18. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 504-528

Cat of the Canals

Arya has fully adapted to her new life selling fish, though she still dreams of being a wolf. "The wolf dreams belonged to Arya of House Stark. Try as she might, though, she could not rid herself of Arya." But in any case the wolf dreams were better the ones in which "she was always looking for her mother, stumbling through a wasted land of mud and blood and fire."

She still returns to the temple and to the kindly man, who instructs her, "Learn three new things before you come back to us." She reports to him on the doings of the city, and during the dark of the moon spends three days serving in the temple, washing the dead or helping the cook. She usually sells her shellfish at the Ragman's Harbor, where ships from all over the world dock. She gets to know sailors and thieves, whores and courtesans, and she sometimes hears news from home, such as the death of Lysa Arryn. Then she has to tell herself, "It's nought to me. Cat of the Canals never had an aunt."

In one of the brothels she find Dareon, playing and singing love songs. This makes her angry, because he has broken his vows to the Night's Watch. She has heard from the whores about the time Sam confronted Dareon and wound up being thrown into the canal. When she finishes selling her shellfish at the brothel, Dareon leaves with her, on his way to an inn where he has promised to sing. She asks about Sam and whether he ever found passage to Oldtown, but Dareon doesn't know.

She goes home and gives Brusco the money she has made, as well as a pair of boots that he says are too small for him. She reminds him that it's the dark of the moon, so he sends her off to the House of Black and White. There she bathes away the fish smell and ceases being Cat for a while. She helps the waif preparing the potions she uses, learning that sweetsleep is a gentle poison and that the tears of Lys is crueler. She chews on her lip while asking a question, and the waif slaps her: "It is Arya of House Stark who chews on her lip whenever she is thinking. Are you Arya of House Stark?" She replies, "I am no one." But then she asks, "Who are you?" and the waif replies with a story in which Arya detects some lies.

The kindly man appears and asks for the three new things she has learned. She tells him two of them about waterfront people she knows, and when he asks for the third replies without hesitation:

"Dareon is dead. The black singer who was sleeping at the Happy Port. He was really a deserter from the Night's Watch. Someone slit his throat and pushed him into a canal, but they kept his boots."

The kindly man asks, "Who could have done this thing, I wonder?" She replies, "Arya of House Stark." He observes that he thought she had left Braavos, then sends the waif for "a cup of wine for me and warm milk for our friend Arya, who has returned to us so unexpectedly."

She drinks the warm milk. "It smelled a little burnt and had a bitter aftertaste." Then she goes to bed and dreams that she is a wolf without a pack, prowling the canals. When she wakes in the morning, she is blind.

Samwell

Maester Aemon is dead aboard the Cinnamon Wind, which is off the coast of Dorne. The ship is becalmed. Sam had hoped that he might make it to Oldtown where the archmaesters could save him, for Aemon's recovery when he heard Xhondo's talk of dragons had seemed remarkable. He longed to go see Daenerys for himself, but the stormy passage had taken its toll, and he began giving Sam instructions on what to tell the archmaesters at the Citadel.

Sam must tell them about "the wights and the white walkers, the creeping cold," and that Melisandre is mistaken: "Daenerys is our hope. Tell them that at the Citadel. Make them listen. They must send her a maester. Daenerys must be counseled, taught, protected." Otherwise, his talk was confused: "He spoke of dreams and never named the dreamer, of a glass candle that could not be lit and eggs that would not hatch. He said the sphinx was the riddle, not the riddler, whatever that meant."

Sam tells Gilly that Jon shouldn't have sent Aemon on the voyage. "If he had stayed at Castle Black, he might have lived another ten years." But Gilly says that Melisandre "might have burned him.... She wanted king's blood for her fires. Val knew she did. Lord Snow too. That was why they made me take Dalla's babe away and leave my own behind in his place." Sam thinks that Aemon will still have to be burned, according to the funeral traditions of the Targaryens, but that he will be the one to do it. But the captain won't allow it to be done on board, so the body has been preserved in a cask of rum until it reaches Oldtown.

