19. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 500-523

The Watcher

Ser Balon Swann has brought the chest containing Gregor Clegane's head to Sunspear, where Doran Martell, Arianne, Ellaria and three of the Sand Snakes are all gathered for the opening. Areo Hotah is watching, his longaxe at the ready for potential trouble. The enormous skull is removed and placed on top of a marble column.

The deed done, Doran lets his seneschal propose a toast to King Tommen, and a feast follows. Hotah keeps his eye on Balon Swann and those he had brought with him from King's Landing. He realizes that they know something is wrong, since neither Ser Arys Oakheart nor Princess Myrcella is present at the feast. They don't know yet that Ser Arys is dead and Myrcella seriously disfigured as a result of Arianne's plot to make her queen.

Cersei has sent a letter, suggesting that Myrcella return to King's Landing for a visit and that Doran take a seat on the small council as a representative of Dorne. Doran postpones discussion of these matters until tomorrow, when they will travel to the Water Gardens, where Myrcella is staying. Doran mentions, in talking of the Water Gardens, that they had been built by one of his ancestors "to please his Targaryen bride," whose name was Daenerys. Then he says he is tired and would like to go to bed, and asks Obara Sand to help him.

As Obara pushes his wheeled chair she asks if Doran really means to send Myrcella and her betrothed, Prince Trystane, to King's Landing. "Do that, and we will never see the girl again, and your son will spend his life a hostage to the Iron Throne." He assures her that he has no intention of doing that. Maester Caleotte has followed them, carrying Ser Gregor's skull, and when they reach Doran's solar, Obara takes it ansks, "What did the Mountain look like? How do we know this is him?" Her sister, Nym, points out that Clegane was eight feet tall, and Cersei would be a fool to have faked his death. Doran agrees that the skull is large enough and that Prince Oberyn is known to have wounded Clegane so badly that his slow, agonizing death is likely. Her other sister, Tyene, agrees, saying that she knows which poison Oberyn used, and that if he even broke the skin, Clegane is dead.

Ellaria points out that all of the people who were involved in the death of Elia and her children are now dead. Oberyn's quest for vengeance for their deaths is over, and she doesn't want further vengeance for Oberyn's death. Obara, however, speaks of the chaos in Westeros, and says, "Our enemies are in disarray. The time is ripe." But Ellaria wants it to end, and tells Doran, "I can hear no more of this." He tells her that no harm will come to her children, and sends her to them.

When Ellaria is gone, he tells the Sand Snakes, "there are things that Ellaria does not know and should not know. This war has already begun." Obara agrees, and says that Arianne began it with her failed attempt to crown Myrcella. When Ser Balon sees the girl, and finds that she's missing an ear, and that Hotah killed Arys Oakheart, things will get more violent.

But Arianne has a plan: Ser Balon will be told that Gerold Dayne, Darkstar, was the one who killed Ser Arys, and that he tried to kill Myrcella. And that Myrcella will back up the story herself. But Obara insists, "If Ser Balon is allowed to carry tales back to King's Landing, drums will sound and blood will flow." But Doran is prepared for this, and he tells them he is not as weak as they think. He makes the Sand Snakes swear to serve him, then explains what he knows:

"Dorne still has friends at court. Friends who tell us things we were not meant to know. This invitation Cersei sent us is a ruse. Trystane is never meant to reach King's Landing. On the road back, somewhere in the kingswood, Ser Balon's party will be attacked by outlaws, and my son will die. I am asked to court only so that I may witness this attack with my own eyes and thereby absolve the queen of any blame. Oh, and these outlaws? They will be shouting, 'Halfman, Halfman,' as they attack. Ser Balon may even catch a quick glimpse of the Imp, though no one else will." 

Then he outlines the plan: When Balon hears the story of Darkstar's attack from Myrcella, he'll send word of it to Cersei. Myrcella will ask him to hunt down Darkstar, and Obara will accompany Balon to High Hermitage to confront Darkstar. Nymeria will accompany Myrcella to King's Landing and serve as Dorne's representative on the council. Tyene, whose mother was a septa, will go to King's Landing and cozy up to the High Septon.

The three Sand Snakes eagerly agree to their roles, and when they have left, Arianne refers to them as "Three Oberyns, with teats." She regrets that she doesn't have a role in the plot herself, but Doran tells her that she will, soon enough. He has heard from Lys that a great fleet of Volantene ships has set sail. He doesn't know who is aboard them, whether Daenerys or Quentyn, or both.

Jon

Val is setting off beyond the Wall on a mission to contact Tormund. Jon has misgivings -- six of the men he sent off on a similar mission are still missing, and three are dead -- but she thanks him for letting her try. When she has left, he returns to his chambers and is eating breakfast when Dolorous Edd tells him that Bowen Marsh, Othell Yarwyck, and Septon Cellador want to see him.

