4. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 83-111

The Merchant's Man

Quentyn Martell is on a stinking ship, pretending to be the servant of Gerris Drinkwater, who is playing the role of a wineseller. Gerris fits the role of master better: He is tall and handsome, with an arrogant swagger. Prince Quentyn, on the other hand, is plain and stocky. Gerris is attempting to find passage from Volantis to Meereen, in support of Quentyn's plan to win the hand of Daenerys.

They have been in Volantis for twenty days, trying to persuade the captains of various ships to take them, but no one wants to brave the war being waged in Slaver's Bay. Finally, the captain of the ill-smelling Adventure agrees to take them for thrice his usual fee. Quentyn is suspicious of the captain, and they make no commitment. Their voyage started off badly: They lost three of their company aboard the Meadowlark when it was attacked by pirates.

As they walk through the market square in Volantis, they come upon a pair of dwarfs, putting on a show: They are dressed in wooden armor and jousting, one riding a pig, the other a large dog. Gerris wants to stop and watch this amusement, but Quentyn is in no mood. They go to the Merchant's House, where a quartet of sellswords are trying to recruit men for their army, the Windblown, which has been hired by Yunkai.

At their room, they are admitted by the third surviving member of the party, Ser Archibald Yronwood, an enormous man, who has been urging them to make the journey overland. Quentyn is still considering the possibility of the Adventure, but Gerris has turned against it after considering the prospect of having to "endure that stench for months on end." He says a new idea has just occurred to him.

Jon

Jon has summoned Gilly, to whom he says, "I have something hard to tell you." She asks if it's about Mance Rayder, who is threatened with execution, but he says that it's about Mance's son, whom Gilly is nursing. She pleads with Jon not to let Melisandre burn the child, as she has threatened to do in part of her dragon-summoning ritual. He says that the only way to do that is for her to leave with Mance's child, but she must leave her own behind: "Take both boys and the queen's men will ride after you and drag you back. The boy will still burn ... and you with him." He promises that he will find a wet nurse for her son and raise him at Castle Black.

She leaves, and Samwell Tarly appears a few minutes later, carrying a stack of books. Jon shows him a letter that Maester Aemon has drafted for him to King Tommen. He remembers Tommen, heavily padded, as a little boy fighting Bran with wooden swords: "Yet Bran's dead, and pudgy pink-faced Tommen is sitting on the Iron Throne, with a crown nestled among his golden curls." Sam observes that Jon hasn't signed the letter. Jon admits that he is worried about the implications: "No letter will make the Lannisters love us better. Not once they hear that we've been helping Stannis." But in the end he agrees to sign it.

Sam says that he saw Gilly almost in tears as he was arriving, and Jon says he is sending her and "the boy" away -- not indicating that the boy is Mance's son, not hers. He asks Sam about what he has learned from his reading about the Others. Much of it is what they already know: The Others are vulnerable to obsidian, or dragonglass, and their thralls must be burned. "Some accounts speak of giant ice spiders too. I don't know what those are." But he has also read an account that speak of Others being slain by "dragonsteel." Jon wonders if this means Valyrian steel, and Sam says that was his guess, too. He needs more time to research it.

Jon breaks the news that Sam doesn't have more time: He is going with Gilly, along with Maester Aemon. If Melisandre needs royal blood for her spells, Aemon Targaryen fits the profile. Sam is to take Aemon to Oldtown, and either send Gilly on to his family at Horn Hill or Aemon will find a position as servant at the Citadel, where Sam is to study to become Jon's new maester. Sam's various fears come rushing out, but Jon shuts him up, forcing himself to be stern with his friend and with himself: "Kill the boy, Jon thought. The boy in you, and the one in him. Kill the both of them, you bloody bastard."  Sam leaves in distress, and Jon reflects on how difficult it was to follow the advice Maester Aemon had given him: "Kill the boy, Jon Snow. Winter is almost upon us. Kill the boy and let the man be born." He goes outside, where he hears that Stannis has sent a pair of men, Ser Richard Horpe and Ser Justin Massey, south on the kingsroad. He decides to let Stannis have his secrets.

In the morning he sees off Sam, Aemon, and Gilly before dawn. When they have left, he goes to meet with Bedwyck, a small man facetiously known as Giant, whom he has sent for. He tells Giant that he is garrisoning Icemark, one of the castles on the Wall, and putting him in charge of it, particularly to watch for climbers. When Giant asks if he is garrisoning all the castles he says yes, "but for the moment, it will just be Icemark and Greyguard." He intends to put Janos Slynt in charge of Greyguard.

Slynt, whom Jon had commanded to meet him at first light, doesn't show up until half the morning is gone. And when Jon tells him he is putting him at Greyguard, he is surprised, and then angry:

Slynt's face had turned the color of a prune. His meaty jowls began to quiver. "Do you think I cannot see what you are going? Janos Slynt is not a man to be gulled so easily. I was charged with the defense of King's Landing when you were soiling your swaddling clothes. Keep your ruin, bastard."

Jon tells him, "That was a command, not an offer," but Slynt continues to refuse.

Jon bides his time, and the next morning finds Slynt at breakfast with Ser Alliser Thorne. Jon enters accompanied by his supporters, and tells Slynt that he has had Slynt's horse made read for his ride to Greyguard. When Slynt defies him again, Jon asks if he is refusing the order, and Slynt replies, "You can stick your order up your bastard's arse." Jon orders Slynt taken to the Wall and hanged.

Slynt is dragged out, protesting, as the residents of Castle Black, including Stannis, come out to watch. Then Jon calls out, "Stop." He orders Dolorous Edd to fetch a block, and draws Longclaw. When he chops off Slynt's head, he looks at Stannis. "For an instant their eyes met. Then the king nodded and went back inside his tower."

31. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 1062-1097

Tyrion

There is a rattling of keys at his cell door and he thinks that the time has come. But it's Jaime, whom he hasn't seen since his brother returned, gaunt and mutilated. Tyrion's shock at the sight of him turns into "hysterical laughter," for which he apologizes: "Jaime, I am so sorry, but ... gods be good, look at the two of us. Handless and Noseless, the Lannister boys."

After some fraternal banter, Jaime tells him that he's to be beheaded tomorrow. But now it's 3 a.m. and Jaime has come to rescue him, with the help of Varys, who has provided a potion to put the guards to sleep. "Varys has agents in the Free Cities who will see that you do not lack for funds," Jaime says. Cersei will send agents after him, no doubt, and Tyrion should probably take a different name. This makes Tyrion comment that "when the Faceless Men come to kill me, I'll say, 'No, you have the wrong man, I'm a different dwarf with a hideous facial scar.'"

When Tyrion thanks him, Jaime says he owed it to him. He's reluctant to say why, but when Tyrion presses him on the nature of the debt, Jaime confesses that Tyrion's first wife, Tysha, was not a whore. She was in fact the daughter of a crofter. Their father had objected that she was lowborn, and that she had only married Tyrion for his money: "he said that you required a sharp lesson. That you would learn from it, and thank me later...."

Remembering how Tysha was raped by the guards, Tyrion is infuriated by Jaime's "I never knew he would do that. You must believe me." He snarls back, "Why should I believe you about anything, ever? She was my wife!" And he slaps Jaime backhanded, as hard as he can. Cursing Jaime and Cersei and their father, he walks away, but is forced to stop and let Jaime open the gates for him. "Give me the keys and go," he says. "I will find Varys on my own." Then he turns and asks Jaime if he can fight with his left hand. "Rather less well than you," Jaime replies. Tyrion says, "Good. Then we will be well matched if we should ever meet again. The cripple and the dwarf."

But Jaime has one more question for Tyrion: Did he kill Joffrey? His brother's doubt eats at Tyrion, who tells him, "Joffrey would have been a worse king than Aerys ever was. He stole his father's dagger and gave it to a footpad to slit the throat of Brandon Stark, did you know that?" Jaime admits that he had guessed as much, but still wants to know the answer to his question.

"You poor stupid blind crippled fool. Must I spell every little thing out for you? Very well. Cersei is a lying whore, she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know. And I am the monster they all say I am. Yes, I killed your vile son."

Jaime turns and walks away, and Tyrion goes to find Varys. When he does, he tells the eunuch he should kill him for not helping him before the trial, but Varys points out that he would never find his way out of the tunnels. So Tyrion asks what has become of Sansa, and Varys is forced to confess that he has found no trace of her, and that Ser Dontos has disappeared as well. (Given Varys's powers as a spy, it's more likely that he is in on Littlefinger's plot.)

Tyrion must descend deeper into the dungeons, Varys tells him., and Tyrion thinks, "I arrived here a King's Hand, riding through the gates at the head of my own sworn me, ... and I leave like a rat scuttling through the dark, holding hands with a spider." Finally they reach a place with a mosaic of a three-headed dragon on the floor, and Tyrion recalls that Shae had described it to him once. They are, he realizes, under the Tower of the Hand. He sees a ladder, and realizes that it must lead to the Hand's bedroom. He insists on knowing the way, and Varys reluctantly tells him. Tyrion begins to climb.

