23. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 658-684

Jaime

Riverrun has capitulated, but Brynden Tully has escaped. No one is happy except Edmure: "For a man who was going to spend the rest of his life a prisoner, Edmure was entirely too pleased with himself." But in the face of Jaime's threats, he admits that they had raised the portcullis just enough to allow the Blackfish to swim under it. Emmon Frey, the new Lord of Riverrun, frets that the Blackfish will summon allies and attempt to take the castle back. Jaime assures him that won't happen, though he's not entirely sure of it.

When the others are gone, a guard brings Lady Westerling and her daughter, Jeyne. He notices a wound on Jeyne's forehead, and is told that she refused to give up the crown that Robb Stark had made for her. Lady Westerling starts to slap her daughter, but Jaime prevents her. Then he asks Jeyne if she is pregnant. Jeyne tries to leave, but the guard restrains her, and her mother assures Jaime that she isn't: "I made certain of that, as your lord father bid me."

Jaime dismisses Jeyne, but Lady Westerling stays behind. He tells her that House Westerling has been pardoned, and her brother Rolph has been made Lord of Castamere, but Lady Westerling wants to see Jeyne and her sister married, as Tywin had promised: "Lords or heirs, he swore to me, not younger sons nor household knights." Jaime assures her that will be taken care of, in Jeyne's case after two years have passed so there can be no suspicion that any child she might have is Robb's.

Lady Westerling also makes a case for her sons, especially for Raynald, who had gone with the Stark party to the Red Wedding, unaware of what would happen, and whose whereabouts are now unknown. She thinks he may be a captive of the Freys, but Jaime points out that he might be dead. She claims that Tywin had promised that Raynald would marry someone from Casterly Rock, "if all went as we hoped." Jaime's distaste for the whole business is evident, and he mentions that his late uncle Gerion had a natural daughter named Joy. But Lady Westerling is appalled: "You want a Westerling to wed a bastard?"

"No more than I want Joy to marry the son of some scheming turncloak bitch. She deserves better." Jaime would happily have strangled the woman with her seashell necklace. Joy was a sweet child, albeit a lonely one; her father had been Jaime's favorite uncle. "Your daughter is worth ten of you, my lady. You'll leave with Edmure and Ser Forley on the morrow. Until then, you would do well to stay out of my sight." 

The next day, a company departs, taking Edmure to Casterly Rock and the Westerlings to their home. Jaime speaks to the leader of the company, Ser Forley Prester, and warns him to keep a good eye on Edmure, whom the Blackfish might try to rescue, but also on Jeyne, who as Robb's widow is "twice as dangerous as Edmure if she were ever to escape us."

He then rides to the camp of the Freys, where he gets the news that Ser Ryman Frey has been captured and hanged by the outlaws. His son, Edwyn, delivers the news, but is evidently not particularly upset at his father's death. Jaime tells him that when he gets back to the Twins, he is to tell Lord Walder that all the captives from the Red Wedding are to be delivered to King Tommen. He asks about Raynald Westerling, but learns that he may have died trying to save Robb's direwolf, Grey Wind, during the massacre. He was shot with arrows, but jumped into the river. His body was never identified.

That night, he has his ritual fight with Ilyn Payne, and drinking with him afterward talks about Cersei's infidelities with the Kettleblacks. He wonders what he should do with Cersei, and Payne motions with his finger across his neck. But Jaime thinks that would be too great a loss for Tommen. "If I were to kill his mother, he would hate me for it ... and that sweet little wife of his would find a way to turn that hatred to the benefit of Highgarden." He doesn't like the smile Ser Ilyn gives him.

The next day he has a report that the troops searching for Brynden Tully had been attacked by wolves, a pack "led by a she-wolf of monstrous size." Jaime wonders if it could "be the same beast that had mauled Joffrey near the crossroads." He tends to other business involving the takeover of Riverrun, and finds himself feeling "curiously content. The war was all but won. Dragonstone had fallen and Storm's End would soon enough, he could not doubt, and Stannis was welcome to the Wall." If he can find the Blackfish, he can return to King's Landing, and he daydreams about wresting control from Cersei.

The Tully garrison is dismissed, sent away with three days' worth of food after swearing not to take up arms against Lord Emmon or the Lannisters, though Jaime doubts that those vows will hold. Two of the Tully men, the master-at-arms and the captain of guards, take the black. He sends Raff the Sweetling, one of Gregor Clegane's men, as an escort for them, though he warns Raff to see to it that they get there unharmed.

One morning he wakes and discovers it is snowing. "Snow in the riverlands. If it was snowing here, it could well be snowing on Lannisport as well. Winter is marching south, and half our granaries are empty.... He found himself wondering what his father would do to feed the realm, before he remembered that Tywin Lannister was dead." There is a knock on his door, and Riverrun's maester tells him there has been a raven from King's Landing.

Qyburn's words were terse and to the point, Cersei's fevered and fervent. Come at once, she said. Help me. Save me. I need you now as I have never needed you before. I love you. I love you. I love you. Come at once.

Jaime tells the maester there is no answer, wads the letter up, and gives it to him to throw in the fire.

Samwell

As they near Oldtown, they are attacked by marauding ironmen, but they manage to fend them off. Sam learns from a friendly ship that escorts the Cinnamon Wind to the port about the fall of the Shield Islands, and the failure of "the bitch queen in King's Landing" to come to their aid. Sam is distressed: "If King's Landing loses Oldtown and the Arbor, the whole realm will fall to pieces." He worries now about his plan to send Gilly and the baby to Horn Hill, but decides it is the safest thing to do.

When they reach Oldtown, he tells Gilly that he has to leave her to go to the Citadel with Jon's letters and arrange for Maester Aemon's body to be delivered to them, then arrange for transportation for her and the baby to Horn Hill. Kojja Mo agrees that Gilly may stay on board the Cinnamon Wind until he returns.