"You're here about Val," he says. And Marsh says, "The men have concerns, my lord." Jon knows that already, and he turns to Othell, who is chief builder, asking him how work is progressing at the Nightfort, which is being made ready for Queen Selyse. He says it would go faster if he had more builders, so Jon offers him the giant, whose name is Wun Weg Wun Dar Wun, but answers to Wun Wun. But Othell is afraid of giants and declines, which is okay with Jon, who is learning to communicate with the giant and learn stories about his people.

Marsh complains that Jon is sending Iron Emmett to Long Barrow and replacing him with "this savage Leathers as our master-at-arms," a position that he thinks should be filled by a knight or at least a ranger. But Jon speaks well of Leathers's fighting ability and points out that he has taken the vows and is now their brother. "The men don't trust him," Marsh insists, but Jon stifles a desire to find out which ones.

Septon Cellador's objection is to Jon's naming Satin as his steward, replacing Dolorous Edd, who is also going to Long Barrow. Satin is "a painted catamite from the brothels of Oldtown." Jon thinks, "And you are a drunk," but says that brothers who have taken their vows are not supposed to be judged by what they were before, and that Satin is a good fighter and that he has made friends. Marsh, however, insists that "the men do not like it," and asks, "Does my lord believe the men of the Night's Watch would ever follow a whore into battle?" Jon replies by enumerating the sins of other men who are now accepted as their brothers.

Marsh is obviously very angry, but he saves his chief concern for last: the corpses that are being kept in the ice cells under guard, which he cites as "a waste of two good men." But Jon informs him that he hopes they will turn into wights, which shocks the drunken septon. He explains, "My lord father used to tell me that a man must know his enemies. We understand little of the wights and less about the Others. We need to learn." This doesn't please them, especially the septon, who says he intents to "pray to the Crone to lift her shining lamp and lead you down the path of wisdom."

Finally, Jon himself brings up the topic of Val. Septon Cellador reminds him that she is "The king's prize," and that Stannis will be angry if he returns to find her gone. And Marsh asks why he thinks she will return, and is not satisfied with Jon's assurance that he believes her promise that she will. Jon explains that he sent her to offer the same terms to Tormund Giantsbane that he offered the other wildlings: "Food and shelter and peace, if he will join his strength to ours, fight our common enemy, help us hold the Wall."

Marsh is not surprised, but he protests that there may be hundreds, even thousands of them: "Some might call this treason. These are wildlings. Savages, raiders, rapers, more beast than man." But Jon replies, "Tormund is none of those things." They are human beings, he insists. "Winter is coming, my lords, and when it does, we living men will need to stand together against the dead."

He also tells them that the wildlings they found in the grove say that a witch called Mother Mole has led thousands of those who fled from the battle at the Wall to Hardhome, where they "pray and await salvation from across the sea." Hardhome sits on a natural harbor, and there are supposedly plenty of building materials and fish and game there, but six hundred years, when it was becoming a town, its inhabitants had been attacked and the city burned. "Traders reported finding only nightmarish devastation where Hardhome had stood." But now Mother Mole has been preaching "that the free folk would find salvation where once they found damnation." But Cotter Pyke has told Jon that his ships have sailed past it and that Mother Mole and her followers will find only "cold and starvation" there.

Thousands will die there, he says, but Marsh sees them only as "Thousands of enemies." So he asks Marsh what "will happen when all these enemies are dead?" They will become wights, he says, "and they will come for us."

21. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 587-627

The Princess in the Tower

Arianne has been returned to Sunspear by Hotah, though Darkstar has escaped. She is kept in the Spear Tower, near the top, and although she is imprisoned, her surroundings are comfortable. She mourns the death of Arys and the mutilation of Myrcella's face, and wonders who had betrayed them.

She expects to be summoned by her father, but days, then weeks pass without hearing from Prince Doran. She asks one of her maids to smuggle a letter to Garin, and when she agrees, Arianne begins plotting to get messages to others who might help her. But when she gives the letter to her, the girl disappears and doesn't return. Her attempts to communicate with the others who wait on her fail.

Finally, so many days pass that she loses count of them. And then one morning she is awakened by Areo Hota, who tells her that Doran is ready to see her. She is taken to his solar, where he is sitting at a cyvasse table. He had ordered one put in her chambers, he says, and when she protests that she has no one to play the game with, he tells her that she should play it with herself: "Sometimes it is best to study a game before you attempt to play it." He is not really talking about cyvasse.

He asks why she did it, and she replies, "For the honor of our House," and chides him for his "meekness." She asks if he has caught Ser Gerold, and he tells her no. "You were a fool to make him part of this. Darkstar is the most dangerous man in Dorne. You and he have done us all harm." She asks, hesitantly about Myrcella, and is told that she is alive, "though Darkstar did his best.

"All eyes were on your white knight so no one seems quite certain just what happened, but it would appear that her horse shied away from his at the last instant, else he would have taken off the top of the girl's skull. As it is, the slash opened her cheek down to the bone and sliced off her right ear. Maester Caleotte was able to save her life, but no poultice nor potion will ever restore her face. She was my ward, Arianne. Betrothed to your own brother and under my protection. You have dishonored all of us." 