When he reaches the top, he can hear the guards talking about his coming execution, and realizes how Varys's "little birds" gain their information. Finally he reaches the entrance to the Hand's chamber and discovers that it is through the fireplace. As he enters the room, a woman calls out, "M'lord?" It is Shae, who begins to apologize when she sees him: "I never meant those things I said, the queen made me. Please. Your father frightens me so." She is wearing his father's chain of office, the linked golden hands. He asks her whether she ever really enjoyed being with him, and when she answers, "More than anything ... my giant of Lannister," he thinks, "That was the worst thing you could have said, sweetling." He strangles her with the chain.

Then he takes Lord Tywin's dagger from the bedside table and a crossbow that was hanging on the wall. He slips into the hallway and goes to the privy, where he knows his father must be. Tywin betrays no surprise or fear when Tyrion opens the door, but tries to persuade him to put down the crossbow and go with him to his chambers, where he will arrange for Tyrion to take the black instead of being executed. Tyrion declines, but asks his father what he did with Tysha.

Tywin says he doesn't really know. "I suppose the steward sent her on her way. I never thought to ask." Tyrion asks where that would be, and when his father answers, "Wherever whores go," he fires the crossbow. At first incredulous that Tyrion has shot him, Tywin gasps, "You ... you are no ... no son of mine."

"Now that's where you're wrong, Father. Why, I believe I'm you writ small. Do me a kindness now, and die quickly. I have a ship to catch."

Samwell

Stannis is losing patience with the process of choosing a Lord Commander. "I have captives to dispose of, a realm to order, a war to fight," he tells the assembled Night's Watch. Janos Slynt tries to wheedle Stannis into endorsing his candidacy, but Stannis is having none of it, recalling Slynt's reputation for corruption. But what Stannis really wants is for the black brothers to cede their control of the Gift to him, and they are shocked by the request. And further shocked when he says he wants all of the abandoned castles along the Wall for his garrisons, leaving them only Eastwatch, Castle Black, and the Shadow Tower. "Garrison them as you always have, but I must take the others for my garrisons if we are to hold the Wall."

Melisandre proclaims that Stannis is the return of Azor Ahai, "the warrior of fire. In him the prophecies are fulfilled. The red comet blazed across the sky to herald his coming, and he bears Lightbringer, the red sword of heroes." Sam notices that Stannis looks "desperately uncomfortable" with this proclamation, but he doesn't contradict it. Then he dismisses the brothers, all except for Maester Aemon and Sam.

As uneasy as Sam usually is in Stannis's presence, he becomes more so when Stannis singles him out as "the one that killed the creature in the snow," and Melisandre calls him "Sam the Slayer." When Sam confirms that the dagger that killed the Other was dragonglass, Stannis says, "On Dragonstone, where I had my seat, there is much of this obsidian to be seen in the old tunnels beneath the mountain." He has ordered his castellan to begin mining it. Sam mentions that the dragonglass shattered when he tried to use it on the wights, and Melisandre says, "Necromancy animates these wights, yet they are still only dead flesh. Steel and fire will serve for them. The ones you call the Others are something more." Stannis calls them "Demons made of snow and ice and cold.... the ancient enemy."

Stannis also asks about their passage through the Black Gate at the Nightfort, which he plans to make his seat. Sam tells him that it would only open for a member of the Night's Watch, and Stannis says Sam will show him the gate. Sam is not even certain that it's still there. Then Maester Aemon asks if he can see the sword Lightbringer, with Sam serving as his eyes. Stannis agrees.

"It glows," said Sam in a hushed voice. "As if it were on fire. There are no flames, but the steel is yellow and red and orange, all flashing and glimmering, like sunshine on water, but prettier. I wish you could see it, Maester."

The maester assures Sam that he has seen it as "A sword full of sunlight." When Stannis sheathes it, it is as if the room grows dark, even though the sun is shining through the windows.

When Sam and Maester Aemon return to the maester's quarters, Aemon comments that he felt no heat from the sword. Sam says, "The air around it was shimmering, the way it does above a hot brazier." But the scabbard is wood and leather, the maester says, having heard it when the sword was drawn, and Sam confirms that it wasn't burnt or blackened. When the maester tells Sam he has no need of him until the time for voting, Sam brings up the danger of Janos Slynt's winning. Maester Aemon says that his position prevents him from favoring one contender over another, but he hints that Sam is under no such obligation. So Sam summons up his reserve of bravery and decides to try to sway the voting.

He goes first to Cotter Pyke, because he is "the scarier of the two commanders," and Sam wants to face him before his courage weakens. Pyke thinks Sam is doing the maester's bidding, and Sam doesn't disabuse him of the notion, but he insists that there's no way he will give up his candidacy in favor of Ser Denys Mallister, though he doesn't really want the job. "I fight best with a deck beneath me, not a horse, and Castle Black is too far from the sea. But I'll be buggered with a red-hot sword before I turn the Night's Watch over to that preening eagle from the Shadow Tower."

So Sam goes to Ser Denys, who is courtly and elegant, and also falls under the impression that Sam is speaking for Maester Aemon. But he also refuses to consider his chief rival: "No, loath as I am to disappoint Maester Aemon, I could not in honor stand aside for Pyke of Eastwatch," whom he regards as ill-bred. As for the other candidates, he also considers them inferior, describing Janos Slynt as "venal and corrupt."

And then Sam introduces another possibility: "Lord Commander Mormont trusted him. So did Donal Noye and Qhorin Halfhand. Though he's not as highly born as you, he comes from old blood. He was castle-born and castle-raised, and he learned sword and lance from a knight and letters from a maester of the Citadel. His father was a lord, and his brother a king." Ser Denys recognizes that Sam is talking about Jon Snow, and says, "He is very young, but ... mayhaps." And then Sam slips in a lie: If they don't reach a decision tonight, he says, Stannis will name Cotter Pyke.

When he leaves Ser Denys, Sam is struck by the audacity of what he has just done, and has a moment of terror. But then he realizes how foolish his fear is: "How could he be so frightened of Cotter Pyke and Ser Denys Mallister, when he had seen a raven eating Small Paul's face?" So he returns to Pyke and drops the hint about voting for Jon, and the lie that Stannis plans to name Ser Denys if the vote doesn't succeed.

Jon

Stannis's offer to make him Lord of Winterfell has kept him awake all night, and now he gets a clout on the head from the trainee with whom he is sparring. It makes him remember when he was a little boy sparring with Robb. They had pretended to be famous heroes, but one time Jon had proclaimed himself Lord of Winterfell, and Robb replied, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell." The memory so enrages him suddenly that he goes berserk on his opponent and has to be pulled off of him by two other trainees.

He comes to his senses and apologizes, then retreats to the armory by himself. But there he remembers Lady Catelyn's habitual coldness toward him. He tries to soak away the physical pain in a hot stone tub, but that reminds him of the hot pools in the godswood at Winterfell.

The weirwood was the heart of Winterfell, Lord Eddard always said ... but to save the castle, Jon would have to tear that heart up by its ancient roots, and feed it to the red woman's hungry fire god. I have no right, he thought. Winterfell belongs to the old gods.

And then he hears voices: Alliser Thorne and Bowen Marsh, discussing with Othell Yarwyck whom Tywin Lannister would prefer as Lord Commander, with Thorne putting in his plea for Slynt. He sits up in the bath, alerting them to his presence, then dries, dresses, and leaves. He realizes that the possibility is strong that Thorne will persuade others to decide for Slynt, "And what does that leave me, if not Winterfell?" He sits down to ponder his dilemma, realizing how deeply he had always wanted Winterfell, and imagining himself with Val, raising Mance's son and Gilly's there.

And then he senses a hunger: "It was food he needed, prey, a red deer that stank of fear or a great elk proud and defiant. He needed to kill and fill his belly with fresh meat and hot dark blood. His mouth began to water with the thought." Suddenly he realizes what is happening, as Ghost appears out of the woods, "leaner than he had been, but bigger as well," and races toward him. "When he reached Jon he leapt,and they wrestled amidst brown grass and long shadows as the stars came out above them."

He looks into the direwolf's eyes, and finds the answer to his dilemma.

He takes Ghost with him to the hall, thinking that they will but eat, but he finds the turmoil of electioneering going on instead. "His brothers crowded the benches and the tables, but more were standing and shouting than were sitting, and no one was eating. There was no food." He is puzzled, but then Pyp spots him and ghost, and gives out a shrill whistle. The hall grows quiet as Jon and the wolf enter.

Thorne breaks the silence: "The turncloak graces us with his presence at last." And Slynt says, "Look! The beast that tore the life from Halfhand. A warg walks among us, brothers, A WARG! This ... this creature is not fit to lead us!  This beastling is not fit to live!" Ghost bares his teeth, but Jon just asks what's going on. Maester Aemon is the one who tells him that his name has been put forth for Lord Commander."

