. It tore his cloak to ribbons as well as wounding him seriously. The brothers were afraid he would die before they got him back to the maester so they took him to a woman in a wilding village who was skilled in healing. She dressed his wounds and nursed him, meanwhile sewing up his cloak "with some scarlet silk from Asshai." It was a gift to him, because the scarlet silk "was the greatest treasure she had." But when he returned to the Wall, he was given a new cloak of solid black and was told that he couldn't wear the red-and-black one. "I left the next morning ... for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose."

So, having told his story, he asks for Jon's. "There is only one tale that he might believe," Jon realizes. And he asks if Mance remembers that at the feast for King Robert, his brothers and sisters were all seated along with Prince Joffrey, Prince Tommen, and Princess Myrcella "at the table just below where the king and queen were seated." Mance says he remembers.

"'And did you see where I was seated, Mance?' He leaned forward. 'Did you see where they put the bastard?'" Rayder replies, "I think we had best find you a new cloak." 

19. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 690-728

Theon

An army is gathering outside Winterfell, and Maester Luwin has come to advise Theon to yield. There have been no responses to the birds Luwin sent to Theon's uncle and his father. Theon insists that there's enough food in Winterfell to last out a year's siege, but he is so outnumbered that resistance is pointless. He orders Luwin to send more ravens, to tell Wex to polish his armor, and to have the garrison assemble.

He tells the assembled men that Ser Rodrik Cassel and the Stark bannermen will attack before night, but that he intends to stay and resist the assault. "Those who would stay and fight, step forward." No one moves for a few moments, but finally seventeen men join him. The ten men his sister had brought are not among them.

Black Lorren tells him that the people of the castle will join the side of the attackers once the fighting begins, which Theon already knows. He has a deterrent planned. He goes to the watchtower and examines the banners of the gathered troops. There are no Glovers or Boltons or Umbers among them, he notes.

Then words comes that Ser Rodrik wants "to parley with Theon Turncloak." The epithet stings, though it's accurate: His mission had been to get his father's ships to attack the Lannisters. He calls down to the messenger that he will be coming out by himself. Ser Rodrik is waiting for him in the market square, and spits on the ground when Theon addresses him, and reminds him that Eddard Stark "raised you among his own sons, the sweet boys you have butchered, and to my undying shame I trained you in the arts of war." He orders Theon to surrender. "Those who murdered no children shall be free to walk away, but you shall be held for King Robb's justice."

Theon presents his terms: "You have until evenfall to disperse. Those who swear fealty to Balon Greyjoy as their king and to myself as Prince of Winterfell will be confirmed in their rights and properties and suffer no harm. Those who defy us will be destroyed." Ser Rodrick replies that he has two thousand men to his fifty. "Seventeen in truth," Theon thinks, then says, "I have something better than men." He gives a signal, then watches Ser Rodrik's face: "He is not surprised, he thought with sadness, but the fear is there."

The anger is, too. Ser Rodrik calls Theon a "Viper," and declares, "I ought cut you down here and now and put an end to your lies and deceits." Theon replies, "Forswear your oath and murder me, and you will watch your little Beth strangle at the end of a rope." Ser Rodrik offers to take his daughter's place as hostage, but Theon refuses. "If this host is still in arms before my gate when the sun sets, Beth will hang." He rides back through the gate, above which Beth Cassel, a noose around her neck, stands between the small heads of the miller's boys whom Theon had killed in place of Bran and Rickon.

Theon goes back to Ned Stark's chambers, aware that the attack will still take place and that they are outnumbered. He has Wex bring his bow, and he goes to practice firing arrows. "If I hang the girl, the northmen will attack at once, he thought as he loosed a shaft. If I do not hang her, they will know my threats are empty. He knocked another arrow to his bow. There is no way out, none." But then Maester Luwin appears with a way out: "Take the black." Ser Rodrik, he tells Theon, will let him join the Night's Watch if he surrenders. Theon seizes on the idea and begins to persuade himself to do it.

He has almost made up his mind to follow Luwin's advice when one of his men appears: "More men came up, hundreds of them, and at first they made to join the others. But now they've fallen on them!" When he hears the description of the new men's banners, Theon knows who they are.