When she protests that it was the result of Hotah's interfering with her plot, he replies, "you would have crowned Myrcella queen, to raise a rebellion against her brother. Instead of an ear, she would have lost her life."  He explains to her the impossible odds against her plan's succeeding. He will not tell her who informed against her, and he tells her he could execute her friends for treason, though he won't. He has sent them all to various places instead.

"You and your cousins wanted war. You may get your wish. Another Kingsguard knight creeps toward Sunspear even as we speak. Ser Balon Swann is bringing me the Mountain's head." And when he gets there, he will of course want to see Myrcella and his sworn brother, Ser Arys. He could explain away Arys's death as an accident of some sort, but short of killing Myrcella there is no way to keep her from telling the truth. "No lie will save Dorne from the queen's wroth if her daughter should perish whilst in my care."

And then she argues with him about the succession, which she accuses him of trying to deprive her in favor of her brother Quentyn. She tells him she read his letter to Quentyn: "'One day you will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne,' you wrote him." He admits that he did plan for Quentyn to rule Dorne: "I had other plans for you." She bitterly lists the unsuitable marriages that had been proposed for her, including Gyles Rosby and Walder Frey. But he tells her he knew she would refuse them: "I dared not bring you any man you might accept. You were promised, Arianne."

She doesn't believe him, but he tells her that the secret was so great that he kept it even from her, for fear she would tell one of her friends. When she demands to know whom she has been betrothed to all these years, he says, "It makes no matter. He is dead." She assumes he must have been an old man, and asks what he died of. Doran replies, "It was a pot of molten gold."  He doesn't utter the name Viserys Targaryen.

He promises that she will succeed him. "Your brother Quentyn has a harder road to walk." She is fed up with his secrets, however, and says, "Tell me the rest, Father ... or else name Quentyn your heir and send for Hotah and his axe, and let me die beside my cousins." He replies that he has no intention of harming his brother's children: The older Sand Snakes, Obara, Nym, and Tyene are still in custody, but "lack for nothing but their freedom," and the younger ones are at the Water Gardens.

As for Quentyn, he has gone "on a long and perilous voyage, with an uncertain welcome at its end. He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire." And what is that, she asks.

"Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afraid that someone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers, and whispered,  "Fire and blood."

Something tells me Daenerys is going to be getting a lot of unexpected company before long.

Alayne

It is moving day at the Eyrie, and Robert Arryn is determined not to go. He has thrown his chamber pot at Maester Colemon, so Sansa/Alayne is very carefully entering his room. If she can't persuade him to go, Ser Lothor Brune is going to have to carry him by force, which is likely to throw him into one of his fits. She tells him, "It's beautiful outside, Sweetrobin. The sun is shining bright, a perfect day for going down the mountain. The mules are waiting down at Sky with Mya."

But the mules are "smelly" and one of them tried to bite him once and he isn't going. "No one can hurt me so long as I stay here. The Eyrie is impregnable." She knows he's afraid, especially after his mother's fall, and the way down is "perilous enough to daunt anyone." But winter is coming and the Eyrie "would soon be inaccessible as well, and the way down grew more hazardous every day." Only a few servants remain, enough to get Lord Robert down safely.

She promises to tell him stories and give him lemon cakes when they have made the descent, but he demands, "a hundred lemon cakes and five tales!" She thinks, "I'd like to give you a hundred spankings and five slaps. You would not dare behave like this if Petyr were here." But she continues to sweet talk him into making the descent, and he agrees. While the servants are bathing and dressing him, she confers with Maester Colemon, who suggests that Robert could be drugged with milk of the poppy and lashed to the back of a mule. But she insists, "The Lord of the Eyrie cannot descend from his mountain tied up like a sack of barleycorn." Littlefinger, who has already made the descent and is on the other side of the Vale at a wedding, has warned her that "the full extent of Robert's frailty and cowardice" mustn't get widely known.

She tells Colemon to give Lord Robert a cup of sweetmilk to prevent his seizures, but the maester is reluctant: too many doses of sweetsleep apparently are harmful. Colemon also worries about the feast that is to be held at the end of the journey because Robert dislikes noise and strangers and music. She insists, however, "Music soothes him.... It's singing he can't abide, since Marillion killed his mother."

She goes to the winch room, where the huge buckets are being prepared to lower them the first six hundred feet down the mountain. Ser Lothor tells her that Lady Myranda Royce, Lord Nestor's daughter, will be accompanying them from Sky, the destination of the buckets. Alayne wonders why she would come so far up the mountain only to turn around and descend it. She has been warned by Littlefinger that Myranda is "shrewder than her father. Guard your tongue around her." But Robert likes Myranda, so that's a plus.

Mya Stone, who guides the mules, is also in the winch room, and she urges Alayne to hurry Robert up. "It's getting colder, can't you feel it? We need to get below Snow before the sun goes down.... If he bathes much longer, we'll be trapped up here all winter with nothing to eat but each other." Fortunately, he arrives shortly after that, though when Mya asks him to ride down with her, he says, "I want Alayne. You smell all stinky, like a mule."