He makes his way to the Seneschal's Court in the Citadel, where he is told to wait. He sits there for hours until finally someone speaks to him and says he needs to bribe his way in. He introduces himself: "Alleras, by some called Sphinx." Sam remembers what Maester Aemon said to him in his last delirium: "The sphinx is the riddle, not the riddler." He asks Alleras if he knows what that means, but he doesn't. Alleras asks what his business is with Archmaester Theobald, and Sam says Maester Aemon had said Norren was the seneschal. Alleras explains that the seneschal changes every year, but picks up on Sam's reference to Aemon, who was famous as not only the oldest living maester but also the oldest man in Westeros.

Sam wonders how much he should tell Alleras, but finally gives in and tells him the entire story of why he is there. He winds up by telling him that Aemon had said the Citadel must send Daenerys a maester and "bring her home to Westeros before it is too late." When he is finished, Alleras says not to bother with Archmaester Theobald but to come with him. He takes Sam to Archmaester Marwyn.

As they arrive at Marwyn's chambers, Sam encounters someone he recognizes from his youth: Leo Tyrell. He tells Tyrell, "I am Sam, from Horn Hill. Lord Randyll's son." Tyrell gives him a cold look and asks if he is "still a craven," but Sam remembers Jon's exhortation and lies: "I went beyond the Wall and fought in battles. They call me Sam the Slayer." Tyrell starts to laugh, but the door opens and Marwyn orders him and the Sphinx in.

Marwyn looks "more like a dockside thug than a maester." In the middle of the room, Sam notices a tall black candle that gives off an "unpleasantly bright" light and does strange things to the colors in the room. It "was three feet tall and slender as a sword, ridged and twisted." Sam starts to ask, and another man in the room says it's obsidian. He is "a pale, fleshy, pasty-faced young fellow with round shoulders, soft hands, close-set eyes, and food stains on his robes." Marwyn tells him, "Call it dragonglass.... It burns but is not consumed." Sam asks what feeds its flame.

"What feeds a dragon's fire?" Marwyn seated himself upon a stool. "All Valyrian sorcery was rooted in blood or fire. The sorcerers of the Freehold could see across mountains, seas, and deserts with one of these glass candles. They could enter a man's dreams and give him visions, and speak to one another half a world apart, seated before their candles." 

He asks Sam to tell his story again. "I know much of it and more, but some small parts may have escaped my notice."



When Sam is done, Marwyn says it's a good thing Aemon died, because otherwise "the grey sheep," the other archmaesters at the Citadel, "might have had to kill him." In response to Sam's shock, Marwyn says, "Who do you think killed all the dragons the last time around?" The archmaesters have no use for magic or dragons, he says. That's "why Aemon Targaryen was allowed to waste his life upon the Wall, when by rights he should have been raised to archmaester."

Marwyn declares that he will go to Daenerys in place of Aemon, and that Sam must "stay and forge your chain. If I were you, I would do it quickly. A time will come when you'll be needed on the Wall." He tells the "pasty-faced" novice to find Sam a cell there. He can help with the ravens. Sam asks what about the other archmaesters, and Marwyn says to flatter and toady to them. "Tell them that Aemon commanded you to put yourself into their hands.... But say nothing of prophecies or dragons, unless you fancy poison in your porridge." And he instructs the Sphinx to look after Sam.

Marwyn departs, and when he is gone Alleras confesses that Marwyn knew Sam was coming and sent him to intercept him. When Sam asks how Marwyn knew these things, Alleras nods at the glass candle. The "pasty-faced" novice then leads Sam to his new cell. "There was something about the pale, soft youth that he misliked, but he did not want to seem discourteous," so he introduces himself as Samwell Tarly.

The other says his name is Pate, whom we last saw 670 pages ago, falling unconscious after his encounter with the alchemist.

20. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 561-586

Jaime

Bryden Tully comes out to meet Jaime for the parley, but it is clear from the beginning -- when the Blackfish addresses Jaime as "Kingslayer" -- that it is not going to go well. He also forces Jaime to admit that he has not fulfilled his promise to Catelyn: to return Sansa and Arya. And when Jaime promises to return Edmure in exchange for Lady Sybelle Westerling and her three children, Tully uses it again: "As you returned Lady Catelyn's daughters?" In short, the Blackfish is determined not to trust anything Jaime says.

Finally, Jaime proposes they settle their differences by single combat, each of them to name a champion. But the Blackfish throws that in his face as well: "Why not you against me, ser?" Jaime knows that he is disadvantaged by his lack of a sword hand, but he has another reason to advance for not fighting Ser Brynden: His oath to Catelyn not to take up arms against Starks or Tullys. But he bluffs his way through by saying that if the Blackfish will free him from that pledge, he will fight him. "If I win, Riverrun is ours. If you slay me, we'll lift the siege."

But Tully will not take him up on the offer, and ends the matter by saying there are no terms under which he will surrender the castle. He came to parley only because "A siege is deadly dull. I wanted to see this stump of yours and hear whatever excuses you cared to offer up for your latest enormities. They were feebler than I hoped." And he turns and rides back into the castle, leaving Jaime to seethe.

Back at camp, he summons a war council. But it quickly degenerates into squabbling among various factions of the Frey family and others, and Jaime has to silence them. He announces, "We attack at first light." Then he decides to visit the gallows where Edmure Tully stands with a noose around his neck. He takes Ilyn Payne with him, and when he reaches the platform on which Edmure is standing, Edmure says, "Better a sword than a rope. Do it, Payne." Jaime responds by telling Payne, "You heard Lord Tully. Do it."

Shouting "No! Stop!" Edwyn Frey appears, followed by his father, Ser Ryman, by whose orders Edmure had been posted on the gallows. Ryman is accompanied by "a straw-haired slattern as drunk as he was." When Ryman protests, Jaime backhands him with his golden hand and threatens to have Ser Ilyn take off his head. He dismisses Ryman and replaces him with Edwyn, then takes Edmure with him: Ser Ilyn had cut the rope in two, and Edmure had collapsed on the scaffold.