The flayed man of the Dreadfort. Reek had belonged to the Bastard of Bolton before his capture, Theon recalled. It was hard to believe that a vile creature like him could sway the Boltons to change their allegiance, but nothing else made sense.

He goes to see this battle, followed by Luwin. The Dreadfort men had taken Ser Rodrik's men by surprise and are prevailing over them. It begins to grow dark and smoke from the burning inn hides what is happening. Then a column of horsemen emerge from the smoke and ride toward the main gate of Winterfell. It is led by a knight in dark armor and a red helmet. Three bodies are dumped before the gates: Ser Rodrik's, Leobald Tallhart's and Cley Cerwyn's. Maester Luwin falls to his knees in dismay and is sick.

Theon orders the gates opened for the Dreadfort men. The knight removes his helmet and Theon identifies him as Reek. But in fact he is the Bastard of Bolton, Ramsay Snow, who changed clothes with the real Reek, who was killed. He reminds Theon that he was promised a girl if he brought two hundred men, and instead he brought his father's garrison. Theon orders the kennel girl, Palla, brought out, but the Bastard wants Theon's own bedmate, Kyra. When Theon angrily protests, the Bastard backhands him with a mailed fist and Theon blacks out.

When Theon wakes up he finds that the Dreadfort men have taken Winterfell and are slaughtering his men. He sees Maester Luwin stabbed from behind. "'Save me the Freys,' the Bastard was shouting as the flames roared upward, 'and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it all.'" The last thing Theon sees is his horse, Smiler, running from the stables with his mane on fire.

Tyrion

In his delirium, Tyrion dreams of death and the dying. "My work, thought Tyrion Lannister. They died at my command." There are so many corpses that he thinks, "Why did I kill them all? He had known once, but somehow he had forgotten." There are silent sisters in gray moving among them, removing their armor and their clothes, and he tries to speak to them but realizes he doesn't have a mouth. "Smooth seamless skin covered his teeth. The discovery terrifies him."

When he wakes again he finds himself in his own bed under a heap of blankets and furs. He is sweating profusely. "Fever, he thought groggily." He tries to remember the battle, and when he sees Ser Mandon, fear causes him to wet himself. He calls out for help but no one comes, and he falls back to sleep. He sees Cersei and his father standing over him, but thinks it must be a dream because Lord Tywin is supposed to be off fighting Robb Stark. Others appear, such as Varys and Littlefinger. He hears them talking but can't understand the words.

He realizes that they must have won the battle. "We must have, else I'd be a head on a spike somewhere. If I live, we won." He can sense that he is regaining control of his senses. The next time he wakes, Podrick Payne is standing over him but runs off when he sees Tyrion open his eyes.  He tries to call out but can't. Then he feels his face and realizes it is covered with bandages and plaster.

Podrick returns with a maester and asks if he wants something to drink. He sips through a copper funnel inserted through a hole in the plaster and bandages, but realizes that is is milk of the poppy and he's asleep before he can object. This time he dreams he's at a feast and his bravery is being celebrated. He kneels before Jaime and is made a knight. Shae is there, too.

When he wakes this time the room is cold and empty, and he feels the pain in his face and the right side of his body. He remembers that Ser Mandon Moore had tried to kill him and that Podrick had saved him. The room isn't his, and he gives out an angry moan. "They have moved me here to die." He dreams that he is in a seaside cottage with Tysha, his wife, but remembers how angry he was when he discovered the trick that had been played on him.

He wakes from another drugged sleep to see the maester's "soft pink face" over him, urging him to drink more of the opiate. He reaches and grabs the maester's chain and starts to choke the man. When the maester gets his breath back, Tyrion motions for him to remove the bandages on his face. The man protests, "You are not yet healed, the queen would...." That Cersei has had a hand in this infuriate him and he threatens the maester with a fist. Through the mask Tyrion orders, "Do. It."

The maester removes the bandages, and Tyrion feels the fiery pain as his faces is uncovered. The maester says it would have been wiser to keep the bandages on longer, but adds, "Still, it looks clean, good, good. When we found you down in that cellar among the dead and dying, your wounds were filthy." He tells Tyrion one of his ribs was broken and they were afraid he'd lose an arm because of the arrow wound in it, but "now it seems to be healing clean."