Gilly suggests that Dalla's child should be named for Maester Aemon. "Dalla brought him forth during battle, as the swords sang all around her. That should be his name. Aemon Battleborn. Aemon Steelsong." Sam agrees, though Gilly reminds him that he can't be named officially until he's two. She has left the baby with the captain's daughter, Kojja Mo, and she and Sam have been drinking rum as part of a Summer Islander celebration of the dead. She leans close to Sam and kisses him, and he returns the kiss.

Suddenly, he finds himself making love to Gilly, though his mind keeps telling him that he's breaking his vows. They are in the women's cabin. "Others came in, men and women both, and his listened to them kissing and laughing and mating with one another. Summer Islanders. That's how they mourn. They answer life with death." When he wakes the next morning he is in his own hammock and has a splitting headache. But the wind has arisen, and the ship is under way.

Sam is helping pay for their passage by working, and he spends the day miserably going through his chores and trying to avoid encountering Gilly, telling himself he should have jumped overboard. "I have always been a craven, but I was never an oathbreaker till now." Finally, at the end of his watch, Xhondo grabs him and takes him to Kojja Mo. She points at the land visible in the distance:

"There is the coast of Dorne. Sand and rocks and scorpions, and no good anchorage for hundreds of leagues. You can swim there if you like, and walk to Oldtown. You will need to cross the deep desert and climb some mountains and swim the Torentine. Or else you could go to Gilly."

He protests, but she is unmoved. "All you Westerosi make a shame of loving. There is no shame in loving." He protests that he took a vow, but she says Gilly knows that. "She knows why you wear the black, why you go to Oldtown. She knows she cannot keep you. She wants you for a little while, is all." He has a choice: Go to her, or swim for it.

He goes to her.

14. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 377-409

Samwell

They have arrived in Braavos, but things have not gone well. Dareon tends to disappear into the taverns and brothels, leaving Sam to tend to Gilly, the baby, and the dying Maester Aemon, whose mind and memory are failing along with his body. They are broke, thanks to Dareon's dissipations and Sam's hiring a healer who told him only that Aeron "is an old man, and death is in his lungs," and sold him half a flask of dreamwine. Now Sam is worried about buying passage on a ship to Oldtown.

Aeron has grown obsessed with learning more about the dragons that the sailors tell tales about. He tells Sam that he knows he won't make it to Oldtown, and he urges him to go down to the docks and learn everything he can about the dragons, which he sees in his dreams. So Sam dutifully leaves him in Gilly's care and ventures out into the night. But rather than inquire about the dragons, he goes in search of Dareon.

Some of the city's swaggering bravos begin to bully him, and to ask why he is dressed in black. A girl, "a scruffy, skinny creature in big boots," tells them, "He's in the Night's Watch, stupid, from Westeros," and that one of his brothers is "down at the Happy Port, signing songs to the Sailor's Wife." She offers to sell Sam some clams -- her oysters are all gone -- but he doesn't have any money. When the bravos continue to make a nuisance of themselves, she draws a knife and they depart. She tells Sam he can have the remaining clams for free, and asks if he is sailing to the Wall. He says he's going to Oldtown and asks who she is. She replies, "I used to be someone, but now I'm not. You can call me Cat, if you like."

This chance encounter of Sam and Arya, who have never met before but have so much in common, is tantalizing, but goes nowhere. He says he is "Samwell, of House Tarly," but she provides her cover story: "My father was the oarmaster on Nymeria." She asks what ship he is sailing on, and when he says he had passage on the Lady Ushanora, she says, "She left days and days ago." Sam knows that: He had been unable to persuade the captain to wait until Maester Aemon was able to sail, and the captain had kept their passage money as well.