As he returns to the camp with Edmure, Jaime sees a singer and has him follow. Edmure asks Jaime why he had him cut down, and Jaime says, "Consider it a wedding gift." When they reach Jaime's pavilion he has a bath prepared for Edmure, along with wine and some food. "Once you've eaten, my men will escort you to Riverrun. What happens after that is up to you.

"Yield the castle and no one dies. Your smallfolk may go in peace or stay to serve Lord Emmon. Ser Brynden will be allowed to take the black, along with as many of the garrison as choose to join him. You as well, if the Wall appeals to you. Or you may go to Casterly Rock as my captive and enjoy all the comforts and courtesy that befits a hostage of your rank. I'll send your wife to join you, if you like. If her child is a boy, he will serve House Lannister as a page and a squire, and when he earns his knighthood we'll bestow some lands upon him. Should Roslin give you a daughter, I'll see her well dowered when she's old enough to wed. You yourself may even be granted parole, once the war is done. All you need do is yield the castle."

Otherwise, he tells Edmure, the castle will be razed and the people in it butchered. And when his child is born, Jaime says, he'll send him to Edmure. "With a trebuchet." Then he says he will leave Edmure to eat while the singer plays "The Rains of Castamere." Edmure suddenly recognizes the singer from the Red Wedding: "No. Not him. Get him away from me."

"'Why, it's just a song,' said Jaime. 'He cannot have that bad a voice.'"

Cersei

Lord Gyles Rosby has died, and Cersei is blaming his death on Grand Maester Pycelle. And on Margaery: "Tell me," she says to Pycelle, "was it our little queen who commanded you to kill Lord Gyles?" Pycelle is astonished and terrified at Cersei's accusations. And finally she bullies him into a confession: Margaery has ordered "moon tea," an abortifacient, from him. She also forces him into lying that Lord Gyles's dying wish was "to leave all his lands and wealth to Tommen." Pycelle protests that Gyles had a ward, but Cersei dismisses that as inconsequential and sends Pycelle scurrying.

The moon tea is all the evidence Cersei needs: "My son has been betrayed. Margaery has a lover. That is high treason, punishable by death." Ser Osmund Kettleblack proposes to take off her head, since Ser Ilyn is away with Jaime, but Taena Merryweather points out that the Tyrells have armies who might not take kindly to summary execution. And Cersei knows that she still needs Mace Tyrell's support in her campaign against Stannis. So she needs a more substantial proof of Margaery's infidelity.

So she has Lady Taena tell her husband, Lord Orton Merryweather, to join her at dinner, "And of course we must have some music, to help with our digestion." Taena knows what Cersei means, and leaves Cersei to plot with Ser Osmund and with Qyburn. At dinner, she tells Orton Merryweather that she plans to put Ser Harys in Gyles's position as treasurer, and to promote him to Hand. And then she turns to the singer Taena has provided, the Blue Bard, and tells him he deserves a reward for his singing.

She asks to see his lute, plucks a string, and then asks him, "the first time you took Margaery to bed, was that before she wed my son, or after?" Astonished, he protests that he has never slept with Margaery, but Cersei screams, "Liar!" and smashes the lute in his face. Then she orders Lord Orton to take the Blue Bard to the dungeon. There she watches as Qyburn interrogates the singer, who persists in denying any sort of affair with Margaery. When Qyburn takes a razor and cuts off one of the Blue Bard's nipples, she feels ill, "But she was the queen and this was treason. Lord Tywin would not have turned away."

By dawn the singer's high blue boots were full of blood, and he had told them how Margaery would fondle herself as she watched her cousins pleasuring him with their mouths. At other times he would sing for her whilst she sated her lusts with other lovers. "Who were they?" the queen demanded, and the wretched Wat named Ser Tallad the Tall, Lambert Turnberry, Jalabar Xho, the Redwyne twins, Osney Kettleblack, Hugh Clifton, and the Knight of Flowers. That displeased her. She dare not besmirch the name of the hero of Dragonstone. Besides, no one who knew Ser Loras would ever believe it.

So she persuades him to recant on Ser Loras and the Redwynes, whose fleet of ships she needs. She tells the singer he can take the black, and has Qyburn tend to his wounds.

Congratulating herself that she has thwarted the prophecy of Maggy the Frog, she returns to her rooms and to Taena Merryweather, deciding that she'll let her spy have sex with her as a way of keeping her loyalty. As they are sharing a bath, she refines her plot, deciding to spare one of Margaery's cousins in return for her testimony against Margaery, and to spare Tommen from losing all of his friends at once.

But when she goes to bed she dreams that she is the one being tortured in the black cells, and that the torturer is Tyrion. She wakes Taena and tells her about the dream. Taena asks, "Was it the dwarf again? Why does he frighten you so, this silly little man?" Cersei tells her about Maggy the Frog's prophecy, and her belief that Tyrion is the valonqar who will kill her. "Do you use that word in Myr?" she asks Taena. "It's High Valyrian, it means little brother." Taena tries to persuade Cersei that Maggy the Frog was just an ugly old woman who was jealous of her youth and beauty.

She feels better after breakfasting with Tommen, who tells her that Margaery is fasting and purifying herself for Maiden's Day. And this reminds her that only virgins can participate in the rituals of the day. After breakfast she sends for Osney Kettleblack and tells him he has to confess his treason. He protests that Margaery only teases and never lets him do anything, but she tells him "you must take yourself to the Great Sept of Baelor this very night and speak with the High Septon.... Tell him how you bedded Margaery and her cousins," Megga and Elinor, but not Alla.

Osney is confused, and worries, "I never lied to no High Septon before. I think you go to some hell for that. One o' the bad ones." But she has her own way of sealing the deal, and he tells her, "You can keep the crown on. I like you in the crown."

16. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 445-472

Jaime

Jaime and his troops reach Darry, where Lancel is now lord, and find that things are on their way to recovery: the fields are being tilled and the damages to the castle are being repaired. Within the castle, Jaime is annoyed to observe "several bearded men with red, seven-pointed stars sewn onto ragged, filthy tunics. More bloody sparrows. Where do they all come from?"

He is welcomed to Darry not by Lancel, but by a maester, who expresses their surprise, because they had heard he was headed for Riverrun. Jaime says Darry was on the way, which is not exactly true. He asks about his uncle Kevan, and is told that he left after Lancel's wedding. But Lady Amerei is preparing a feast for Jaime and his "chief knights and captains" -- they can't afford to feed the rest of the entourage. As for Lancel, "He is at his prayers. His lordship has commanded us never to disturb him when he is praying."

Maester Ottomore shows Jaime to his lodgings, which turn out to be the chambers of the lord of the castle: "Lord Lancel has been sleeping in the sept," he tells Jaime. The furnishings are new and spartan, but a bath is provided for him. He goes down to the feast well-dressed and wearing his new golden hand. He finds Lancel's chair empty, and Lady Amerei tells him that Lancel is fasting and mourning for the late High Septon. "He wondered what Ser Kevan might have had to say about his son's new fervor. Could that be the reason for his uncle's abrupt departure?"

Amerei is the daughter of Merrett Frey, who had been hanged by outlaws, as her mother, Lady Mariya, explains to Jaime, so Amerei tends to weep frequently. Jaime, however, knows that Merrett was a braggart and liar, so he proposes only a noncommittal toast, "'To Merrett's memory,' he said. It was easier to drink to the man than to talk to him." He asks if it was Beric Dondarrion's band who killed him, but Lady Mariya says the peasants "spoke of a one-eyed man and another who wore a yellow cloak ... and a woman, cloaked and hooded." Amerei begs Jaime to stay and help kill the outlaws, but he ducks the request. "My place is with the king, my lady."

Talk turns to the atrocities attributed to the Hound at Saltpans, but Jaime wonders about them: "What they were describing sounded more like Gregor's work than Sandor's. Sandor had been hard and brutal, yes, but it was his big brother who was the real monster in House Clegane." One of the knights, however, insists that the man who raped and butchered at Saltpans was wearing the Hound's helmet. Nevertheless, he promises to hunt down the Hound after finishing things up at Riverrun. Then he excuses himself and goes to look for Lancel.

The sparrows were eating around cookfires in the yard, and Jaime wonders how Lancel intends to feed them once winter sets in. He finds the sept, but his entrance is barred by three sparrows, who say he can't disturb Lancel, and make a show of their clubs and an axe. But Lancel himself comes to the door and admits him. He is thin and barefoot and dressed in a tunic of undyed wool. The crown of his head has been shaved, and Jaime asks if he has lost his wits.

Lancel insists that he has found his faith, and explains that he sleeps each night beneath the altar of a different god, and that they send him visions. "I dreamed that you would come In the dream you knew what I had done. How I had sinned. You killed me for it." Jaime opines that he should be eating and sleeping with his wife instead. "You need a son with Darry blood if you want to keep this castle." But Lancel expresses indifference to the "pile of cold stones," and that it's more important for him to atone for his sins.

"What do you know of sin, coz?" Jaime asks. "I killed my king." Lancel replies, "The brave man slays with a sword, the craven with a wineskin. We are both kingslayers, ser." Jaime is aware of Lancel's complicity in drugging Robert Baratheon's wine on the hunt, but asks, "What else did you do to require so much atonement?" Lancel's tears are the answer that Jaime articulates: "You killed the king, ... then you fucked the queen." Lancel pleads in mitigation that his coitus with Cersei was interruptus: "It is not treason unless you finish inside." Jaime "wondered what his cousin would say if he were to confess his own sins, the three treasons Cersei had named Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella." Then Lancel reveals that he had confessed his sins to the High Septon -- the recently deceased one -- and Jaime wonders "if his cousin had any notion what fruit his words had borne."

Moreover, Lancel tells him, he is renouncing his lordship and his marriage: "On the morrow I will return to King's Landing and swear my sword to the new High Septon and the Seven. I mean to take vows and join the Warrior's Sons." And so Jaime hears for the first time of Cersei's repeal of Maegor's law about a militant clergy: "His High Holiness writes that King Tommen has given his consent. I will show you the letter, if you like."

Lancel asks Jaime to pray with him, but Jaime says he should pray for both of them. Then he goes to find Ser Ilyn. As they fight, he tells his mute opponent that this is where Arya's wolf attacked Joffrey, and Cersei had wanted her to lose a hand. Cersei and Robert had a fight about it, and Robert passed out after drinking too much. So Jaime went to bed with Cersei while Robert was asleep on the floor. "As I was fucking her, Cersei cried, 'I want.' I thought that she meant me, but it was the Stark girl that she wanted, maimed or dead." And the phrase comes to him that he spoke when he pushed Bran Stark from the window: "The things I do for love."

In response to this story, Ser Ilyn makes his clacking sound.

He is laughing at me, realized Jaime Lannister. "For all I know you fucked my sister too, you pock-faced bastard," he spat out. "Well, shut your bloody mouth and kill me if you can." 

Brienne

They reach a septry on an island across the bay from Saltpans. It is known as the Quiet Isle because penitents come there "to atone for their sins through contemplation, prayer, and silence," Septon Meribald tells them. To reach it they have to dismount and follow Meribald across the mudflats, a tortuous route past patches of quicksand.

Finally they reach their goal and are greeted by Brother Narbert, a proctor who is allowed to speak one day out of seven. He is taken aback to find that Brienne is a woman, and suggests that they speak to the Elder Brother. When they stable their horses, they notice a big black stallion, and are told that he is a trial for them, having broken one brother's leg and bit off the ear of another.

