25. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 661-686

Daenerys

The peace treaty between Meereen and the Yunkai'i is being signed, and the fighting pits have been reopened as part of the celebration. Daenerys is not happy: Though she married Hizdahr to bring about peace, she feels defeated. Hizdahr assures her that it's only temporary: When the Yunkai'i leave, they will "have all we desired. Peace, food, trade. Our port is open once again, and ships are being permitted to come and go."

But she objects that the Yunkai are trading in slaves outside her own walls, mocking her as powerless. She tries to console herself that by agreeing to the peace terms she has saved thousands of lives: "This is the price of peace, I pay it willingly. If I look back, I am lost."

At the feast, she notes how unimpressive the Yunkish commanders are, and how the sellswords they had hired are swaggering bravos. Brown Ben Plumm has appeared, but only after an exchange of hostages to keep Daenerys's men from killing him. Among the hostages sent to the Yunkish camp are her bloodrider Jhogo, her admiral Groleo, and Daario Naharis. The last was furious at the wedding and at the peace terms, so it was just as well he wasn't present at the feast.

When the party goes out to the terrace to look at the city, she encounters Brown Ben Plumm, who is insouciant about his deserting her, arguing that he didn't want to be on the losing side and advising her, "Never trust a sellsword." Ser Barristan, who has overheard their conversation, tells Daenerys, after Plumm has left, that it's good advice. She talks with him about ways of getting rid of Brown Ben, and wonders if there is a way to use the Dornishmen who include Prince Quentyn. "The three Dornishmen had been at the feast, as befit Prince Quentyn's rank, though Reznak had taken care to seat them as far as possible from her husband," who might see Quentyn as a rival suitor.

Barristan reminds her that House Martell had been a loyal ally to the Targaryens, and that Quentyn had been stubbornly insistent about his plans to marry her. So she tells him to bring Quentyn to her: "It is time he met my children." She and Quentyn descend to the place where the dragons are caged.

One of the elephants trumpeted at them from his stall. An answering roar from below made her flush with sudden heat. Prince Quentyn looked up in alarm. "The dragons know when she is near," Ser Barristan told him.

Viserion has broken and melted his chains and clings "to the roof of the pit like some huge white bat." Rhaegal is still chained, and is eating the carcass of a bull. When Quentyn asks about the third, she tells him just, "Drogon is hunting." Quentyn is terrified, but she assures him that they frighten her too. Still, she tells him, she intends to learn to ride one of them.

Then she advises him to return to Dorne. "My court is no safe place for you, I fear. You have more enemies than you know. You made Daario look a fool, and he is not a man to forget such a slight." He stubbornly insists that he is a prince of Dorne and "will not run from slaves and sellswords." She reflects that he is a fool.

That night, Hizdahr makes drunken love to her, after which he whispers, "Gods grant that we have made a son tonight." But she can only remember Mirri Maz Duur's prophecy of her barrenness. When he falls asleep, her thoughts turn to Daario. Then Missandei enters to say she thought she heard Daenerys crying. Daenerys denies it, but asks Missandei to stay and talk to her about happy things until she falls asleep, "to dream queer, half-formed dreams of smoke and fire."

Theon

The horns and drum of Stannis's troops are still heard, but the attack hasn't yet materialized. Theon waits for it in the Great Hall and keeps an eye on Abel, Rowan, and another of the washerwomen who is known as Squirrel.  Seeing Ramsay Bolton enter the hall, Theon is filled with fear and whispers to Abel that his escape plan won't work. But Abel insists that Stannis is just outside the walls of Winterfell, and that Theon needn't worry.

Just then the doors of the hall burst open and Ser Hosteen Frey enters, carrying the body of Little Walder Frey. Theon instantly assumes that the washerwomen are responsible for the murder, but Rowan assures him that they weren't. In any case, Ramsay Bolton is enraged at the loss of his favorite, and Hosteen accuses Wyman Manderly of ordering the killing. Wyman asks how old the boy was, and when he is told Little Walder was nine, says, "So young.... Though mayhaps this was  a blessing. Had he lived, he would have grown up to be a Frey."