Not wanting to get into this with the girl, he asks about the brother she says she had seen, and she tells him the Happy Port is near the Mummer's Ship. He knows where it is, and runs off to find Dareon. When he enters the brothel, he finds a drunken Dareon with a woman on his lap that he says is his wife, and offers to pay for a woman for Sam, who is shocked at Dareon's flouting of his vows. When Sam persists in scolding him, Dareon takes his cloak and throws it at Sam, telling him to use it to keep Aeron warm.

Sam hits him, and they fight until someone pulls him off of Dareon, knocks him down, and throws him into the canal. He panics and thinks he's going to drown, but he is rescued by a Summer Islander named Xhondo. He tells Sam he's a mate on the Cinnamon Wind and, having overheard Sam tell Dareon that Aemon wants to know more about the dragons, says, "Xhondo knows these dragons."

Jaime

Cersei is sending him to end the standoff at Riverrun and to bring about some order at Harrenhal, but Jaime doesn't want to go, arguing that his place is there guarding the king. Besides, where Riverrun is concerned, "I swore an oath to Lady Stark, never again to take up arms against the Starks or Tullys." She wants Osmund Kettleblack to command the Kingsguard in his absence, but he insists on Loras Tyrell. All he can think of is Tyrion's "...she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know...."

After a fight with Cersei in which she slaps him, he rides off to do her bidding, with Ser Ilyn Payne at his side. He had insisted on Ser Ilyn going with him, along with Ser Addam Marbrand, and Cersei hadn't objected. When they reach the castle of the Hayfords, Jaime sends his squire to fetch his new hand, which "was wrought of gold, very lifelike, with inlaid nails of mother-of-pearl, its fingers and thumb half closed so as to slip around a goblet's stem. I cannot fight, but I can drink, Jaime reflected." At dinner everyone admired the golden hand, but when he knocked over a goblet of wine with it, Jaime became angry.

That night, he goes out to find Ilyn Payne, and practices fighting with his left hand. "By the time they lowered their swords he was bruised and battered, but the wine had burned away and his head was clear." He tells Ilyn they will fight every day "till I am as good with my left hand as ever I was with the right." The tongueless Ser Ilyn opens his mouth and makes "a clacking sound," which Jaime realizes is a laugh. "Something twisted in his gut." He has chosen Ser Ilyn because he can't talk about how inept Jaime is now.

As they ride on, they see more and more of the devastation the war has brought to the countryside, and Jaime wonders if Brienne had come this way in her search for Sansa. Finally, they reach Harrenhal, where the men Gregor Clegane had left are in charge. "About the best that could be said for Gregor's men was that they were not quite as vile and violent a bunch as the Brave Companions." One  of them, known as Shitmouth, tells Jaime that Clegane had left Polliver in charge, but that he had been killed by Sandor Clegane who "had some boy with him, a ragged peasant lad."

Jaime has the captives brought out, along with Vargo Hoat's head. When Jaime asks what happened to the rest of Hoat, Shitmouth tells him, "Rotted, ser. And et." Clegane had fed Hoat's hands and feet and then his arms and legs to the captives -- and to what was left of Hoat. "Father, Jaime thought, your dogs have both gone mad." He puts Ser Bonifer Hasty in charge of Harrenhal, and tells the rest of them that they will ride with him to Riverrun. They protest that they had been promised gold, and Jaime tells them to take it up with Cersei.

He sets the captives free, and tells Ser Bonifer that he'll take Clegane's followers off his hands. Bonifer wants to get rid of the serving girl named Pia as well, who had been prostituted and had her teeth knocked out and her nose broken. Jaime remembers that Qyburn had sent Pia to his room to service him when he was there last, before Clegane had ruined her face. He agrees to take her with them as a washerwoman.