As they are being lowered, "For a moment she found herself wondering how long it had taken her aunt to fall that distance, and what her last thought had been as the mountain rushed up to meet her." But she puts that out of her mind when the descending bucket bumps against the side of the mountain and Robert clings to her in fright.

Myranda is there to meet them, and she flatters Robert into a good mood. She asks Alayne how old she is, and Alayne tells her she is fourteen. "She had decided that Alayne Stone should be older than Sansa Stark." When Mya Stone arrives, she starts getting the mules ready for the single-file descent to the next level. It takes half an hour to get ready, and by the time they depart Robert is whining, "It's too cold. We should go back and wait till it's warmer."

While they can still ride side-by-side, Myranda gives Alayne the news: "Riverrun has yielded, but Dragonstone and Storm's End still hold for Lord Stannis." And there's a new High Septon, "and the Night's Watch has a boy commander, some bastard son of Eddard Stark's." Alayne blurts out, "Jon Snow?" but Myranda doesn't seem to take note of Alayne's surprise at hearing about the only brother she thinks she has left. And she reminds herself that Alayne Stone doesn't have any brothers, "baseborn or otherwise." Myranda is full of other gossip: She had been married, but her husband died while they were having sex, and she had once slept with Marillion. "Despite herself, Alayne found herself warming to the older girl. She had not had a friend to gossip with since poor Jeyne Poole."

They reach the most dangerous part of the passage, a narrow path, about a yard wide and eight yards long with a sheer drop on either side, and Robert begins to shake. They have to lead the mules across, and Mya goes first. But when she steps out onto the path, the wind lifts her cloak and she staggers for a moment until she gets her balance. So Alayne takes Robert's hand and tells him she's frightened and he must help her get across. The ruse works, though by the time they reach the other side, he has begun to shake and she has to hold him until he calms. Over the meal that awaits them, Myranda says, "So you're brave as well as beautiful."

Stone is the largest of the three waycastles on the descent, and snow has begun to fall by the time they leave it. Myranda suggests that they turn back and spend the night there, but Mya says they could get five feet of snow by then, so they should keep going. Fortunately, the last part of the journey is easier, and Robert falls asleep in the saddle.

When they get there, one of Littlefinger's guards tells her that her "father" has arrived and is waiting for her. She finds him drinking with three knights, who excuse themselves so she and Littlefinger can talk privately. She gives him a polite, daughterly kiss, but when they have gone, "He pulled her closer, caught her face between his hands, and kissed her for a long time." He tells her that Cersei is making a mess of things. "I always anticipated that she would beggar the realm and destroy herself, but I never expected she would do it quite so fast."

Then he tells her, "I have made a marriage contract for you." She protests that she is already married to Tyrion, but he says, "This is only a betrothal. The marriage must needs wait until Cersei is done and Sansa's safely widowed. And you must meet the boy and win his approval." She has been promised to Harrold Hardyng, one of Lady Waynwood's sons. Alayne is confused until Littlefinger lays out a complicated genealogy for her, the upshot of which is that Harrold Hardyng is the heir to Lord Robert Arryn. She says, "If Robert were to die...."

Petyr arched an eyebrow. "When Robert dies. Our poor brave Sweetrobin is such a sickly boy, it is only a matter of time. When Robert dies, Harry the Heir becomes Lord Harrold, Defender of the Vale and Lord of the Eyrie. Jon Arryn's bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon ... and when they come together for his wedding, and you come in with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back ... why every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa ... Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. That's worth another kiss now, don't you think?"

7. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 172-198

Cersei

The wedding of Tommen and Margaery is taking place, and Cersei is in a snit. When Jaime arrives to assure her that every precaution is being taken to prevent poisoning another king, she wants him to make sure that Tommen is safe from his wife's family as well: "I will not have Tommen alone with Margaery, not for so much as half a heartbeat," she tells him. She had not even wanted them to share a bed, but the Tyrells had insisted on it. It was bad luck for a man and wife not to share a bed on their wedding night. So Cersei has been forced to allow it "for that one night" and no more. And she wants someone watching the couple at all times.

Jaime points out that there's no chance the union will be consummated in any case, but Cersei cannot be overruled. He asks her if she also plans to go through with burning down the Tower of the Hand, and she says yes: "It was the only part of the day's festivities that Cersei thought she might enjoy." She is still persuaded that Tyrion or Varys or the missing jailer, or all three, are hiding in it somewhere. The pyromancers have been concocting wildfire to take care of destroying the tower, and Cersei almost hopes it spreads to the rest of the castle: After the war, she plans to build a new palace on the other side of the river, "long leagues from the stinks and noise of King's Landing."

The wedding is to be a smaller affair than the one of Joffrey and Margaery, and the bride is wearing the same dress she wore to that one. Cersei had planned for Tommen to give Margaery the cloak that Joffrey had used at his wedding, the one Tywin had used when he married Cersei's mother, but the Queen of Thorns had pointed out that Tommen was a Baratheon, not a Lannister: "In my day a bride donned her husband's colors, not his lady mother's." So Cersei is forced to have Tommen use the one Robert had given her on their wedding day. She knows that Lady Olenna is aware of the truth about Tommen's parentage.