Tyrion asks the maester's name and learns that it's Ballabar. He asks for a looking glass, which the man is reluctant to provide. He also asks for wine. "No poppy." After two cups of wine, Tyrion feels ready to look at his face. There is a long gash starting under his left eye and extending to the right jaw. "Three-quarters of his nose was gone, and a chunk of his lip." He remembers Ser Mandon Moore extending his left hand and then a sword blow aimed at his head that he had dodged, though not enough to avoid the cut. "Cersei must have paid him to see that I never came back from the battle.... Another gift from my sweet sister."

He asks where he is, and learns that he is in Maegor's Holdfast over the Queen's Ballroom. "Her Grace wanted you kept close, so she might watch over you herself," Maester Ballabar tells him. He says he wants to be taken to his own chambers, but is told that the King's Hand has taken them over. He learns now that his father has been named Hand, and that it was Tywin's arrival with Lord Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers and Littlefinger that turned the tide of battle. "The smallfolk say it was King Renly's ghost, but wiser men know better."

Tyrion thinks who he can send for that he can trust, and finally asks for Podrick Payne. When Pod arrives, Tyrion tells him to send for Maeser Frenken, not Ballabar, and have him make dreamwine. He wants his own guard, and learns that Bronn has been knighted. Then he asks about Ser Mandon. "The boy flinched. 'I n-never meant to k-k-k-k-" All Tyrion wants to know for certain is that Mandon is dead, and when he's assured of that, he says, "Good. Say nothing. Of him. Of me. Any of it. Nothing."

Jon

They are trapped, and Qhorin Halfhand sends Jon for some brush to build a fire. He wonders if Ghost will howl for him when he's dead, the way Bran's wolf did when he fell. Only Jon and Qhorin remain of the five rangers in the party. Dalbridge, Ebben, and Stonesnake had been sent off on reconnaissance, and they had heard a horn that let them know that Dalbridge had been killed. Ebben had been dispatched back to Mormont and the rest of the expedition. Stonesnake's horse had been frightened by a shadowcat and broke its leg, so he remained behind to try to pick off the pursuers. "At every dawn and every dusk they saw the eagle soaring between the peaks, no more than a speck in the vastness of the sky."

One night Qhorin asks Jon to repeat the oath of the Night's Watch with him. Their horses are worn out, and Jon doubts that Qhorin's will last another day. Then Qhorin tells him, "If we are taken, you must yield." Jon refuses, but Qhorin says, "You will. I command it of you."

"If we are taken, you will go over to them, as the wildling girl you captured once urged you. They may demand that you cut your cloak to ribbons, that you swear them an oath on your father's grave, that you curse your brothers and your Lord Commander. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you. Do as they bid you ... but in your heart, remember who and what you are. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them, for as long as it takes. And watch."

Jon agrees reluctantly. Then Qhorin has him build the fight "bright and hot," and ride away with him. They reach a place for the night that is hidden behind a waterfall, and Qhorin takes the first watch. The next morning they ride through a narrow passage that they have to persuade the horses through, and Jon thinks that they have lost their trackers. But when they emerge they see the eagle perched on a tree a hundred feet above them. Ghost tries to catch it but the bird flies off.

When he sees the direction the bird took, he tells Jon that this is where they will make a stand. They hear a hunting horn and know that they'll be there soon. They see the wildlings appear on a ridge a half mile away. Jon counts fourteen, with eight dogs. Qhorin and Jon draw their swords. The wildlings halt ten yards away and their leader, wearing armor made of bones, comes forward alone. Qhorin addresses him as "Rattleshirt," which provokes the wildling. He is joined by a woman, one of the wildlings' "spearwives," who reaches into a sack and pulls out Ebben's head. Rattleshirt calls for the bowmen to aim.

"No!" The word burst from Jon's lips before the bowmen could loose. He took two quick steps forward. "We yield!" 


"They warned me bastard blood was craven, he heard Qhorin Halfhand say coldly behind him. "I see it is so. Run to your new masters, coward."

Jon goes down the slope to Rattleshirt, who says, "The free folk have no need of cravens." But behind him one of the archers removes her sheepskin helmet and says, "This is the Bastard of Winterfell, who saved me. Let him live." Rattleshirt, however, says he doesn't trust him, and the eagle "split the air with a scream of fury." Ygritte says the bird was a man before Jon killed him. Rattleshirt tells the spearwife, "Ragwyle, gut him." But she suggests they put him to the test first.