When he goes to look for Ilyn Payne, Jaime finds Ser Ronnet Connington standing by the bear pit. Connington explains that he wanted to see where Brienne fought the bear, and makes some jokes about how ugly she is. Jaime doesn't laugh at the jokes, and is surprised when Connington tells him he was betrothed to her. It was a match very much to his advantage, in terms of land, but when he saw her her he couldn't go through with it. "Connington glanced into the pit. 'The bear was less hairy than that freak, I'll--" Jaime smashes him across the mouth with his golden hand and says, "You are speaking of a highborn lady, ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne."

8. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 199-225

Brienne

Brienne begins to recognize places she had traversed with Jaime and Cleos Frey -- or at least to think she does, though all the places begin to look the same. Podrick notices her uneasiness, and when she tells him there may be outlaws about, he assures her he has a longsword and can fight them. Brienne questions how well, but she admires  the boy's spirit and has continued to train him.

They come upon a farmer and his wife pulling an oxcart -- their ox has been taken by soldiers. They are carrying eggs to the wedding of Lord Mooton's daughter to Dickon, the son of Lord Randyll Tarly, at Maidenpool. At the gates of Maidenpool the guards threaten to take not only the eggs but also the farmer's wife until Brienne intervenes. She is about to fight with the guards when Ser Hyle Hunt appears and brings the guards in line.

Brienne and Podrick enter the city behind the couple with the eggs, and Ser Hyle accompanies them. She is acquainted with Ser Hyle, and would just as soon get rid of him, but he knows the town and is able to give her directions to the Stinking Goose. She is surprised to see how much of Maidenpool has been rebuilt, and Ser Hyle gives the credit to Tarly, whom they find in the fishmarket, presiding over trials and hanging or otherwise punishing the convicted.

Tarly frowns when he sees Brienne, but otherwise shows no sign of recognition. When he finishes with the trials, he beckons to Ser Hyle and Brienne follows. He asks her if she killed Renly, and having already answered the question from Hyle and his guards, she stammers her response. But Tarly is more focused on chiding Brienne for her audacity in behaving in an unfeminine manner and threatens to send her back to Tarth. She has Podrick bring her the authorization from the king to search for Sansa.

She tells Tarly of her plans to go to the Eyrie, but he informs her that Lysa is dead -- "Some singer pushed her off a mountain" -- and that Littlefinger is in charge of the Eyrie, though he expects the lord of the Vale to get rid of him as an "upjumped jackanapes whose only skill is counting coppers." He gives her back the papers and tells her to go on her way, and for Ser Hyle to go back to guard the gate.

After Tarly leaves, Hyle offers to show her to the Stinking Goose, but she curtly orders him to go back to his gate. Before he does, he tells her of some of Renly's other men who had died at the Blackwater, and Brienne remembers what Catelyn had called them: "The knights of summer. And now it was autumn and they were falling like leaves...." She turns and strides off, with Podrick leading the horses behind her. She sends him to the stables and to find an inn where they can spend the night. Before he goes, he asks her what Ser Hyle did to her that makes her so cold to him. "At Highgarden, when King Renly called his banners, some men played a game with me. Ser Hyle was one of them. It was a cruel game, hurtful and unchivalrous." She points out where the east gate is and tells him to meet her there.

At the Stinking Goose, which fits its name, she asks the woman behind the bar for Nimble Dick, and learns that his name is Dick Crabb and that he comes there every night. While she waits for him, she recalls the game Ser Hyle and his friends had played when she came to Highgarden to fight on behalf of Renly. They started giving her gifts and flirting with her, but she is suspicious and spurns their attentions. Then Lord Randyll Tarly sends for her and tells her what his son Dickon had heard: Hyle and some of his other friends had started a game: "Each man was required to buy into the contest with a golden dragon, the whole sum to go to whoever claimed her maidenhead."

Tarly had put a stop to their game, but he blamed her:

"Your being here encouraged them. If a woman will behave like a camp follower, she cannot object to being treated like one. A war host is no place for a maiden. If you have any regard for your virtue or the honor of your House, you will take off that mail, return home, and beg your father to find a husband for you."


"I came to fight," she insisted. "To be a knight." 