They pass a brother who is digging a grave for Brother Clement, who "died of wounds he got at Saltpans. He had taken some of our mead to the market there, on the day the outlaws descended on the town." But the war has not come to the Quiet Isle because of its natural defenses: the mudflats and the tides.

Brother Narbert leads them to a cave with a door at its entrance, known as the Hermit's Hole. The Elder Brother, a tall, vigorous man, meets them. He tells them more of the destruction of Saltpans, where everything was burned except the castle. The townsfolk curse Ser Quincy Cox, "who barred his gates when the outlaws entered the town and sat safe behind stone walls as his people screamed and died." Septon Meribald observes that Ser Quincy is an old man, with only grandsons and daughters to protect him. "What could he have done, one man against so many?" But Brienne is not willing to forgive him, and even the Elder Brother says to Meribald, "When you cross to Saltpans, no doubt Ser Quincy will ask you for forgiveness. I am glad that you are here to give it. I could not."

After supper they are shown to their quarters, with Brienne in one of the women's cottages. As her squire, Podrick insisted on staying with her, but Brother Narbert explained that it was the custom of the septry for men and women to stay in separate quarters. The Elder Brother accompanies them, and he asks Brienne why she is going to Saltpans. She describes the girl he is looking for, and recognizes her as Sansa Stark. Privately, he tells Brienne that the girl reported to be with the Hound was not Sansa but Arya, and that he doesn't know what happened to her: "She may have been amongst the children slain at Saltpans."

And then there is more news: Sandor Clegane, he says, is dead. He buried the Hound himself, and covered his grave with stones, placing the helmet on the cairn as a marker. Someone stole it, he says. "The man who raped and killed at Saltpans was not Sandor Clegane, though he may be as dangerous." The only thing that kept the Hound going, he says, was hatred for his brother and "the hope of seeing his brother's blood upon his blade ... and even that was taken from him, when Prince Oberyn of Dorne stabbed Ser Gregor with a poisoned spear."

Brienne observes that it sounds as if the Elder Brother pitied the Hound, and he admits that he did. He had found him dying of fever by the Trident, and did what he could to give him ease: "He begged me for the gift of mercy, but I am sworn not to kill again." He mentions that the black stallion in the stables was Clegane's horse Stranger. "A blasphemous name. We prefer to call him Driftwood, as he was found beside the river. I fear he has his former master's nature."

The Elder Brother then reveals that he was once a knight, who fought for Prince Rhaegar at the Battle of the Trident. He was wounded and his horse was killed, and as he was searching for a horse he was knocked unconscious. He woke up on the Quiet Isle, having been carried there by the tide. Then he urges her to give up her quest.

"The Hound is dead, and in any case he never had your Sansa Stark. As for this beast who wears his helm, he will be found and hanged. The wars are ending, and these outlaws cannot survive the peace. Randyll Tarly is hunting them from Maidenpool and Walder Frey from the Twins, and there is a new young lord in Darry, a pious man who will surely set his lands to rights. Go home, child. You have a home, which is more than many can say in these dark days." 

But when he urges her to return to the father who loves her, and "would sooner have a living daughter than a shattered shield," her history comes back to her: "I am the only child the gods let him keep. The freakish one, not fit to be a son or daughter." He experiences pour forth "like black blood from a wound," and she insists that she must keep her vow to Jaime: "Oathkeeper, he named the sword. I have to try to save her ... or die in the attempt."

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."

4. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 109-159

Eddard

Robert Baratheon wakes Ned before dawn and tells him to ride out with him, away from the camp, to talk about "matters of state." They are followed by a company of guards, and travel southward along the kingsroad, then take off across open country. Robert stops when he is sure they are out of earshot of the guards.

"We are not the boys we used to be," Ned says, sending Robert into a moment of nostalgia in which he tries to recall the name of the woman by whom Ned fathered Jon. Ned says her name was Wylla, and that he doesn't want to talk about her. "I dishonored myself and I dishonored Catelyn, in the sight of gods and men." Robert, who doesn't understand Ned's moral scruples, reluctantly drops the topic.

What he really wants to talk about is a message he has received from Lord Varys, a eunuch who is "the king's master of whisperers." It concerns the marriage of Daenerys to Khal Drogo and the fact that Ser Jorah Mormont is now aligned with the last of the Targaryens. The Mormonts of Bear Island, off the northern coast, had been bannermen to the Starks, but five years ago Ser Jorah had "dishonored the north" by selling some poachers into slavery instead of sending them to the Wall to be part of the Night's Watch -- the usual punishment of lawbreakers. Ned had gone to Bear Island to confront Ser Jorah, but he "had taken ship beyond the reach of Ice and the king's justice." Now Ser Jorah has turned informant, sending Varys news about the activities of Viserys and Daenerys.

Ned asks facetiously if they should send a wedding gift, and Robert suggests, "A knife, perhaps. A good sharp one, and a bold man to wield it." Ned reflects on the king's hatred of the Targaryens: When Tywin Lannister had sent Robert the bodies of the wife and small children of Rhaegar Targaryen, the heir to the throne, Ned regarded it as murder, whereas Robert saw it as only the consequence of war. Now Ned protests Robert's desire to murder Daenerys; he hesitates to murder children, which the thirteen-year-old Daenerys is. But Robert sees her as only a breeder of more Targaryens. He reminds Ned that Aerys Targaryen killed Ned's brother Brandon and their father, and Rhaegar raped Ned's sister Lyanna: "I will kill every Targaryen I can get my hands on, until they are as dead as their dragons, and then I will piss on their graves."

Robert also observes, "This Khal Drogo is said to have a hundred thousand men in his horde," to which Ned replies that they're no threat: "The barbarians have no ships. They hate and fear the open sea." But Robert is concerned that if Viserys should manage to persuade them to invade, he would have the support of the houses that supported the Targaryens in the war.