Jon thinks it's a joke, and asks who nominated him. Dolorous Edd confesses to having done it. But Slynt sputters more of his outrage as both Cotter Pyke and Ser Denys Mallister speak up to say that Jon's candidacy is legitimate. Ser Alliser jumps on a table and calls for quiet, saying that Stannis has posted men at the doors to keep them there until they choose. He says that Othell Yarwyck, whom he and Bowen Marsh had been lobbying to vote for Slynt earlier, has something to say.

Yarwyck announces that he is withdrawing his candidacy, and was going to say they should vote for Slynt, which gets a hearty endorsement on Thorne's part. But now, he says, "I don't recall why I thought Slynt would be such a good choice," especially since Stannis had expressed his distaste for him. So he shrugs and says, "Pick who you want, just so it's not me." Slynt turns purple.

There is a call for the kettle, a big black pot into which the voting tokens are deposited by the voters. Sam and Clydas haul it out, but when the lid is removed a huge raven flies out of it. Sam shouts, "I know that bird! That's Lord Mormont's raven!" The raven flies to the table near Jon and caws, "Snow, snow, snow," then perches on Jon's shoulder. Ser Alliser speaks up to claim that Sam had trained the raven to do that trick. "They all say snow, go up to the rookery and her for yourselves. Mormont's bird had more words than that." Whereupon the raven asks Jon for corn, and when it doesn't get any, says "Kettle? Kettle? Kettle?"

The voting takes place, and when the results are announce, Jon is surrounded by friends. Cotter Pyke says, "if you muck this up, I'm going to rip your liver out and eat it with onions." Ser Denys says, more graciously, "Do not make me die regretful. Your uncle was a great man. Your lord father and his father as well. I shall expect full as much of you." The raven screams "Supper," and it is brought in. Pyp asks Sam how he got the raven to do the trick, and Sam says he didn't do it. "When it flew out of the kettle I almost wet myself."

Jon has a swallow of wine. "But only one. The Wall was his, the night was dark, and he had a king to face."

29. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 996-1026

Jaime

King Tommen is signing official documents as his council watches. Jaime is bored and sore, he has tried to use his left hand in a sparring match with Ser Addam Marbrand and got soundly beaten. Now he worries that Ser Addam will get drunk and spill the news that he beat the Kingslayer soundly in three matches.


Most of the papers Tommen is signing have to do with the aftermath of the death of Robb Stark: retribution against the Tullys, rewards for the Boltons, pardons for the Westerlings. Finally, Jaime leaves the signings in the supervision of his uncle, Kevan. Outside, he meets Steelshanks Walton who is accompanying "a skinny hollow-eyed girl wrapped in a heavy cloak." She greets him and says that perhaps he doesn't remember him, but they met "at Winterfell when King Robert came to visit my father Lord Eddard.... I'm Arya Stark."


It seems to Jaime that this girl is much older than the Arya Stark he met, but he doesn't comment on it. He says he hears that she is to be married, and she says her husband-to-be is Lord Bolton's son, who used to be Ramsay Snow, but Tommen has just signed a paper legitimizing him as a Bolton. As she departs, he wonders if she looks much like the real Arya who "was buried in some unmarked grave in Flea Bottom in all likelihood. With her brothers dead, and both parents, who would dare name this one a fraud?"


He passes the place where Gregor Clegane killed a stableboy in his duel with Prince Oberyn, and thinks that Clegane is paying the price for it, howling in agony as his wounds are being treated. Grand Maester Pycelle can't identify the poison Oberyn must have tipped his spear with when he wounded the Mountain. Tywin has ordered Pycelle to cure him, whatever it takes. He has promised Prince Doran of Dorne that Gregor will die, "But it must be seen to be the sword of the King's Justice that slays him, not a poisoned spear." News has also come from Dragonstone that Stannis has left the island with only a token guard, and that the Lyseni ships have left with most of Stannis's army. Tywin suspects that they are headed for Storm's End to try to rally support there, so he needs to keep the Dornishmen on his side.


Jaime goes to his quarters, where he finds Cersei waiting. She is upset because Tywin has dismissed her from the council and wants to send her to Casterly Rock, far away from Tommen, who is now to be married to Margaery. Jaime has no problem with the marriage: "Tommen's been lonely since Myrcella went to Dorne. He likes having Margaery and her ladies about." Cersei reminds him that Tommen is his son, too, and wants Jaime's support. He says he has always supported her, to the extent that he tried to kill Bran Stark. She replies that she didn't tell Jaime to throw Bran from the window. "If you'd gone hunting as I begged you, nothing would have happened. But no, you had to have me, you could not wait until we returned to the city."


Jaime takes this opportunity to ask Cersei if she was the one who sent the assassin to Bran's room, but she denies it. She says that even Robert Baratheon thought that Bran's death "would have been for the best. 'We kill our horses when they break a leg, and our dogs when they go blind, but we are too weak to give the same mercy to crippled children,' he told me." Her own children were present when he said it, she remembers, and jokes, "Perhaps Myrcella sent this man with the dagger, do you think so?" Jaime suddenly has the same realization that Tyrion had had: "Not Myrcella. Joffrey."


Cersei is puzzled, but Jaime explains that Joffrey had always wanted approbation from the man he thought was his father. "Tyrion almost died because of this bloody dagger," Jaime says. Perhaps he killed Joffrey to get even for that. But Cersei doesn't care why Tyrion killed Joffrey. The fact is, he's dead, and her daughter is in Dorne. "Tommen's all I have left. You mustn't let Father take him from me." She begs him to intercede with Tywin, telling him, "unless you stop him, Father is going to force me to wed again!"


Jaime's answer to this is to suggest she go tell their father that the only person she wants to be with is Jaime. She rejects this as insane: "Would you have us ripped apart, as Mother did that time she caught us playing?" The Targaryens married brothers and sisters, he insists, why not the Lannisters?  "We are not Targaryens!" she yells at him, and he tells her to quiet down. She insists that they can still do it, and begins to try to untie his breeches, but he stops her: not in the Lord Commander's chambers, he says, even though, as she points out, they did it in the sept.


She turns on him when he pushes her away, impugning his masculinity and saying, "You lacked the courage to avenge Joffrey, why would I think that you'd protect Tommen?" What if Tyrion had killed all three of their children? Would he have acted then? His reply only makes her more angry: "Tyrion is not going to harm Tommen or Myrcella. I am still not certain he killed Joffrey." She calls him a "great golden fool" and suggests that Ser Ilyn should give him Tyrion's head as a keepsake.


She should go, he says; she's making him angry. And she retorts, "Oh, an angry cripple. How terrifying." It's too bad that their father never had a real son: "I could have been the heir he wanted, but I lacked the cock." And she mocks his own, hanging from his breeches. When she has gone, he thinks, "I've lost a hand, a father, a son, a sister, and a lover, and soon enough I will lose a brother. And yet they keep telling me House Lannister won this war."


He sends for Ser Loras Tyrell and Brienne. Loras admits that, after talking with her, that Renly's death may have happened as she says. He dismisses Loras and asks Brienne to stay. He compliments her dress, saying the blue matches her eyes and thinking, "She does have astonishing eyes." She returns the compliment about his white cloak. Then he tells her about the false Arya Stark being sent to wed Ramsay Bolton, saying he wanted to prevent her from "galloping off to rescue her." She worries about what will happen when Bolton discovers the truth, but he thinks he already knows: "Lannisters lie, remember? It makes no matter, this girl serves his purpose just as well" since all the rest of her family is dead except for Sansa, who has vanished.


Brienne says she doesn't believe that Sansa killed Joffrey, and from Jaime's responses she realizes that he doubts that Tyrion did it either. He smiles. "See, wench? We know each other too well. Tyrion's wanted to be me since he took his first step, but he'd never follow me in kingslaying." He
thinks Sansa did it and Tyrion is protecting her. When she insists on Sansa's innocence, he says, "There's the stubborn stupid wench that I remember." As always, she starts to correct him: "My name is...." "Brienne of Tarth," he finishes for her, and then says he has a gift for her.


It is the magnificent sword of Valyrian steel. He order her to take it, and to call it Oathkeeper. But, he adds, it "comes with a price." He wants her to find Sansa and keep her safe. "How else are the two of us going to make good our stupid vows to your precious Lady Catelyn?" She stammers in surprise, having expected anything but this from Jaime, "I ... I though...."

"I know what you thought." Suddenly Jaime was sick of the sight of her. She bleats like a bloody sheep. "When Ned Stark died, his greatsword was given to the King's Justice," he told her. "But my father felt that such a fine blade was wasted on a mere headsman. He gave Ser Ilyn a new sword, and had Ice melted down and reforged. There was enough metal for two new blades. You're holding one. So you'll be defending Ned Stark's daughter with Ned Stark's own steel, if that makes any difference to you." 

She starts to apologize, but he cuts her off and tells her to do whatever she wants. "I don't want to look at you anymore." She says, "Jaime...." But he cuts her off: "'Kingslayer,' he reminded her." She persists, trying to ask why he would protect someone who killed Joffrey. He thinks, "Because Joff was no more to me than a squirt of seed in Cersei's cunt. And because he deserved to die." But he says, "Sansa Stark is my last chance for honor," and dismisses her.