Hosteen attacks Wyman with his longsword: "The blade slashed through three of his four chins in a spray of bright red blood." The room erupts in turmoil as Manderly slumps to the floor and his men come to his defense. By the time Roose Bolton is able to restore order, six of Manderly's men and two of the Freys are dead. A maester arrives with a raven, and Bolton reads the message it has brought: Stannis's company, "snowbound and starving," is three days' away. He orders Hosteen to gather his troops and leave by the main gate, and Manderly to dispatch his by the east gate. Hosteen vows that when he returns with Stannis's head, he will finish cutting off that of Manderly, who is being treated by a maester. Ramsay Bolton orders them all to prepare to fight Stannis, and Roose echoes his son: "There will be time enough to fight one another once we are done with Stannis."

Abel is called on for a song as the Freys begin to lead their horses out of the hall, and Rowan grasps Theon's arm to tell him it is time to put the plan they have discussed in effect: "Bolton is sending forth his swords. We have to reach King Stannis before they do." Theon thinks what they have planned is madness, but he gives in and goes with Rowan to the godswood. They are joined there by Squirrel, Holly, and three more of the washerwomen.

The plan is to engineer an escape for Jeyne Poole by disguising her as Squirrel, who is almost the same size. Squirrel will exit by a window and scale down the tower wall while Jeyne exits with the other maids. Theon's task is one he does regularly: to fetch the water for Jeyne's bath. The washerwomen, pretending to be Jeyne's maids, will carry it to her chambers.

Jeyne is huddled in terror in her room when they make it past the guards with the bathwater. Rowan addresses her as "Lady Arya" -- Theon hasn't revealed her true identity to his co-conspirators. They tell her that they are going to take her to her brother, which confuses Jeyne, who says she has no brothers. Theon realizes that the horribly abused girl isn't entirely sure who she is anymore, but Rowan explains that they are going to get her to Jon Snow at the Wall.

Jeyne resists, terrorized as she has been by Ramsay, and the women tell Theon to handle her. He gently persuades her to go along with the plan. They quickly dress her in Squirrel's clothing, and to Theon's surprise and relief they make it past the guards outside the door. His fear returns as they go down the stairs, but even the guards outside the doors barely look at them. Theon feels sorry for them: "Ramsay would flay them all when he learned his bride was gone, and what he would do to Grunt and Sour Alyn" -- the guards outside the bedchamber door -- "did not bear thinking about."

The snowstorm continues to conceal them as they make their way through the paths through the snow, which in places is higher than their heads. At an intersection, Rowan sends Theon and Jeyne on with Holly and Frenya, while she and the others go to fetch Abel. When they reach another pair of guards, Holly and Frenya kill them both, but Jeyne screams when she sees what is happening. Theon puts his hand over her mouth and pulls her along with him as they run.

They reach the steps to the battlements, and Theon slings Jeyne over his shoulder as he begins to climb. Halfway up, he slips on the ice and hurts his knee, but Holly helps him back to his feet and together they get Jeyne to the top of the battlements. Frenya remains behind to attack any pursuers. But when they reach the top, Holly realizes that Frenya has the rope they need to climb down. Then she is pierced by arrows and falls.

Realizing that they have been discovered, and that there are crossbowmen on the inner wall and men racing toward them with drawn swords, Theon does the only thing he can do: He grabs Jeyne and jumps.

20. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 524-548

Tyrion

He has given in, and is riding the pig, whose name is Pretty, jousting against Penny on the deck of the Selaesori Qhoran. The ship has been becalmed in the Gulf of Grief for twelve days, and the crew is restless and looking for a scapegoat. Penny has begged him to help her entertain the crew, lest they turn on them. But Tyrion has also decided that he and Penny will perform the jousting act as a means to approach Daenerys.

Ser Jorah scoffs at this idea: "Daenerys Targaryen is no silly child to be diverted by japs and tumbles. She will deal with you justly." But Tyrion, who knows the history of Jorah's relationship with Daenerys, asks how he intends to approach her. "You think Daenerys will execute me and pardon you, but the reverse is just as likely. Maybe you should hope on that pig, Ser Jorah."

Jorah gives him a blow that knocks him across the deck, and tells Tyrion to stay away from him for the rest of the voyage. Tyrion is rinsing the blood out of his mouth when he feels the ship move: The wind has come up. But when he goes on deck he looks to the west and thinks, "I have never seen a sky that color." Moqorro joins him and says it is "God's wroth."