Ned assures him that they will be strong enough to repel an invasion once Robert names a Warden of the East to replace Jon Arryn. But Robert refuses to name Robert Arryn, the "sickly child," to the position, so Ned suggests that Robert name his own brother, Stannis. The uneasy look on Robert's face makes Ned realize that he has already promised someone else the position, namely Jaime Lannister. Ned tactfully tries to point out that Jaime is already the heir to the position of Warden of the West, now held by Tywin Lannister. "He left unsaid his real concern; that the appointment would put half the armies of the realm into the hands of the Lannisters."

Ned's concern about Jaime is that he killed the king, Aerys Targaryen, though he was a member of the Kingsguard. "He swore a vow to protect his king's life with his own. Then he opened that king's throat with a sword." He also reminds Robert that it was the Lannisters, who had remained neutral through most of the war, who gained the city of King's Landing by treachery: "Lord Tywin Lannister appeared before the gates of King's Landing with an army twelve thousand strong, profession loyalty. So the mad king had ordered his last mad act. He opened his city to the lions at the gate."

Robert argues that the Targaryens obtained power through treachery, so he's not bothered by the Lannister deception. Ned, who "had lived his lies for fourteen years" (presumably a reference to the birth of Jon, he secrets of which he continues to keep), insists, "There was no honor in that conquest." Robert denounces the idea of honor: There was no honor in the death of Lyanna, he says, who was really all he wanted. "I ask you, Ned, what good is it to wear a crown? The gods mock the prayers of kings and cowherds alike."

Ned recalls riding his horse into the throne room and finding Aerys dead on the floor and Jaime Lannister seated on the throne. He said, "Have no fear, Stark. I was only keeping it warm for our friend Robert. It's not a very comfortable seat, I'm afraid." Robert roars with laughter at this. Jaime was only seventeen, he says. That's no reason to worry about him. But his reaction fills Ned "with a vast sense of helplessness." Robert rides off back to the camp and Ned follows, wondering "what he was doing here and why he had come."

In addition to being rather efficient background exposition, this section also helps develop the characters of the choleric and careless Robert and the troubled but dutiful Ned.

Tyrion

Tyrion is beginning to regret his decision to go north to see the Wall. The cold is bitter and the ride uncomfortable for someone with legs as short as his. They are a company of eight: In addition to Jon and Benjen, Tyrion has two of his men with him, and they have been joined by another member of the Night's Watch, Yoren, who has with him a pair of rapists who chose to be sentenced to the Wall rather than to be castrated. Tyrion notices Jon's distaste for Yoren and the rapists, and feels sorry for him.

On the eighteenth night of the journey, Tyrion goes off to a spot away from the camp with a book of dragon lore and a skin full of good wine. He is fascinated by dragons, and after Robert Baratheon had the dragon skulls of the Targaryeons removed from the throne room, Tyrion discovered them stored in a cellar. "There were nineteen skulls. The oldest was more than three thousand years old; the youngest a mere century and a half." Dragonbone is black, light in weight, and stronger than steel, and the fire-breathing creatures had been used by the Targaryens in battle, burning to death four thousand men in the battle known as the Field of Fire.

His reading is interrupted by Jon, who asks him, "Why do you read so much?" Tyrion responds that as a Lannister, much is expected of him. "My father was the Hand of the King for twenty years. My brother later killed that very same king, as it turns out, but life is full of these little ironies. My sister married the new king and my repulsive nephew will be king after him." But Tyrion is not physically capable of heroics, so "My mind is my weapon ... and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge."

When Tyrion tells him he's reading about dragons, Jon scoffs, "What good is that? There are no more dragons." Tyrion replies that when he was a boy he used to dream about having his own dragon, and would start fires and imagine that it was his father or his sister who was burning. Jon is shocked when Tyrion suggests that he too has had such dreams. But Tyrion continues,

"No doubt the Starks have been terribly good to you. I'm certain Lady Stark treats you as if you were one of her own. And your brother Robb, he's always been kind, and why no? He gets Winterfell and you get the Wall. And your father ... he must have good reasons for packing you off to the Night's Watch...."

Jon protests, "The Night's Watch is a noble calling!" But Tyrion continues to dig, pointing out that his colleagues will be like "Yoren and his boys.... Sullen peasants, debors, poachers, rapers, thieves, and bastards like you all wind up on the Wall, watching for grumkins and snarks and all the other monsters your wet nurse warned you about." But Jon protests angrily, and Tyrion feels guilty for hurting the boy. He steps toward Jon to apologize and suddenly is flattened by the wolf, who stands between him and Jon, baring his teeth but not making a sound. Unable to stand, he asks for Jon's help, but Jon just strokes Ghost's fur and says, "Ask me nicely."

Tyrion Lannister felt the anger coiling inside him, and crushed it out with a will. It was not the first time in his life he had been humiliated, and it would not be the last.

He asks politely for Jon's assistance and receives it. He offers Jon a drink from the wineskin, and Jon accepts, then says, "It's true, isn't it? ... What you said about the Night's Watch." When Tyrion nods, Jon resigns himself to the truth, whereupon Tyrion grins and says, "That's good, bastard. Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it." They return to the camp, and after dinner Tyrion sees Jon, who had the first watch for the night, standing "near the fire, his face still and hard, looking deep into the flames. Tyrion Lannister smiled sadly and went to bed."

Catelyn

Catelyn is still by Bran's bedside, eight days after Ned and her daughters have left, when Maester Luwin comes to her with some household business that needs to be dealt with. She lashes out in anger at him for bothering her. Robb steps in and says he'll handle the appointments Luwin is concerned about.

When Luwin leaves, Robb shuts the door and asks, "Mother, what are you doing?" She angrily replies that she is taking care of Bran, but he retorts that three-year-old Rickon needs her, too. And he admits, "I can't do it all by myself." She suddenly realizes that he's only fourteen.