"The gods made men to fight, and women to bear children," said Randyll Tarly. "A woman's war is in the birthing bed."

A man enters the Stinking Goose, and the woman at the bar signals to Brienne. She tells him she heard of his encounter with a fool, and asks if there was a girl with him. He says there were two girls, and she immediately wonders if the other one was Arya. But he says he never saw the women, but heard him say that he wanted passage for three on a ship. He tells her that he sent the fool to a smuggler's cove. He keeps asking for more money, and finally says that he sent the fool to a place called the Whispers on Crackclaw Point. Finally, she offers him six dragons if they find her "sister," two if they find only the fool, and none if they find no one. He agrees to take her there and arranges to meet her at the east gate at dawn.

Samwell

Sam is seasick. "He did not want to be a maester, with a heavy chain wrapped around his neck, cold against his skin. He did not want to leave his brothers, the only friends he'd ever had. And he certainly did not want to face the father who had sent him to the Wall to die." But he reckons that the others will be better  off: Gilly will have a safe place to raise her baby, Maester Aemon will be in a more comfortable place, and the singer Dareon will get to travel around the Seven Kingdoms, singing songs to recruit men for the Watch, a replacement for Yoren. He tries to cheer up Gilly by talking about what an interesting place Braavos is, the place where they will change ships to sail for Oldtown, but she continues to be miserable, and the baby's loose bowels raise a stench in the cabin.

Maester Aemon spends most of his time on deck, swathed in furs. When Dareon wonders why the old blind man keeps staring out to sea, Aemon overhears him and says that when he last sailed this way, he had sight, and the sounds of the sea and the gulls recall what he saw. And so the days pass: "Dareon sang, Sam retched, Gilly cried and nursed her babe, Maester Aemon slept and shivered, and the winds grew colder and more blustery with every passing day."

When the seas grow rougher and it starts to rain, Sam suggests that Maester Aemon might be more comfortable below, but Aemon replies, "The rain feels good against my face, Sam. It feels like tears. Let me stay a while longer, I pray you. It has been a long time since last I wept." So Sam decides to stay with the old man, until a storm arises, and he has to carry Aemon, who is soaked, down to the cabin. He finds that Aemon is chilled through, and asks Gilly to get in bed with him.

The weather gets worse. "They never saw the sun. The days were grey and the nights black, except when lightning lit the sky above the peaks of Skagos. All of them were starved yet none could eat." Dareon begins to drink heavily. There is a respite of eight days and seven nights of better weather, and then the storms return, only worse. He hears the crew blaming the bad journey on having a wildling woman on board who had "Fucked her own father.... We'll all drown unless we get rid of her, and that abomination she whelped." Dareon turns against Gilly as well.

Gilly's weeping keeps Sam up at night, and finally he asks Maester Aemon if there is something he can give her to keep her from being afraid. Aemon tells him, "It is not fear you hear.... That is the sound of grief, and there is no potion for that." Sam doesn't understand what she's grieving for, and Aemon explains that the baby Gilly is nursing is no her own: It is Dalla's child. "Gilly did not leave the child willingly, I am certain. What threats the Lord Commander made, what promises, I can only guess ... but threats and promises there surely were."

Sam is astonished: Jon would never do that. Aemon agrees: "Jon would never. Lord Snow did."

He wanted to scream. He wanted to howl and sob and shake and curl up in a little ball and whimper. He switched the babes, he told himself. He switched the babes to protect the little prince, to keep him away from Lady Melisandre's fires, away from her red god. If she burns Gilly's boy, who will care? No one but Gilly. He was only Craster's whelp, an abomination born of incest, not the son of the King-beyond-the-Wall. He's no good for a hostage, no good for a sacrifice, no good for anything, he doesn't even have a name. 

Sam goes on deck, where Dareon observes that the stars are coming out and maybe the worst is over. But Sam replies, "The worst isn't done. The worst is just beginning, and there are no happy endings."