After the wedding, she speaks to Kevan Lannister, who is taking his son Lancel to Darry castle to marry one of the Freys. They talk about the rumor that Sandor Clegane has joined with Beric Dondarrion's outlaws: "Saltpans had been savagely raided by a band of outlaws, and some of the survivors claimed a roaring brute in a hound's head helm was amongst the raiders. Supposedly he'd killed a dozen men and raped a girl of twelve."

As Jaime escorts her to the wedding feast, she blames him for the fact that the wedding took place so quickly, and proclaims her belief that Margaery is not a virgin. "Renly had a cock, didn't he? He was Robert's brother, he surely had a cock." She complains again about the Queen of Thorns, whom she calls a "disgusting old crone." Jaime tells her that Lady Olenna is leaving tomorrow, but "Cersei did not trust any Tyrell promise." He assures her that half of the Tyrells are going to Storm's End and the other half to the Reach.

There are only seven courses to the feast, and only one singer. "'What a disappointment,' Lady Olenna complained loudly. 'I was hoping for "The Rains of Castamere."'" The Queen of Thorns reminds Cersei of Maggy the Frog, who had once told her fortune: "Queen you shall be, the old woman had promised, ... until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear." Cersei looks at Margaery and thinks, "Only a fool would ever claim she was more beautiful than I. The world was full of fools, however." The death of Joffrey looms over the feast, and once, when Tommen coughs, Cersei leaps up to see about him, only to be assured by Margaery that he'd swallowed some wine the wrong way.

Cersei leaves the feast for a moment, fearing that her tears will show. Thinking she is alone, she lets out a sob, but then she is approached by Lord Orton Merryweather's wife, Taena, a Myrish woman. She tells Cersei that one of the queen's maids is a spy for Margaery. Lady Merryweather is one of Margaery's companions, and Cersei asks why she would reveal this secret. She says that her only loyalty is to her husband and son, and she wants what's best for them. Cersei remembers that Lady Merryweather testified against Tyrion at the trial, and recognizes that she is trying to get in her good graces, so she promises to look into this charge and reward her if it's true, thinking, "And if you've lied to me, I'll have your tongue, and your lord husband's lands and gold as well."

When she returns to the hall, Jaime assures her that he was frightened by Tommen's cough as well, but that all is well. Cersei looks around the room and decides that there is no one there whom she can really trust. "I will need to sweep them all away and surround the king with mine own people." Dancing begins, but she refuses offers from Jaime -- because of his stump -- and with Mace Tyrell and Lancel. She observes "the handsome young Bastard of Driftmark, Aurane Waters," with some interest, however. She sees Tommen talking with Ser Garlan Tyrell and wonders what they have to talk about, and she begins to brood on her suspicions, such as the gold coin from Highgarden that was found under the missing jailer's chamberpot and the allegation that Margaery was spying on her.

Jaime suggests that she has had enough to drink, and she staggers as she rises to her feet to tell everyone to go outside to watch the burning of the Tower of the Hand. As the wildfire consumes the tower, Cersei thinks of all the King's Hands who had served there, including Eddard Stark, Tyrion, and her father. "They are dead and burning, every one, with all their plots and schemes and betrayals. It is my castle and my kingdom."

When the rest of the court retires for the night, Cersei, with Ser Osmund Kettleblack in attendance, stays and watches the fire.

The Soiled Knight

Ser Arys Oakheart is the member of the Kingsguard charged with protecting Princess Myrcella at the Dornish court in Sunspear. Leaving Myrcella playing a game called cyvasse with Prince Trystane, he goes to see Prince Doran, who had imprisoned the Sand Snakes. Doran tells him, "It would gladden my heart if I could assure you that the Sand Snakes were alone in wanting war, but I will not tell you lies, ser. You have heard my smallfolk in the streets, crying out for me to call my spears. Half my lords agree with them, I fear." He tells Arys that he plans to return to the Water Gardens as soon as possible, and to take Myrcella with him. Arys will accompany them, but Doran tells him not to write to King's Landing about this plan.

Arys is wondering about this as he goes to an assignation with Doran's daughter, Princess Arianne. After a bout of passionate lovemaking, however, Arys feels racked with guilt for breaking his vow as a knight of the Kingsguard, and tries to leave. She holds him back, however, and when he worries about what might happen if her father found out, she tells him "Nothing. My father is very good at doing nothing. He calls it thinking." But he insists that he has dishonored himself by his relationship with her: "I will not be remembered as Ser Arys the Unworthy.... I will not soil my cloak."

She says she knows all about white cloaks: Her great-uncle, Prince Lewyn, wore one. Arys says "he was a great knight," and she tells him he, too, had a lover. "My uncle always said that it was the sword in a man's hand that determined his worth, not the one between his legs, ... so spare me all your pious talk of soiled cloaks. It is not our love that has dishonored you, it is the monsters you have served and the brutes you've called your brothers." Ser Arys remembers with sham having to strike Sansa Stark on Joffrey's orders.