When she is gone, he opens the White Book and brings his entry up to date, including the loss of his hand and his rescue by Brienne.


Jon


Jon is in a literal cage, buffeted by winds, suspended over nothingness, after four days "in a cell five by five by five, too low for him to stand, too tight for him to stretch out on his back." Ser Alliser had told him he would die there in one of the rooms carved out of the base of the Wall and originally designed to store food. But Maester Aemon had informed Janos Slynt that he couldn't hang Jon, and had written to Cotter Pyke, who testified that Jon wasn't a turncloak. So he and Alliser Thorne have decided to send Jon to parley with Mance Rayder, who has requested the meeting.


Jon realizes that he has no choice: Rayder is likely to kill him, but so are Thorne and Slynt if he refuses the assignment. Jon asks what terms they are attempting to reach with Rayder, but Janos Slynt says, "Janos Slynt does not make terms with lawless savages, Lord Snow. No, he does not." Ser Alliser is more direct: "We're not sending you to talk with Mance Rayder.... We're sending you to kill him." So now, as the cage is being lowered, Jon realizes, "With Maester Aemon insisting on Jon's innocence, Lord Janos had not dared to leave him in the ice to die." But he knows that even if he kills Mance Rayder, or just attempts to kill him, the others of the free folk would take his own life.


He walks through the corpses at the foot of the Wall toward the camp, and sees a rider coming out to meet him. It is Tormund, who offers him a ride. Jon says he'd rather walk, and as they go Tormund congratulates him on the fight the Watch had put up. He asks about Jon's limp, and Jon tells him that it was from one of Ygritte's arrows. Tormund drinks from his waterskin to Ygritte's memory, which he offers to Jon, who swallows the fiery mead it contains and repeats Tormund's tribute: "To Ygritte, kissed by fire!" He thinks of Ygritte, "You died brave in battle, storming the castle of a foe. I'm going to die a turncloak and a killer."


Rayder is waiting outside his tent, and says, "You must be very brave or very stupid, Jon Snow, ... to come back to us wearing a black cloak." Harma Dogshead is with him and says they should kill him and send his body back up and ask for someone else. The skinchanger adds that he "can soar above the Wall, and see with eagle eyes," which, as Rayder says, means that they know how undermanned and ill-provided the Watch is. He tells Jon to come inside the tent and for everyone else to remain outside.


Dalla is lying under a pile of furs inside, attended by Val. Jon tells her he was sorry when Jarl fell from the Wall, and she replies, "He always climbed too fast." Mance says they will stay, as they know what he has to say. Jon realizes that he will have to kill him in front of them, just as Mance and Dalla's child is about to be born. Rayder is wearing his sword, but no armor, and Jon looks around at the other weapons stored there.


Then he spots "A warhorn, a great bloody warhorn." And Rayder confirms that it's "The Horn of Winter, that Joramun once blew to wake giants from the earth." He has had it all along. Jon asks, "If this horn is all the songs say, why not just sound it and be done?" It is Dalla who replies:

"We free folk know things you kneelers have forgotten. Sometimes the short road is not the safest, Jon Snow. The Horned Lord once said that sorcery is a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it."

And Rayder says that he had hoped not to use it, that his attacks would succeed. But even now, he says, "The truth is, you are too few and we are too many." He could continue the fight and eventually prevail, attacking on all fronts, he says, "but you'd bleed me, and my people have bled enough." But now there's something else to be considered: "You saw the Fist of the First Men. You know what happened there. You know what we are facing." The Others are growing stronger. He has brought his people to the Wall ostensibly to attack it, but in fact, "I've come with my tail between my legs to hide behind your Wall." If he sounds the Horn of Winter, the Wall may fall, and plenty of his followers want him to do that. But if the Wall falls, Dalla says, "what will stop the Others?"


So Mance Rayder asks the Night's Watch to open the gate and let them settle on the other side of the Wall. "If they do, I will give them the horn, and the Wall will stand until the end of days." Jon ponders the consequences of such a massive influx of people into the Seven Kingdoms and asks, "If we let your people pass, are you strong enough to to make them keep the king's peace and obey the laws?" But Rayder says they will make their own laws. "We will not kneel to you."

Jon knows that there is no way to persuade Slynt and Thorne to accept the offer. Rayder says that if it's refused, Tormund "will sound the Horn of Winter three days hence, at dawn." Jon also knows that if he returns without killing Rayder, Slynt and Thorn will take it as proof that he is a turncloak. He is pondering the options, which include destroying the horn here and now, when he hears the sound of another horn. He and Rayder go outside to see what it means.

Something is coming from the east. Jon asks if it's the Others, but Mance says they never come during daylight. He calls for his horse and his armor, and Varamyr the skinchanger summons up second sight to report that an army is approaching: "Men. Men on horses. Men in steel and men in black." Mance turns angrily to Jon, who vows that he has no idea what is happening. All around them people are preparing to fight. Jon reaches for Longclaw and then sees rangers emerging from the woods. "They wore black mail, black halfhelms, and black cloaks." They begin their attack on the wildling camp, as Jon assures Mance that he had no knowledge of it.

Mance admits that Jon may be telling the truth: "Those look like Eastwatch men. Sailors on horses." And then a scout rides in to tell him that more, "a host of iron men," are arriving.  Mance leaves Varamyr to look after Dalla and to keep an eye on Jon. "The skinchanger was a head shorter than Jon, slumped and soft, but that shadowcat could disembowel him with one paw." It blocks Jon's way into the tent, where the Horn of Winter is.

But suddenly the skinchanger is screaming in agony, and Jon looks up and sees his eagle on fire. The shadowcat runs away, and Varamyr's wolves are fighting each other. Val runs from the tent to see what has happened, and asks where Mance has gone. Dalla has gone into labor, she says. There are war trumpets all around, and Jon knows that the wildlings have only horns, not trumpets. An army is emerging from all sides, and Jon sends Val back into the tent to care for Dalla.

As more and more men appear, "not only knights now but freeriders and mounted bowmen and men-at-arms in jacks and kettle helms," Jon tries to make out the banners they are carrying. Many of them are "yellow banners with a red device," and he doesn't recognize the arms. He sees Mance's horse on her hind legs as a spear penetrates her chest, and Mance disappears from sight. Someone is waving Harma's head on a pole. Then Jon begins to be able to make out the banners, "a yellow one with long pointed tongues that showed a flaming heart, and another like a sheet of beaten gold, with a black stag prancing and rippling in the wind."

For a moment Jon thinks of Robert Baratheon, but then he hears the name the soldiers are crying: "Stannis! Stannis! STANNIS!"

27. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 927-959

Sansa

She is on board the Merling King, and has "been sick for most of the voyage ... sick with terror, sick with fever, or seasick." She has dreamed of Joffrey clawing at his throat, and of Tyrion, who, she tells Littlefinger, didn't kill Joffrey. Littlefinger says that he may not have killed Joffrey, but Tyrion had been married before and "when he grew bored with her, he made a gift of her to his father's guardsmen."

They near the Fingers, and Littlefinger tells her they will be going ashore. The ship is going on to Braavos, and they will stay at Littlefinger's "ancestral home" before leaving for the Eyrie, where he is to marry Lysa Arryn. This is all news to Sansa, who had hoped that she was going to Winterfell. But he reminds her that Winterfell has been destroyed and that she has no family left.

Sansa barely knows her aunt Lysa, but she assumes that she will treat her kindly in memory of Catelyn. "And the Vale of Arryn was beautiful, all the songs said so. Perhaps it would not be so terrible to stay here for a while." But the tower and the bleak and rocky setting where they land for their stay is not pleasant, as Littlefinger acknowledges when one of the servants tells him about their dinner: "Ah, cold salt mutton. I must be home. When I break my fast on gulls' eggs and seaweed soup, I'll be certain of it."

They make their way across a strand that is slick with seaweed and covered with sheep droppings. When they are settled, he tells her that she must conceal her identity: "If Sansa Stark should be seen in the Vale, the eunuch will know within a moon's turn, and that would create unfortunate ... complications." So she must pretend to be his illegitimate daughter, Alayne Stone, whose "mother was a gentlewoman of Braavos, daughter of a merchant prince." Sansa is embarrassed at being thought a bastard, but agrees to go along with it as a kind of game.

Sansa had decided that Ser Dontos must have killed Joffrey, but Littlefinger is amused at the idea. "No, all Dontos had to do was lead you from the castle ... and make certain you wore your silver hair net." He also reveals that he has operatives at work in the castle, and calls over his servant, an old man named Oswell. He is the father of three sons, he says, and all of a sudden Sansa realizes that he's a Kettleblack. Tyrion had dismissed Cersei's guards and sent Bronn to hire sellswords. When Littlefinger got word of it, he introduced Bronn to the Kettleblack brothers.