A wolf began to howl, and Robb identifies it as Bran's, and goes to open the window. She protests that Bran needs to stay warm, and he says Bran needs to hear them, as Shaggydog and Grey Wind join in the howls. "You can tell them apart if you listen close," he says. But she covers her ears and begs him to make them stop, then collapses on the floor.

When she recovers, Robb is carrying her to a bed in the corner of the room. She pleads for him to close the window, but when he goes to it he hears the sound of the dogs barking, too. He looks out and sees the library tower on fire, then tells her to stay there while he tends to the blaze. She is thankful that the fire doesn't threaten Bran, and says a prayer to the gods, then goes to the window and watches the flames.

When she turns around there is a man in the room, "a small, dirty man in filthy brown clothing, and he stank of horses." He has a dagger in his hand. He mutters, "You weren't s'posed to be here.... No one was s'posed to be here." She struggles with him, grabbing the dagger by the blade and cutting her hand, then biting his hand. She screams and falls, and he stands over her, still holding the dagger and muttering "You weren't s'posed to be here.

Catelyn saw the shadow slip through the open door behind him. There was a low rumble, less than a snarl, the merest whisper of a threat, but he must have heard something, because he started to turn just as the wolf made its leap. They went down together, half sprawled over Catelyn where she'd fallen. The wolf had him under the jaw. The man's shriek lasted less than a second before the beast wrenched back its head, taking out half his throat.

She recognizes Bran's wolf, which licks the blood off her hand and then jumps onto Bran's bed and lies down beside him. She begins to laugh hysterically and continues until Robb, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrick and the guards arrive. They take her to her room, bathe her, and dress the wound on her hand. When she awakes they tell her she has slept four days.

She now takes charge of the household again. The new captain of the guard, Hallis Mollen, tells her that no one knows the name of the assassin, but he seems to have been staying in the stables where they found a bag with a good deal of money in it. He went unnoticed because there were so many strangers in the castle during the king's visit. When Catelyn says, "It's good to know my son's life was not sold cheaply," everyone is surprised at her suggestion that the man was there to kill Bran. But she explains that he kept muttering that she wasn't supposed to be there, and conjectures that the fire was set to draw her and the guards to the task of putting it out, leaving Bran unprotected.

Later, she asks Robb if he understands what happened. "'Someone is afraid Bran might wake up,' Robb said, 'afraid of what he might say or do, afraid of something he knows.'" She tells the captain of the guards that Robb is in charge, and he orders guards to be posted around Bran's room, and that the wolf be allowed to stay with him. Ser Rodrik asks if she noticed the dagger the man used, and tells her that it was Valyrian steel with a dragonbone hilt -- a weapon too fine for a commoner.

Ron Donachie as Ser Rodrik Cassel

In addition to Robb and Ser Rodrik, Theon Greyjoy and Maester Luwin are present as Catelyn swears them to secrecy and tells them that she believes Ned and the girls are in great danger.

"My sister Lysa believes the Lannisters murdered her husband, Lord Arryn, the Hand of the King," Catelyn told them. "It comes to me that Jaime Lannister did not join the hunt the day Bran fell. He remained here in the castle." The room was deathly quiet. "I do not think Bran fell from that tower," she said into the stillness. "I think he was thrown."

Then she tells them that someone needs to go to King's Landing to alert Ned to the danger, and volunteers herself. Robb protests that he should go, but she insists, "There must always be a Stark in Winterfell." She has also realized that she has done everything she can for Bran. "As you reminded me yourself, Robb, I have other children to think of now." And so she proposes to go by sea, which should get her to King's Landing before Ned and the Lannisters arrive.

Sansa

Arya is missing at breakfast, and Sansa assumes that she has stolen off somewhere. As the preparations are being made for another day's movement along the kingsroad, Sansa goes in search of her sister and finds her trying to brush the mud out of Nymeria's fur. She tells Arya to put on something nice because they are going to be riding in the queen's wheelhouse today, but Arya has other pllans: "Mycah and I are going to ride upstream and look for rubies at the ford." The story has it that when Robert killed Rhaegar, the rubies that studded his armor broke off and fell into the river. Besides, Arya says, the wheelhouse doesn't have any windows, and she likes to see things as they ride. "When we were crossing the Neck, I counted thirty-six flowers I never saw before, and Mycah showed me a lizard-lion." (Lizard-lions float "half-submerged in the water, like black logs with eyes and teeth" -- evidently a relative of the alligator or the crocodile.) 

Sansa is vexed by this, and by her sister's habit of talking to people like "squires and grooms and serving girls, old men and naked children, rough-spoken freeriders of uncertain birth," and people like Mycah: "a butcher's boy, thirteen and wild, he slept in the meat wagon and smelled of the slaughtering block." But Sansa is particularly shocked when Arya says, "I don't like the queen." One reason is that she won't let Arya take Nymeria in the wheelhouse.

Sansa goes back to the inn, "almost in tears. All she waned was for things to be nice and pretty, the way they were in the songs." She had even asked her mother once if Arya might not be her child, but Catelyn assured her that she was. "Sansa could not think why Mother would want to lie about it, so she supposed it had to be true."

At the camp, there is great excitement because riders have arrived from King's Landing to accompany them the rest of the way. There are two knights kneeling before the queen, one of them an old man in white armor, the other a young man in deep forest-green armor. There was also "a gaunt grim man who watched the proceedings in silence. His face was pockmarked and beardless, with deepset eyes and hollow cheeks." She can't take her eyes off of him and when he turns in her direction she is frightened and Lady growls. She backs up in terror and bumps into Sandor Clegane, of whom she is frightened but not so much as she is of the other man. When Lady growls at him, someone new to the company notices the direwolf and the two knights draw their swords. She begins to cry, but the queen tells Joffrey to go to her.

When she explains to Joffrey that it wasn't the knights who frightened her but the other man, she learns that he is Ser Ilyn Payne, the king's executioner. And the old knight is Ser Barristan Selmy and the younger one Lord Renly Baratheon, the king's brother and councillor.