He tells her that Tommen isn't Joffrey, and she comments, "Nor is he his sister."

It was true. Tommen was a good-hearted little man who always tried his best, but the last time Ser Arys saw him he had been weeping on the quay. Myrcella never shed a tear, though it was she who was leaving hearth and home to seal an alliance with her maidenhood. The truth was, the princess was braver than her brother, and brighter and more confident as well. Her wits were quicker, her courtesies more polished. Nothing ever daunted her, not even Joffrey. The women are the strong ones, truly. He was thinking not only of Myrcella, but of her mother and his own, of the Queen of thorns, of the Red Viper's pretty, deadly Sand Snakes. And of Princess Arianne Martell, her most of all.

And this is precisely what Arianne wants him to think. She points out that she is heir to her father's house. He says, "Dorne is different. The Seven Kingdoms have never had a ruling queen." She replies that the first King Viserys wanted his daughter to succeed him, but it was the plotting of the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard, Ser Criston Cole, called the Kingmaker, who put an end to it by setting brother against sister and starting the war known as the Dance of the Dragons.

Arianne tells him that Doran wants to take Myrcella to the Water Gardens not to keep her safe, but "To keep her away from those who'd seek to crown her. Prince Oberyn Viper would have placed the crown upon her head himself if he had lived, but my father lacks the courage." Myrcella will be imprisoned at the Water Gardens, with Hotah as the chief guard. She urges Arys to support Myrcella's right to the throne. Tommen will inherit both Storm's End and Casterly Rock. "He will be as great a lord as any in the realm ... but Myrcella by rights should sit the Iron Throne." As for the vows of the Kingsguard, she says, those can be changed, just as Joffrey changed the law that the knights of the Kingsguard serve for life when he dismissed Ser Barristan Selmy and named Sandor Clegane to his guard. Myrcella, Arianne says, "will give us leave to marry if we ask."

He is weakening, and she knows it. She says she is afraid she'll be imprisoned, like the Sand Snakes, for supporting Myrcella's cause. He argues that the Sand Snakes were "speaking treason, fomenting war," but she scoffs, "Loreza is six, Dorea eight. What wars could they foment?" Her father is weak and afraid, she says, and he doesn't want her to be his heir. She says she found a letter from Doran to her brother Quentyn, who is supposedly being fostered by Lord Yronwood, saying that Quentyn "will sit where I sit and rule all Dorne." She claims that Yronwood is actually grooming Quentyn to usurp her rightful place as Doran's heir.

"So your two princesses share a common cause, ser ... and they share as well a knight who claims to love them both, but will not fight for them." Arys is won over, and pledges to fight for her right and first for Myrcella's.

2. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 30-55

The Captain of the Guards

The captain is Areo Hotah, longaxe-wielding guard to the gout-crippled Prince Doran Martell of Dorne. Hotah has rolled the prince in his wheelchair, designed by Maester Caleotte, onto the terrace at the Water Gardens so Doran can watch the children at play. But they haven't been there long before they are approached by Obara Sand, the eldest of Prince Oberyn's illegitimate daughters, known collectively as the Sand Snakes.

Obara has come to demand vengeance for Oberyn's death, news of which has arrived by raven from King's Landing. Hotah bars her way, and Caleotte insists that Doran doesn't want to be disturbed, but Doran overhears and says he will talk to her. Her father has been murdered, she says, but Doran counters that under the law, his death in a trial by combat can't be considered murder. He has written to Lord Tywin, he says, asking for Gregor Clegane's head. This doesn't satisfy Obara, who wants to run her "spear into Lord Tywin's belly. I'll make him sing 'The Rains of Castamere' as I pull his bowels out and look for gold." Dissatisfied with what she sees as Doran's indecision, she departs for Sunspear.

When she is gone, Caleotte asks if it is "prudent to allow Lady Obara to return to Sunspear? She is certain to inflame the common people. They loved your brother well." Doran agrees, and decides that it's time for him to return to Sunspear too. He has been away for two years, and during that time his gout has grown worse: When he left the city he could still walk. Now he concludes, "Dorne must be reminded  that it still has a prince.... Old and gouty though he is."

Caleotte points out that if he goes to Sunspear, he will have to meet with Princess Myrcella, Cersei's daughter, who is betrothed to Doran's son, Trystane. And with Ser Arys Oakheart, who is her sworn shield as well as a spy for Cersei. Hotah wonders if the day is about to come when he will have to fight Ser Arys: "on that day Oakheart would die, with the captain's longaxe crashing through his skull." Doran gives orders that they should leave for Sunspear the first thing in the morning.

When Caleotte leaves to make preparations for the journey, Doran calls Hotah to his side and asks if he had brothers and sisters when he was a boy in Norvos. The captain tells him he was the youngest, with two brothers and three sisters. Doran notes that he was the oldest and is now the last; two died in infancy, Elia was raped and murdered by Gregor Clegane, who has now killed Oberyn. Hotah doesn't know what to say: "He had not been trained to counsel grieving princes." But he doesn't have to say anything, for Doran tells him to leave and let him watch the children for a while.