Sansa remembers that Ser Osmund had been near Joffrey that night, and jumps to a conclusion: "So one of the Kettleblacks put the poison in Joff's cup?" But Littlefinger says they are too untrustworthy to enlist in a plot. Sansa is stymied in her attempts to identify the poisoner, until Littlefinger says, "I will wager that at some point during the evening someone told you that your hair net was crooked and straightened it for you." The Queen of Thorns, Sansa remembers in surprise. "You cannot mean ... she wanted to take me to Highgarden, to marry me to her grandson...."

Willas Tyrell would have bored Sansa, Littlefinger says. When he went to Highgarden to negotiate the marriage of Margaery and Joffrey, the Queen of Thorns kept asking questions about the king. Littlefinger praised Joffrey, but let his servants tell the Tyrells' servants the truth about him. He also planted the idea of Loras Tyrell's joining the Kingsguard, which appealed to Mace Tyrell. "Lady Olenna was not about to let Joff harm her precious darling granddaughter," but her son wanted Margaery to marry a king. The king didn't have to be Joffrey, however. "We shall have another wedding soon, wait and see. Margaery will marry Tommen."

The intricacy of the plot astonishes Sansa, but she's grateful to be away from King's Landing. Finally, after eight days, Lysa arrives with her retinue, which includes a septon "and a handsome singer with a wisp of a mustache and long sandy curls" -- Marillion, who had come to the Eyrie with Tyrion and stayed on. Sansa is surprised at how homely Lysa is, and how much older than Catelyn she looks. Sansa curtsies deeply when she is presented to her, but "Lysa Arryn did not seem greatly pleased to see her," and is put out to learn that she's Littlefinger's bastard. But uppermost in her mind is marrying him, so she arranges for the wedding to take place immediately.

Lysa is so eager to be bedded by Littlefinger that she warns him, "after all these years of silence and whisperings, I mean to scream when you love me. I am going to scream so loud they'll hear me in the Eyrie!" And so she does. Sansa goes outside to escape the noises from the bridal chamber, and when she returns everyone in the tower is drunk, including Marillion, who introduces himself and then makes a serious pass at her. She fends him off as well as she can, but to no avail. She is in serious difficulty when Ser Lothar Brune, who had come to the tower with Littlefinger, appears and draws a dagger, telling Marillion to go, and giving him a cut to make the point. He tells her, "Lord Petyr said watch out for you."

When she heard Lothar's voice, Sansa had at first thought it was Sandor Clegane's. That night, she sleeps badly and dreams of her wedding night, in which Tyrion and the Hound are merged into a single person. The next morning, she is summoned to speak with her aunt -- Littlefinger has told Lysa who Sansa really is. Lysa tells her she looks like Catelyn, but when Sansa thanks her she is informed that it wasn't a compliment. "If truth be told, you look too much like Catelyn. Something must be done. We shall darken your hair before we bring you back to the Eyrie, I think."

Then Lysa tells her that she loathed Jon Arryn and was always in love with Littlefinger, but her father forbade his marrying her. She asks about her marriage to Tyrion and is glad to hear that it was never consummated. She assures Sansa that Tyrion will soon be dead and asks, "How would you like to marry your cousin, the Lord Robert." Sansa knows that Robert is a sickly boy, but politely says, "I ... can scarcely wait to meet him, my lady. But he is still a child, is he not."

Lysa says that Robert "is eight. And not robust." But she adds, "The seed is strong, my lord husband said before he died. His last words.... I see no reason why you should not be wed as soon as we know that your Lannister husband is dead. A secret wedding, to be sure." He likes to be read to, and to play games, "but you must always let him win."

Jon

They have relocated to the top of the Wall, leaving Castle Black to Maester Aemon and a handful of old or ill men unfit for the work of defense. Jon catches a few hours rest when he can in the warming shed.  The wildlings are regrouping and rebuilding, in the meantime firing arrows when they can. The Watch has a telescope, and Jon can identify some of the people he had known, including Dalla, who is immensely pregnant.

The wildlings are building a turtle, a kind of upside-down ship covered with mammoth hide, so they can approach the Wall. The Watch has run out of oil and pitch, and their supply of arrows is running low as well. There are no fletchers to make any more, and when Jon sent to Mole Town for help, the news came back that the village had been deserted. Jon wonders if it is time for them to leave as well.

Word comes that the turtle is on the move, and Jon has the warhorn blown to alert everyone. If the turtle manages to breach the gate, it will come down to hand-to-hand combat in the narrow tunnel far below. Jon knows that the men are waiting for his orders, and he sends some to the catapults and the scorpions, and tells the rest to ready their bows with fire arrows, though he knows they won't be much use against the turtle. Sure enough, their fire gutters out in the wet mammoth hide. One of the trebuchets is still out of order, and the wildlings have devised a route out of reach of the working one.

The only thing they can do now is try to crush the turtle when it arrives at the Wall. They have prepared barrels full of rocks and water which has frozen solid overnight. They roll them to the edge of the Wall and line them up above the gate. Jon leans out so far over the edge that he almost tips over, but Pyp catches him in time. Finally, they roll the barrel over, hear it bounce off the side of the Wall and then crash into the turtle. The men inside the turtle begin to scatter. They roll the next one over. "By the time they were done, the front of Mance's turtle was a crushed and splintered ruin, and wildlings were spilling out the other end and scrambling for their camp." They were safe for another day.

Jon goes down to Castle Black to get some sleep, and when he wakes four men are standing over him with a lantern. They order him to get up and go with them. They are dressed in the black of the Night's Watch, so he obeys, and when they get to the Lord Commander's solar he finds Maester Aemon with Ser Alliser Thorne and some other brothers. Thorne says, "Here's the turncloak now, my lord. Ned Stark's bastard, of Winterfell."

Jon protests that he is no turncloak, but the man seated behind the Old Bear's table says, "We shall see." When Thorne says, "Lord Snow, he likes to call himself," Jon protests that it was Thorne who started calling him that. He remembers that Mormont had sent Thorne to Eastwatch-by-the-Sea, so he assumes that the others are from that castle and asks how many men they have brought to defend the Wall.

"It's me who'll ask the questions," the jowly man replied. "You've been charged with oathbreaking, cowardice, and desertion, Jon Snow. Do you deny that you abandoned your brothers to die on the Fist of the First Men and joined the wildling Mance Rayder, this self-styled King-beyond-the-Wall?"

Maester Aemon speaks up to say that he and Donal Noye had heard Jon's story and were satisfied that his explanations were true, but the man behind the table insists on hearing them for himself. So Jon begins his story of the mission with Qhorin Halfhand again, only to be interrupted by mockery from Ser Alliser Thorne. When Jon talks back to Thorne's insults, the man behind the desk tells him he is to address Thorne as ser, and himself as "m'lord." He is Janos Slynt, he tells Jon, and he is commander at Castle Black until Bowen  Marsh returns. He adds, "I will not suffer to hear an anointed knight like the good Ser Alliser mocked by a traitor's bastard." And then he asks Jon if he denies having slept with a wildling woman.

Jon will not dishonor the memory of Ygritte by denying it, and protests when Ser Alliser calls her an "unwashed whore." When Slynt says, "You admit to being an oathbreaker, then," Jon can only admit that he had broken his vows with Ygritte, as half of the Watch had done with the whores of Mole's Town. And he continues to protest that he never turned his cloak and had escaped the wildlings at the first opportunity.

Slynt then orders "the other prisoner" to be brought in. Jon doesn't recognize him at first, but it's Rattleshirt, who says that Jon is the one who killed Qhorin Halfhand. Slynt asks Jon if he is going to claim that Halfhand ordered Jon to kill him, and Jon can only reply, "He told me to do whatever they asked of me." Slynt and Thorne express their contempt for his answer, and they reject his further account of the situation in which he and Halfhand had found themselves. To prove his loyalty, Jon removes the glove and displays the hand he burned saving Mormont from the wight.

Septon Cellador now adds to the case against Jon by mentioning that he "refused to say his vows properly in the sept" but instead took them "before a heart tree. His father's gods, he said, but they are wildling gods as well." But Maester Aemon steps up to defend Jon:

"My lords, when Donal Noye was slain, it was this young man Jon Snow who took the Wall and held it, against all the fury of the north. He has proved himself valiant, loyal, and resourceful. Were it not for him, you would have found Mance Rayder sitting here when you arrived, Lord Slynt." 

But Slynt will have none of it. Jon's father died a traitor, and Jon will be hanged. He orders him taken to an ice cell. But when Ser Alliser seizes him, Jon grabs him by the throat and almost throttles him before the others can intervene. Thorne says, "You see for yourselves, brothers. The boy is a wildling."

3. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 93-141

Tyrion

Tyrion is entertaining Janos Slynt, plying the butcher's son-turned-knight with food and wine -- especially wine. And when Slynt addresses him as "Lord Tyrion," he reminds him, "I'm not a lord, as you are. A simple Tyrion will suffice for me, Lord Janos." He is ostensibly discussing whom to name as Slynt's successor as Commander of the City Watch. Slynt's candidate is Allar Deem, his "right arm." Tyrion says that he had been leaning more toward Ser Jacelyn Bywater, who isn't on Slynt's list of recommended candidates. Slynt objects that Bywater "thinks overmuch of himself and his honor." Tyrion observes, however, that Deem is unpopular because of an incident that took place in a brothel, in which he not only killed a baby but also the mother who has trying to protect the child. Slynt thinks this shows Deem's loyalty: "Doing for a babe, and her still on the tit, that takes a certain sort. Not every man'd do it. Even if it was only some whore and her whelp."