Ian McElhinney as Barristan Selmy

Gethin Anthony as Renly Baratheon

Wilko Johnson as Ilyn Payne

When Ser Ilyn joins them, Lady begins to growl and Sansa quiets her, then apologizes to him. She is puzzled that he doesn't answer until Joffrey explains that "Aerys Tergaryen had his tongue ripped out with hot pincers." Then the queen walks up and says she needs to confer with the councillors and suggests that Joffrey entertain Sansa.

Joffrey suggests that they go riding, but proposes that she leave Lady behind so she doesn't frighten the horses. He says he'll leave his dog, too, by which he means the Hound, Sandor Clegane. He doesn't need his protection, Joffrey brags, because he has his sword: "I don't fight with wood like your brothers. All I need is this." He says his sword's name is Lion's Tooth.

It's a wonderful day until they hear a sound, "a kind of wooden clattering, snack snack snack." Sansa is frightened and wants to turn back, but Joffrey insists they investigate. They find Arya and Mycah sword-fighting with broomsticks by the river. Sansa is embarrassed, but Joffrey challenges the butcher's boy to a fight, his broomstick against Joffrey's sword. When Mycah backs down, Joffrey bullies him, putting the sword point on the boy's cheek and drawing blood. Enraged, Arya attacks Joffrey with her broomstick, dealing a blow on the back of his head, which begins to bleed. He curses Arya and turns on her, as Mycah runs off into the woods. Arya picks up a rock and throws it, but hits Joffrey's horse, which runs off. "Joffrey slashed at Arya with his sword, screaming obscenities, terrible words, filthy words," and back her up against a tree.

Then Nymeria attacks, defending Arya, grabbing his sword arm in her jaws. He screams and Arya calls off the wolf. Then she picks up the sword and stands over him. He whimpers, "I'll tell my mother," and Arya throws the sword into the river. Then she gets on her horse and rides off, followed by Nymeria.

Sansa runs to Joffrey and tries to comfort him, saying she'll go for help. "His eyes snapped open and looked at her, and there was nothing but loathing there, nothing but the vilest contempt. 'Then go,' he spit at her. 'And don't touch me.'"

Eddard

Arya has been missing for four days when she is finally found. The queen orders her taken before the king, and when he hears this Ned hurries to the chamber in the castle where they have been staying during the search. He finds Arya standing in the middle of the room, accompanied only by Jory Cassel, the captain of the guard from Winterfell. Robert is seated at one end of the room, flanked by the queen and Joffrey, whose arm is bound with silk bandages. Ned goes to his daughter and takes her in his arms.

He asks angrily why Arya wasn't brought to him first, and Cersei snaps, "How dare you speak to your king in that manner!" But Robert tells her to be quiet and apologizes to Ned. "I never meant to frighten the girl. It seemed best to bring her here and get the business done with quickly." The queen charges that Arya and the butcher boy beat Joffrey with clubs and set the wolf on him. Arya says that isn't the way it happened, but Joffrey insists "They all attacked me, and she threw Lion's Tooth in the river!" Arya shouts "Liar!" and Joffrey yells "Shut up!"

Jamie Sives as Jory Cassel

"Enough!" the king roars, then orders Arya to tell her story first, then Joffrey will have his turn. As Arya is telling her version of the events, Ned sees Sansa enter the room. When Arya tells how she threw the sword in the river, Renly Baratheon begins to laugh, and Robert orders his brother out of the room. Before he goes, however, Renly says to Joffrey, "Perchance later you'll tell me how a nine-year-old gril the size of a wet rat managed to disarm you with a broom handle and throw your sword in the river."

Joffrey's version of the events is of course the complete opposite of Arya's, and the king confesses he is baffled at how to decide which of them is telling the truth. Ned suggests that since Sansa was there, she should give her account, which he has already heard on the night of Arya's disappearance. But when Sansa stands in front of them, she claims she doesn't remember, that everything happened so fast, and that she didn't see exactly. Arya rushes at her sister and knocks her down, shouting "Liar, liar, liar, liar." Ned and Jory pull her off of Sansa.

Cersei says Arya is "as wild as that filthy animal of hers" and demands she be punished. Robert says, "Damn it, children fight. It's over. No lasting harm was done." He decides that Ned should punish Arya and he'll take care of Joffrey. But the queen insists that the wolf must be done away with and offers "A hundred golden dragons to the man who brings me its skin." When Robert points out that the wolf has disappeared, Cersei says, "We have a wolf." When he realizes that she means Sansa's wolf, Lady, he shrugs and says, "Have Ser Ilyn see to it."

Ned protests, but Robert remains firm. And when Sansa realizes they mean to put Lady to death, she begs them not to. Arya joins in the pleas to spare Lady, and Ned joins in asking Robert to change his mind. Robert looks at his wife. "'Damn you, Cersei,' he said with loathing." He leaves, and Cersei calls for the executioner to kill the wolf. But Ned steps forward and tells Jory to take the girls to their rooms and to bring him his sword, Ice. Cersei suspects a trick, but Ned says, "She is of the north. She deserves better than a butcher."

He goes to where the wolf has been chained. "She was the smallest of the litter, the prettiest, the most gentle and trusting. She looked at him with bright golden eyes, and he ruffled her thick fur." Afterward he tells Jory to choose some men to take the body to Winterfell and bury her there. "The Lannister woman shall never have this skin."

As he's returning to his room he encounters Sandor Clegane, who has been off with Jaime Lannister searching for Arya and hasn't heard the news. He tells Ned that they haven't found Arya but "We got her little pet." He shoves the burden on the back of his horse to the ground. Ned unwraps it, expecting to find Nymeria, but instead it's "the butcher's boy, Mycah, his body covered in dried blood. He had been cut almost in half from shoulder to waist by some terrible blow struck from above."