Jon says he'll do whatever they order him to do, and Rattleshirt orders him to kill Qhorin Halfhand. So Jon fights Halfhand, remembering, "You must not balk, whatever is asked of you." Halfhand almost overcomes him, and Jon "could feel his arms growing numb" when Ghost moves in and seizes Qhorin by the calf. Then Jon sees his opening and slashes at Halfhand's throat, cutting it with the very tip of the sword.

Jon thinks, "He knew what they would ask of me." He thinks of his companions on the Wall and wonders if he has lost them the way he lost his family at Winterfell. Rattleshirt still wants to kill him, but others remind him that he yielded and that he killed his brother of the Watch. Rattleshirt insists that he couldn't have done it without the wolf's help and that "He is a warg ... and a crow. I like him not." The others prevail, however. "These are a free folk indeed, thought Jon."

They burn Halfhand's body, and Rattleshirt claims some of the bones. Jon asks Ygritte if they are going back through the Skirling Pass, but she tells him, "There's nothing behind us.... By now Mance is well down the Milkwater, marching on your Wall."

Bran

Through the wolf's eyes, Bran sees the burning of Winterfell, "and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame." He hears the barking of dogs and the screams of horses and men, but he and his brother stay hidden in the forest. In the morning, when the fire has died, they prowl through the ruins, frightening the crows away from the corpses. He and his brother find a dying horse and fight over it. He wins, and feeds first, then lets his brother feed.

Then he feels himself being pulled back into the darkness, as a voice whispers, "Bran, come back." "He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two." Meera asks what he saw, and he tells her "It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Meera." He drinks some water eagerly, and asks, "How long?" Jojen tells him that he has been away for three days. Jojen says that's too long, and when Bran insists that he ate, tells him, "The wolf ate.... Not you."

He asks for Osha, and she speaks to him out of the darkness. He tells her that he saw Winterfell burning, and she says it was a dream. But he insists that they have to go see if it was true. Osha is afraid that Thoren will catch her and flay her as he had threatened, so Meera tells Bran she'll go. Osha lights a torch, and Bran can see the tombs of the Starks. "And in the mouth of the empty tomb that waited for Lord Eddard Stark, beneath his stately granite likeness, the six fugitives huddled round their little cache of bread and water and dried meat."

Bran assures them that he has seen the ruins of the castle, so they prepare to go above. Bran is hoisted into the basket on Hodor's back, and they make their way past the effigies of the old Kings in the North. Osha goes first and is away long enough for them to grow uneasy. Finally she returns to say that something is blocking the door to the crypt and she can't budge it. Bran says, "Hodor can move anything."

When they reach the door, they take Bran from the basket as Hodor pushes and shoves at the door until finally it gives way. They emerge into the ruins of the First Keep. "Nearby some crows were pecking at a body crushed beneath the tumbled stone, but he lay facedown and Bran could not say who he was." Osha observes that they "made enough noise to wake a dragon," but no one has come to see what it was. And then they hear a sound, and Summer and Shaggydog appear.

They explore the ruins and discover Theon's men among the corpses, and one with the sigil of the Dreadfort. Summer gives a howl and runs to the godswood. They follow and find Maester Luwin lying prone by the pool under the heart tree. He is still alive and pleased to find that Bran and Rickon are, too, though he had known that neither of the boys Theon had killed was Bran because of the muscles in the legs. Bran tells him that they had doubled back and hidden in the crypt.

Osha wants to make a little so they can carry Luwin to get help, but he insists that he's dying. He tells Osha that the boys must be separated and taken to different places. He warns them that many of the people friendly to the Starks are dead, including Ser Rodrik. He tells Bran that he must be strong, and all of them but Osha to leave him now.

When she joins them shortly, she says Hodor should take Bran, and she will take Rickon. Meera and Jojen say they will go with Bran. They find some still-edible provisions in the kitchens. Bran watches Osha and Rickon and Shaggydog leave by the East Gate, then they go out through the Hunter's Gate. It is Jojen who decides which way to go: north.

Bran looks back at Winterfell and reflects, "It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either."