The phrase "only some whore" sticks with Tyrion, who thinks of Shae and of the woman he married years ago. But when he asks who commissioned the killing of the infant, Slynt gets wise to what Tyrion is trying to find out. "Never a question, and never a word afterward, not with me," Slynt replies. So Tyrion shifts tactics. Slynt will be a hard man to replace, he says to him, just as Jeor Mormont is going to have a hard time grooming a replacement for his job as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. "He'd sleep easier if he had a man like you, I imagine. Or the valiant Allar Deem."

Slynt doesn't quite follow, but he allows that there's a small chance that he would ever take a job like Mormont's. Tyrion persists: You never know what turns you'll take in life, just as Eddard Stark surely never imagined he'd wind up being beheaded "on the steps of Baelor's Sept." This amuses Slynt, especially when Tyrion adds, "A pity I wasn't here to see it. They say even Varys was surprised." It especially amuses Slynt to have outwitted Varys, the master of covert intelligence. Tyrion continues that Varys thought he had persuaded Cersei to grant a pardon on the condition that Eddard be allowed to join the Night's Watch.

Well, Slynt says, the decision was the king's.  Who is thirteen years old, Tyrion observes. But he's still the king, Slynt persists, "The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms." Tyrion replies, "Well, one or two of them, at least," and then asks to see the miniature spear, tipped in red, that fastens Slynt's cloak. When Slynt hands it over, Tyrion observes that the workmanship is inferior, and then asks, "Tell me, my lord, did you drive the spear into the man's back yourself, or did you only give the command."

Slynt objects: Eddard Stark was a traitor who had tried to buy his services in a revolt against King Joffrey. "Little dreaming that you had already been sold," Tyrion retorts. Slynt protests at having his honor questioned. Tyrion scoffs at the idea of Slynt's honor, and tosses the ornamental spear back at him. It falls to the floor as Slynt rises in protest, calling Tyrion "Imp" and then "dwarf."

"I am Tyrion of House Lannister, and someday, if you have the sense the gods gave a sea slug, you will drop to your knees in thanks that it was me you had to deal with, and not my lord father. Now, how many sons do you have?"

Slynt grows frightened. He has three sons and a daughter, and he begins to beg. Tyrion reassures him that no harm will come to his children, but that he won't be inheriting the castle at Harrenhal. He will sail in the morning to join the Night's Watch. Slynt recovers from his fear when he finds out he isn't going to be executed. "We shall hear what Joffrey has to say about this. And Littlefinger and the queen, oh, yes, Janos Slynt has a good many friends." He turns to leave, but when he opens the door he is met by Ser Jacelyn Bywater, whom Tyrion introduces as "our new Commander of the City Watch."

Ser Jacelyn tells Slynt that a litter is waiting to take him to the ship. As the guards take Slynt away, Tyrion hands Ser Jacelyn a list of six others who will accompany Slynt on the journey, and tells him that one of them is Allar Deem. "Tell the captain it would not be taken amiss if that one should happen to be swept overboard before they reach Eastwatch."

Before long, Varys appears and congratulates Tyrion on his coup. Tyrion is in no mood to enjoy what he has done. "I told them to throw Allar Deem into the sea. I am sorely tempted to do the same with you." It was Varys who had informed on Slynt, though he hadn't mentioned what Tyrion hs deduced: "It was my sister. That was what the oh-so-loyal Lord Janos refused to say. Cersei sent the gold cloaks to that brothel." The baby who was killed was Robert Baratheon's illegitimate daughter, and hence another bit of evidence that Robert is not Joffrey's father.  Varys claims that it was "a hard thing to tell a man, my lord. I was fearful how you might take it." But Tyrion regrets that he is unable to punish Cersei the way he has dealt with Slynt and Deem. Varys also tells him, "There was another bastard, a boy, older. I took steps to see him removed from harm's way ... but I confess, I never dreamed the babe would be at risk. A baseborn girl, less than a year old, with a whore for a mother. What threat could she pose?" (Thus Varys lays claim to Gendry's escape.)

Tyrion is preoccupied with the thought of the fate of the infant's mother, who reminds him of Shae, now housed in opulence. But he comments that at least Cersei seems not to have been responsible for Eddard Stark's death. "We have my nephew to thank for that madness." Yes, Varys says, Joffrey gave the command and Slynt and Ser Ilyn Payne carried it out. "...almost as if they had expected it," Tyrion concludes.

Then Varys brings up his riddle. Tyrion admits he has thought about it: "The king, the priest, the rich man -- who lives and who dies? Who will the swordsman obey?" It is a question of power, and Varys presents the solution: "Power resides where men believe it resides. No more and no less." So it depends on whether the swordsman believes the power resides in the law (the king), the gods (the priest) or wealth (the rich man).  Power is "'A shadow on the wall,' Varys murmured, 'yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.'" Tyrion says he is "growing strangely fond" of Varys. "I may kill you yet, but I think I'd feel sad about it." Then he asks the eunuch, "Who cut you, Varys? When and why? Who are you, truly?" But Varys postpones the answer for another time.

They discuss a variety of other matters of treason and misconduct before Varys takes his leave. On the way out he meets Bronn, and tells him of Slynt's fate. "Varys would have me believe that I have replaced one of Joffrey's men with one of my own. More likely, I have replaced Littlefinger's man with one belonging to Varys, but so be it." Then he asks Bronn if he commanded him to kill and infant at her mother's breast, would he do it. "'Without question? No.' The sellsword rubbed thumb and forefinger together. 'I'd ask how much.'" Tyrion "wanted to laugh; he wanted to weep; most of all, he wanted Shae."

Arya

Yoren and the recruits have been forced to take back roads to avoid not only the gold coats pursuing Gendry but also the crowds streaming southward. Their pace has consequently slowed. As a consequence of the revelation that the queen wants Gendry's head, he has become a celebrity among the boys, and one night Lommy says, "I bet he's that traitor's bastard," which incenses Arya, who has to leave the group to keep from saying too much.

Yoren tells them that they are nearing Gods Eye, which means they're getting close to the Trident. Until then, they will have to continue to avoid the kingsroad. Unfortunately, the slow pace means that they have consumed most of the food they brought with them, and now have to forage. Arya manages to kill a rabbit with her wooden sword, which goes into a stew.

They detour around a camp of armed men, and they encounter farmers who have taken to patrolling their fields to prevent raiders and scavengers. One evening the sun seems to set in the north, but they realize that it's the light from a burning village. The next day they find its ruins and the bodies of people who have been impaled on stakes and burned alive. Gendry has taken to wearing the helmet he made when he was apprenticed to the armorer.

Because of the lack of food, Arya begins drinking water to fill her stomach, and one night she wakes needing to urinate urgently. She slips away from the camp into the forest, but as she's urinating she sees a pair of glowing eyes. A wolf comes out from the trees and bares his teeth at her, but then he turns and runs back into the forest. She returns to the camp and tells Yoren there are wolves in the woods. He tells her to go back to sleep, but as she lies there she hears the wolves howling, "and another sound, fainter, no more than a whisper on the wind, that might have been screams."

Davos

Melisandre has ordered the burning of the seven gods: the Maid, the Mother, the Warrior, the Smith, the Crone, the Father, and the Stranger. Davos watches as the figures burn, and hushes his sons Allard and Dale when they quietly voice their protest. "Dragonstone's sept had been were Aegon the Conqueror knelt to pray the night before he sailed," but Queen Selyse has supported Melisandre in her desire to destroy the building and smash its stained-glass windows. Davos has never been religious, "though like most men he had been known to make offerings to the Warrior before battle, to the Smith when he launched a ship, and to the Mother whenever his wife grew great with child. He felt ill as he watched them burn, and not only from the smoke." He had seen Maester Cressen slip something into the cup he drank from with Melisandre, so he knows about the attempt to poison her that ended in Cressen's death. He thinks that Cressen would have opposed the burning.

But Davos still owes his loyalty to Stannis, who made him a lord "for the price of a few finger joints," the bones of which he wears in a little pouch around his neck. He watches as Melisandre invokes her god R'hallor, and as Stannis, wearing a protective leather cloak, enters the flames to take the sword away from the effigy of the Mother. Melisandre proclaims it "Lightbringer," and treats it as a sign. Stannis sticks the sword into the ground and beats out the flames that have caught onto his clothing. "The Red Sword of Heroes looks a proper mess, thought Davos."