Although Doran had said they would leave "at first light," he lingers over his breakfast and then says goodbye to some of the children he liked to watch, so they don't depart until midday. Halfway to Sunspear they encounter another of the Sand Snakes, Nymeria Sand, called Lady Nym. She is accompanied by a dozen spearmen. She rides alongside Doran's litter, with Hotah on the other side, listening. She, too, is interested in vengeance, and Doran also assures her that Tywin will send Clegane's head. But she knows more: that Oberyn had managed to stab Clegane with a poisoned spear, and that the Mountain "is as good as dead."

"Obara would have me go to war," Doran says. But Nym says she just wants the deaths of Cersei and Joffrey, "as payment for Elia's children," Tywin, "for Elia herself," and Tommen, "for my father." Doran observes that Tommen has never done them wrong, but Nym calls him "a bastard born of treason, incest, and adultery, if Lord Stannis can be believed," and insists, "Only royal blood can wash out my father's murder." Once again, Doran protests that, legally, a death in single combat can't be considered murder, but that carries no more weight with Nym than it did with Obara. She says, "my sisters and I shall not wait ten-and-seven years for our vengeance," referring to the time it took before Oberyn confronted Clegane, the murderer of Elia. She rides off.

Nym reaches Sunspear a long time before Doran and his equipage do, so the city is prepared for his arrival. "The Sand Snakes have stirred them to a boil, the captain thought uneasily," as shouts ring out urging vengeance and war, and the guards are pelted with rotten fruit. They make it into the outer ward of the castle, however, and the portcullis is lowered. They are met there by Doran's daughter, Princess Arianne, and members of the court including Myrcella and Ser Arys. Hotah carries Doran into the throne room, where Tyene, another Sand Snake, is awaiting him.

Tyene has a gentle voice and blue eyes, though Hotah has a revelation: "All of Prince Oberyn's daughters have his viper eyes.... The color does not matter." She sweetly expresses her concern for Doran, who is in obvious pain, but he urges her to get to the point. She presents him with a piece of embroidery she is working on: Prince Oberyn in red armor. He assures her, as he has the others, that Tywin has promised to send Clegane's head, but she says, "I know the poison that my father used, and there is none slower or more agonizing. Soon we may hear the Mountain screaming, even here in Sunspear." He tells her that Obara wants war and Nym wants murder, and asks what she wants. She advises waiting until the Lannisters and Tyrells attack and ambushing them. When he questions why they should attack, she points out that Myrcella is older than Tommen, and by Dornish law that makes her the rightful queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. If they proclaim her such, that will provoke the attack.

He says he will think about it, and she replies, "Some men think because they are afraid to do.... I must pray that I never see you frightened, Uncle. You might forget to breathe." She raises a hand, but Hotah quickly prevents any contact between Tyene and Doran until she asks for his blessing, whereupon he puts his hand cautiously on her head. But the moment she leaves, Maester Caleotte hurries to inspect Doran's hand, sniffing it and making sure there are no scratches on it.

When the maester leaves to fetch some milk of the poppy that Doran requests, the prince turns to Hotah and asks about the loyalty of his guards. Receiving Hotah's assurance, Doran says he wants all of the Sand Snakes taken into custody and confined. Hotah says he will take care of it, but that it will cause a popular outcry. Doran replies, "I only pray Lord Tywin hears them in King's Landing, so he might know what a loyal friend he has in Sunspear."

Cersei

She dreams she is sitting on the Iron Throne, with all the court gathered, paying her homage. But then Tyrion enters, and the court begins to laugh. She realizes that she is naked, and that the sharp knives and swords are cutting her. The blood begins to flow as she struggles to free herself from the throne, and Tyrion dances around, laughing.

Suddenly she wakes, and a hand it reaching out for her. It is Senelle, her maid, and she looks frightened. Then she realizes there are men gathered around her bed. One of them, in a white cloak, steps forward. She thinks it's Jaime at first, but the man says, "The Lord Commander said come get you." He mutters something "about a privy and a crossbow" and says her father's name. She is still under the influence of the dream and it takes her a moment to come to her senses. It is Ser Osmund Kettleblack looming over her, and behind him is Ser Boros Blount.

The truth of what has happened begins to become apparent to her, and when she is told that Jaime is exploring the secret passage in Lord Tywin's room, she says, "Jaime should be with the king...." She isn't pleased to hear that Loras Tyrell is guarding Tommen -- she doesn't trust the Tyrells. Then she tells Ser Osmund to accompany her to her father's room and Ser Boros to make sure that Tyrion -- whom she calls "the dwarf," unable to say his name -- is in his cell, though she doesn't believe him capable of an assault on their father.

She also can't believe that her father was found in the privy, thinking, "That is not the way a lion dies." She begins focusing on her enemies, suspecting that it might be the work of Stannis Baratheon, but she also realizes how much improved her status is: "Casterly Rock was hers now, and all the power of House Lannister. No one would ever disregard her again. Even when Tommen had no further need of a regent, the Lady of Casterly Rock would remain a power in the land." At the same time, her irritation with everyone around her grows, even to the moth that has found its way into the lantern Ser Osmund is carrying: "Die, the queen thought at it, in irritation, fly into the flame and be done with it." She even gets angry at the number of steps in the Tower of the Hand, and "had half a mind to tear it down."