The port of Dragonstone is full of ships and sailors, and after the fire has died down and the crowd disperses, Davos heads for an inn for a drink. For luck, he pats the weathered head of a gargoyle that sits outside the inn and enters, where he meets Salladhor Saan. "The Lyseni was a smuggler himself, as well as a trader, a banker, a notorious pirate, and the self-styled Prince of the Narrow Sea." Davos had recruited him to serve in Stannis's navy. Saan says he didn't go to watch the burning of the gods because the red priests are always burning things in Lys and he's bored with their fires.

Saan has heard the news from King's Landing that Tyrion has replaced Janos Slynt as head of the gold cloaks. He thinks the city is poorly defended. "A swift strike, like a hawk plummeting at a hare, and the great city will be ours. Grand us wind to fill our sails, and your king could sit upon his Iron Throne by evenfall on the morrow." Davos assures Saan that Stannis will make good his promises to pay him and the other hired seamen handsomely when that occurs.

Saan has also heard that Stannis's brother, Renly, is marching toward the city "with his fair young queen, his flowered lords and shining knights, and a mighty host of foot." Davos is surprised to hear that Renly is taking his wife with him. Saan tells Davos that he has already informed Stannis of that fact. But Saan scoffs at the notion that the sword Stannis pulled from the fire was Lightbringer, the burning sword of prophesy, and tells Davos the legend of the forging of Lightbringer, in which it was tempered in the blood of the hero Azor Ahai's wife. "Such is the tale of the forging of Lightbringer, the Red Sword of Heroes."

After Saan leaves, Davos remembers being in King's Landing with Stannis a year ago when Thoros of Myr, the red priest, waved a burning sword about in the melee, but "in the end his fire had guttered out and Bronze Yohn Royce had brained him with a common mace." And he thinks of his wife Marya and tries to imagine stabbing her with a sword to forge it. "If that was the price of a magic sword, it was more than he cared to pay." On the way out of the inn he pats the gargoyle again for luck.

Davos is summoned to meet with Stannis, and on the way he talks with Ser Axell Florent, who is the leader of the queen's men. He tells Davos that when he watched the "false gods" burning he saw in the flames "a dozen beautiful dancers, maidens garbed in yellow silk spinning and swirling before a great king." He takes it as a prophecy of "the glory that awaits His Grace after we take King's Landing." Davos, knowing that dancing girls are not to the dour and puritanical Stannis's taste, tells him he saw only fire.

Davos finds Stannis in conference with Maester Pylos, who has been drafting a letter asserting his claim to the Iron Throne on the grounds that Joffrey is not Robert's son but the product of the incestuous relationship between Cersei and Jaime. Stannis suggests a few corrections and then tells Davos that he plans to send one hundred seventeen ravens, each with a copy of the letter, throughout the Seven Kingdoms, and that he wants Davos to sail north, and his son Dale to sail south, carrying copies "to every port and holdfast and fishing village. Nail them to the doors of septs and inns for every man to read who can." Pylos points out that that won't be very man, and suggests they be read aloud. So Stannis says he can spare a hundred knights to read them. He also wants Allard to sail "across the narrow sea, to Braavos and the other Free Cities" and deliver the letters there. "The world will know of my claim, and of Cersei's infamy."

After Pylos leaves, Davos points out that Stannis has no proof of Cersei's incest with Jaime. But Stannis says that Robert left a bastard, Edric Storm, at Storm's End. "He is said to be the very image of my brother. If men were to see him, and then look again at Joffrey and Tommen, they could not help but wonder, I would think." Davos points out that he's at Storm's End, not at Dragonstone or King's Landing, and Stannis admits that's "a difficulty. One of many."

Davos points out another difficulty: The letter has a phrase at the end that refers to Melisandre's new god. He thinks it might be revised to "the gods old and new.... Your people will not love you if you take from them the gods they have always worshiped, and give them one whose very name sounds queer on their tongues." Stannis says he stopped believing in gods when his mother and father died. "I know little and care less of gods, but the red priestess has power."

Theon

Theon is returning to Pyke, his home, after ten years as Eddard Stark's ward, a hostage after the defeat of his father by Robert Baratheon. He is carrying a letter from Robb Stark to his father. On the way, Theon has seduced the daughter of the captain of the ship, the Myraham. Theon is full of high expectations for the plan he has hatched.

He is met when the ship lands by his Uncle Aeron, who is a priest with a grim and chilly manner. This surprises Theon, who remembers Aeron Greyjoy as "the most amiable of his uncles, feckless and quick to laugh, fond of songs, ale, and women." Instead, Aeron makes him bow and then anoints him with seawater. He asks Aeron if his sister and mother will be at Pyke, and Aeron tells him his mother lives on Harlaw, another island, with her sister, and that his sister, Asha, has gone to Great Wyk to deliver messages from their father.

Other than describing his conversion -- "the sea washed my follies and my vanities away" -- Aeron is close-mouthed. When Aeron won't answer his questions, Theon reminds him that he is "heir to Pyke and the Iron Islands," but Aeron responds, "As to that, ... we shall see." Theon angrily protests that his brothers are dead. "Your sister lives," Aeron says. Asha is three years older than Theon, who is twenty. He protests that a woman can't inherit unless there is no male heir and warns Aeron that he won't be cheated out of his rightful inheritance. But Aeron tells him to be silent, "And you are a great fool if you believe your lord father will ever hand these holy islands over to a Stark."

Theon broods on this. "As if ten years in Winterfell could make a Stark." He had not been treated as an equal there. "Even the bastard Jon Snow had been accorded more honor than he had." He seethes with resentment, and realizes that the old grudges against Eddard Stark were still alive. He reminds Aeron that Robb Stark is Lord of Winterfell, but his uncle says, "One wolf is much like the other." Theon says that the red comet heralds a new age, and Aeron replies, "It is the flame the Drowned God brought from the sea, and it proclaims a rising tide. It is time to hoist our sails and go forth into the world with fire and sword, as he did."

When they reach Pyke, Aeron leaves. An old woman tells him that his father is waiting for him in the Sea Tower after he rests from his trip. She shows him to "a suite of chilly rooms ceilings so high that they were lost in gloom." It is the Bloody Keep, where enemies had been hacked to pieces a thousand years ago. The furnishings in the rooms are mildewed and musty. "The damp went bone deep." He orders hot water, but it's tepid seawater." He dresses in his best clothes and makes his way to his father.

Balon Greyjoy is "Bone thin and bone hard," and when Theon refers to himself as "Your  blood and your heir," Balon grunts, "We shall see." When he sees Theon's clothes, he asks, "Did Ned Stark dress you like that? ... Was it his pleasure to garb you in velvets and silks and make you his own sweet daughter?" He observes the gold chain around Theon's neck and asks "was it bought with gold or iron?" Theon remembers, "In the Old Way, women might decorate themselves with ornaments bought with coin, but a warrior wore only the jewelry he took off the corpses of enemies slain by his own hand. Paying the iron price, it was called." When he admits it was paid for, his father yanks it from his neck. "'My daughter has taken an axe for a lover,' Lord Balon said. 'I will not have my son bedeck himself like a whore.'"

He gives Balon the letter from Robb. It outlines the plan of attack and proposes to restore the crown the Greyjoys had lost in their rebellion if they aid in the conquest of the Lannisters. "I will lead the attack myself, if it please you," Theon says. As my reward I would ask that you grant me Casterly Rock for my own seat, once we have taken it from the Lannisters."

Balon takes the letter and tosses it on the fire in the brazier, where he has already thrown Theon's gold chain. "The boy will give me a crown. And what is given can be taken away." Theon protests, and his father backhands him. "I am the Greyjoy, Lord Reaper of Pyke, King of Salt and rock, Son of the Sea Wind, and no man gives me a crown. I pay the iron price. I will take my crown, as Urron Redhand did five thousand years ago."

"I mean to carve out a kingdom with fire and sword ... but not from the west, and not at the bidding of King Robb the Boy. Casterly Rock is too strong, and Lord Tywin too cunning by half. Aye, we might take Lannisport, but we should never keep it. No. I hunger for a different plum ... not so juicy sweet, to be sure, yet it hangs there ripe and undefended."

14. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 583-627

Daenerys

Khal Drogo and Daenerys are arguing over her desire to return to the Seven Kingdoms and regain the Iron Throne for the Targaryens. Like most Dothraki, he hates the sea, and when she says, "It was prophesied that the stallion [who mounts the world] will ride to the ends of the earth," he replies, "The earth ends at the black salt sea.... No horse can cross the poison water." She argues that ships can carry them across, but to no avail. Telling her he doesn't want to hear any more about "wooden horses and iron chairs," he goes off hunting.

She calls for Ser Jorah and asks for his help in persuading Drogo, but he knows how stubborn the khal can be. He counsels patience: "Do not make your brother's mistake. We will go home. I promise you." To cheer her up, he proposes that they go to the Western Market to see if Illyrio has sent any letters. When they arrive, he leaves her to explore the market while he meets with the captain who delivers Illyrio's messages.

Elyes Gobel as Jhogo.