When they reach Tywin's bedchamber she is told by Ser Meryn Trant that her father has been carried from the privy to his bed. Her Uncle Kevan is kneeling by the bed. She notices the open secret door in the fireplace and wonders if there is a passage leading to Tommen's bedchamber, imagining Tyrion entering it with a knife, but assures herself that Tommen is well guarded, and anyway Tyrion is locked up, so it must be Stannis's work ... or the Tyrells.

She doesn't recognize her father's body at first. His nightshirt is hiked up and she can see the arrow sticking out of him and the dried blood in his navel and pubic hair. "The smell of him made her wrinkle her nose," and she furiously orders the arrow removed. "They said Catelyn Stark had clawed her own face to bloody ribbons when the Freys slew her precious Robb," and wonders if she should make a scene. But she storms about the condition in which they have left the body, and calls for Grand Maester Pycelle. She is told that Pycelle has already been there. "They sent for me last. The realization made her almost too angry for words."

One of the guards tells her that a man is there who claims to have been a maester. It is Qyburn, who reminds her that he treated Jaime's hand, and she remembers that he came with Jaime from Harrenhal. He tells her, "The Citadel took my chain, but they could not take my knowledge," so she commands him to remove the arrow and make her father more presentable. Then he asks, "And how shall I deal with the girl, Your Grace?"

Cersei had not seen Shae's body. One of the guards identifies her as "the Imp's whore." She is dumbfounded by the idea that Tywin should have taken a prostitute to his bed, and "eagerly" seizes on Qyburn's suggestion that Tywin was questioning her about Sansa Stark's disappearance. But at the same time she imagines Tyrion: "And what better way to question her than naked, with her legs well spread? the dwarf whispered. That's how I like to question her too." She goes out into the hall and tells Ser Osmund, who is standing there with his brothers Osney and Osfryd, that no one is ever to know that there was a woman in Tywin's bedchamber. "I'll have the tongue of any man who dares to say she was."

They bundle Shae up in the bloody blankets, and Cersei suddenly remembers her name, and that Shae had come to her the night before the trial by combat to ask about the jewels Tyrion had given her "and certain promises Cersei might have made, a manse in the city and a knight to marry her" -- promises that ensured her testimony against Tyrion in the trial. Cersei had told her that she wouldn't get anything until she helped them find Sansa Stark. Osfryd is carrying the body out the door, but Cersei redirects him to the secret passage.

But as Osfryd is trying to exit through the hearth, Jaime enters through it. Cersei runs to him and he tells her that there is a maze of tunnels within the walls. She says, "Take hammers to the walls. Knock this tower down, if you must. I want them found. Whoever did this. I want them killed." He hugs her, and she tells him he needs to take their father's place as Hand. But Jaime takes this as a joke, showing her his stump and saying, "A Hand without a hand? A bad jape, sister. Don't ask me to rule." She notices that the others in the room have heard him. "It will be all over the castle by nightfall," she thinks, and retorts, "Rule? I said naught of ruling. I shall rule until my son comes of age."

Jaime replies, brutally, "I don't know who I pity more.... Tommen, or the Seven Kingdoms." When she slaps him, their uncle rises and tells them to show respect to their father by taking their quarrel outside. Jaime apologizes, saying that Cersei has forgotten herself in her grief, which only makes her want to slap him again. Hands have always been trouble, she thinks, recalling her dealings with Jon Arryn, who had brought about her marriage to Robert Baratheon, and with Eddard Stark and Tyrion and her father. "The next Hand will know his place, she promised herself," and decides that it should be Ser Kevan, who, she thinks, will be "unfailingly obedient."

Her mind whirls with plans, and secrets she needs to uncover, which leads her to think about Varys. She wonders why he isn't there, and then realizes with a chill that he must have been part of this plot. She orders Ser Meryn Trant to bring Varys to her, "Squealing and squirming if need be, but unharmed." And then Ser Boros Blount enters to report that Tyrion has vanished along with one of the jailers, and that two of the guards were found asleep. "It was all she could do not to scream. 'I hope you did not wake them, Ser Boros. Let them sleep.'"

Ser Boros doesn't get it, and she spells it out for him: "See that they sleep forever, ser. I will not suffer guards to sleep on watch." And then her paranoia takes hold: "He is in the walls. He killed Father as he killed Mother, as he killed Joff." She reels, and when Ser Boros tries to help her to a chair she yells, "Get away!" and sits down by herself. He asks if she would like a cup of water.

It is blood I need, not water. Tyrion's blood, the blood of the valonqar. The torches spun around her. Cersei closed her eyes, and saw the dwarf grinning at her. No, she thought, no, I was almost rid of you. But his fingers had closed around her neck, and she could feel them beginning to tighten.