After wandering for most of the morning, she and her retinue come across a wine merchant, who offers her a taste of her a taste of his wine. When he discovers her identity, he presents her a cask of a special wine. But as she is about to have the cask sent back to the litter on which she has been traveling, Ser Jorah suddenly appears and orders the wineseller to open the cask. When the merchant refuses, Jorah threatens him and the man gives in, opens the cask and pours a cup of it. "You taste it first," Jorah orders the merchant. When he refuses, Daenerys says, "You will drink." The merchant throws the cask at her and runs away, but her guard, Jhogo, lashes out with his whip and captures the merchant. Jorah explains that he didn't know the wine was poisoned until the merchant refused to drink, but Illyrio's letter had warned him the the king has put a price on her head.

When they return home, Daenerys tells Jorah to light a brazier, and when it's hot she takes one of the dragon's eggs and places it in the coals. She waits until the fire has burned down, disappointed that nothing has happened. "A thousand thousand years ago they had been alive, but now they were only pretty rocks. They could not make a dragon. A dragon was air and fire. Living flesh, not dead stone."

When Khal Drogo returns from the hunt, Daenerys tells him about the threat to her life. Drogo rewards Jorah with a horse, and tells Daenerys that he will see to it that their son sits on "this iron chair his mother's father sat in. I will give him Seven Kingdoms." Two days later, the khalasar leaves'; the wineseller, naked and on foot, is chained behind Daenerys's horse for as long as he can keep up the pace.

Catelyn

My son is leading a host to war, she thought, still only half believing it. She was desperately afraid for him, and for Winterfell, yet she could not deny feeling a certain pride as well.

Accompanied by her uncle, Brynden Tully, aka the Blackfish, Catelyn arrives at the army's encampment at the ruins of Moat Cailin, once a stronghold of the First Men. She finds Robb meeting with his generals, including the Greatjon. He calls out to her as she enters, but she tries to restrain herself in front of his men. They pay their respects to her, and she explains that when her ship landed she had heard of the war and came directly to his camp. She sent Ser Rodrik to Winterfell to aid Maester Luwin.

When someone asks about Tyrion, she says, "The gods saw fit to free him, with some help from my fool of a sister." Left alone with Robb, she asks why, at fifteen, he is leading an army when there are older and more experienced men to do so. He replies, "They are not Starks." Then he asks if she is sending him back to Winterfell, and she admits that she can't do that now. He asks if she has heard about Ned, and she says yes, then asks about his sisters. He gives her the letter that Sansa had sent, and when she reads it she says, "This is Cersei's letter, not your sister's." He points out that she doesn't mention Arya. "Catelyn did not want to think what that might mean, not now, not here."

He confesses that he is afraid of what the Lannisters will do to Sansa and his father. She says that they want him to think their lives are in danger.

"What I do know is that you have no choice. If you go to King's Landing and swear fealty, you will never be allowed to leave. If you turn your tail and retreat to Winterfell, your lords will lose all respect for you. Some may even go over to the Lannisters. Then the queen, with that much less to fear, can do as she likes with her prisoners. Our best hope, our only true hope, is that you can defeat the foe in the field."

He tells her that the men his father had sent to deal with Gregor Clegane had been defeated soundly. "Lord Tywin has closed off the kingsroad, it's said, and now he's marching north toward Harrenhal, burning as he goes." Now, he says, they have to march south to confront him. But he's not sure what to do. She tells him that he has to be certain, "or go home and take up that wooden sword again.... Make no mistake, Robb -- these are your bannermen, not your friends. You named yourself battle commander. Command."

So he goes to the map and shows her the strategy he has planned. She's impressed -- "Ned taught him well." He will command the cavalry, which also reminds her of his father: "Ned would always take the more dangerous task himself." As for the other forces, she tells him that he wants someone with "cold cunning," and he decides on Roose Bolton because he "scares me."

When he offers to give her an escort back to Winterfell, she tells him she's not going. "My father may be dying behind the walls of Riverrun. My brother is surrounded by foes. I must go to them."

Tyrion

Tyrion, Bronn, and the host of mountain clansmen have arrived at the crossroads. A scout has reported that the Lannister army is there, twenty thousand strong. When Tyrion shows himself to one of the captains, Ser Flement Brax, he is greeted with astonishment, not only that he is still alive, but that he's apparently followed by a horde of brigands. He asks where his father is, and is directed to the very inn where Catelyn took him prisoner.

He finds his father in the common room with his uncle, Ser Kevan Lannister, Tywin's only surviving brother. "Whenever his father's eyes were on him, he became uncomfortably aware of all his deformities and shortcomings." And his father remains true to form, commenting, "Your brother Jaime would never have meekly submitted to capture at the hands of a woman."

Kevan and Tywin fill him in on the progress of the war, including the capture of Catelyn's brother, Edmure, and the siege of Riverrun, where her father is dying. Tywin assures him, "Unless the Starks and the Arryns come forth to oppose us, this war is as good as won." Tyrion says he has nothing to fear from the Arryns, but the Starks are another matter. But Tywin assures him that 'The Stark boy is a child."

Tyrion is surprised by the news of Robert Baratheon's death and the ascension to the throne of Joffrey. He thinks, "The realm would be a much different place with Cersei ruling in place of her husband." Tywin offers him a command if he wants it, and as Tyrion is telling him that he needs weapons for his army of brigands, Shagga and the other clansmen burst into the common room, followed by Bronn.

"They followed me home, Father," Tyrion explained. "May I keep them? They don't eat much." 

(An irresistible joke, but one that seems a little too modern for the context.) Tywin keeps his composure and asks Tyrion to "acquaint us with our ... honored guests." Tyrion does the introductions, which include describing Shagga as "the one who looks like Casterly Rock with hair." Tywin greets them with dignity, "Even in the west, we know the prowess of the warrior clans of the Mountains of the Moon," but just as he's getting to the matter of what they want, he's interrupted by a messenger saying that "the Stark host is moving down the causeway."

This pleases Tywin. "The sooner the Starks are broken, the sooner I shall be free to deal with Stannis Baratheon." He asks the clansmen to join him and he will see to it that they are rewarded. But Ulf son of Umar asks, "Why should we need the father's promise when we have the son's." Tywin suavely replies that they don't need to join his forces, but adds, "The men of the winterlands are made of iron and ice, and even my boldest knights fear to face them." Tyrion is impressed with his father's challenge to the clansmen, and sure enough they take him up on it. But he's less happy with their insistence that he join them: "He has bought his breath with promises. Until we hold the steel he has pledged us, his life is ours."

Sansa

Joffrey is holding his first court session and Sansa is attending. But no one wants to be associated with the traitor's daughter, so they don't acknowledge her greetings to them, and she is surprised at how many people she knew are missing. But she tells herself that Joffrey and the queen love her, so it will all be okay. One of the first things Joffrey orders is for Pycelle to read the list of people who are expected to swear fealty to him or being considered traitors. At the end of the long list come the names of her family. When she hears Arya's name she thinks "it must mean her sister had fled on the galley, she must be safe at Winterfell by now."

Tywin Lannister is appointed Hand, and Cersei is named to the small council. Janos Slynt, the commander of the City Watch, is made a lord and given "the ancient seat of Harrenhal," and is named to the small council as well. There is a buzz of anger at this from other lords as the commoner is elevated to the honor.

Dominic Carter as Janos Slynt

And in a final shocker, Barristan Selmy is removed as the commander of the Kingsguard, a position that has traditionally been an appointment for life. Joffrey says, "You let my father die.... You're too old to protect anybody." Cersei speaks up to say that Jaime Lannister will take his position. Barristan is outraged: "The false knight who profaned his blade with the king he had sworn to defend." He refuses the offer of land from Tywin Lannister, removes his cloak and breastplate, and take out his sword and throws it at the foot of the throne, then departs. After he has left Joffrey orders him seized, and Janos Slynt says he will take care of it.

Then Joffrey has his mother make the announcement that "The king and council have determined that no man in the Seven Kingdoms is more fit to guard and protect His Grace than his sworn shield, Sandor Clegane." The Hound accepts, but refuses to take vows as a knight.

When the herald asks anyone who has business before the king to step forward, Sansa nervously makes her move. Joffrey smiles at her, which reassures her: "He does love me, he does." So she comes forward to the foot of the throne and asks mercy for her father. The queen says she is disappointed "What did I tell you about traitor's blood?" Grand Maester Pycelle says that her father "has committed grave and terrible crimes." Varys comments that she's "only a babe" and doesn't know what she's doing. But Joffrey tells them to let her speak.

She goes on to say that her father loved King Robert and didn't want to be the Hand, and that somebody must have lied to him. Joffrey says, "He said I wasn't the king. Why did he say that?" Sansa says that his broken leg must have been hurting him so much, and that Maester Pycelle was giving him milk of the poppy, which must have clouded his mind. Joffrey turns to his mother, who says, "If Lord Eddard were to confess his crime, ... we would know he had repented his folly."

Joffrey stands up and asks if she has any more to say, so Sansa pleads, "as you love me, you do me this kindness, my prince." Joffrey says her words have moved him, but, "He has to confess and say that I'm the king, or there will be no mercy for him." Sansa assures him that her father will do that.