Banished from Jorah's presence, Tyrion joins Penny in her cabin as the storm begins to hurl the ship about. To his surprise, Penny kisses him. He has no desire for her, and when he looks at her he realizes that she really has none for him. She tells him that she was afraid they would drown, and she has never kissed a man before. In case she is hoping for more, he tells her he is married. The excuse works because, he realizes, she is "still young enough to believe such blatant lies."

The storm lasts into the night, sweeping three members of the crew overboard, blinding the cook when hot grease is tossed in his eyes, and breaking both of the captain's legs when he falls from the sterncastle to the main deck. When it dies down, Tyrion goes to the deck and discovers that they are in the eye of the storm. The wind returns and this time it splits the mast. Tyrion clings for life to a rope, as splinters from the mast stab him in the neck and the thigh.
The
When the storm is over, the ship is just barely afloat, and nine men have died, including Moqorro, who had been on deck praying to R'hllor. The next day the captain dies and three days later the cook. They drift for nineteen days until a ship is sighted. Unfortunately, Ser Jorah informs him, it's a slaver.

The Turncloak

Snow begins to fall heavily at Winterfell, which puts Stannis's troops at a severe disadvantage, as Roose Bolton cheerfully announces. Theon has been considering escape, now that his usefulness to the Boltons is over, but he has no place to go. "The nearest thing to a home that remained to him was here, amongst the bones of Winterfell. A ruined man, a ruined castle. This is my place."

Jeyne/Arya hasn't been seen in the hall since the wedding, but Theon goes in every night to help her bathe, since she has no handmaids. He has seen the bruises Ramsay has left on her, and would like to help her escape, but he knows that when Ramsay tires of tormenting his wife, he will turn on Theon again.

He eats by himself, since no one cares for the company of Theon Turncloak. But one evening a woman sits down by him. She is one of the women accompanying the singer Abel. She asks him to tell her how he captured Winterfell, and if he had a secret way to get in. He doesn't tell her anything, but she persists, telling him her name is Rowan. Instantly he suspects that this is one of Ramsay's tricks: "He wants me to run, so he can punish me." So he gets up and leaves.

He walks through the ruins of Winterfell and finds his way to the battlements on the inner wall where he sees the snow piling up everywhere. "Stannis Baratheon is out there somewhere, freezing," he thinks. He makes his way to the godswood, where the hot springs keep the snow from accumulating. Even though they are not his gods, he finds himself praying but he isn't sure for what: "Strength? Courage? Mercy?" He hears the sound of a faint sobbing, and thinks it must be Jeyne: "Who else could it be? Gods do not weep. Or do they?" There must be ghosts in Winterfell, and he is one of them.

In the kitchen, cooks are making stew and the dogs are gathered for the scraps. He has some stew, and listens in the hall as Roose Bolton's scouts report that Stannis's march has slowed. Then Lady Barbrey Dustin enters and calls for him. She wants to know how to get to the crypts. He leads her there, and on the way he recognizes the place where Bran Stark had fallen. He had been hunting that day, and when they returned they were told that Bran wasn't expected to live. He thinks, "The gods could not kill Bran, no more than I could."

It takes half an hour for Lady Dustin's men to uncover the entrance to the crypts and to batter down the frozen door with an axe. As he descends into the crypts, Lady Dustin comments that Lady Arya is weeping. Theon tells himself to be careful of another trap, but she says, "Roose is not pleased. Tell your bastard that." The northmen "love the Starks," she says, and they haven't forgotten how Ramsay Bolton's previous wife ate her fingers to keep from starving. "What do you think passes through their heads when they hear the new bride weeping? Valiant Ned's precious little girl."

Theon keeps silent until they reach the first level of the crypts. She asks if he knows the names of the lords buried there, and he recalls some of them. She asks for Ned Stark's tomb, and he tells her it's at the end. As they pass one tomb she notices that the king buried there is missing his sword. Theon is "disquieted" at this fact: "He had always heard that the iron in the sword kept the spirits of the dead locked within their tombs."

Suddenly he finds himself asking, "My lady, why do you hate the Starks?" She replies, "For the same reason you love them." He stumbles trying to answer, protesting that he took their castle and had Bran and Rickon killed, but she persists, "Why do you love the Starks?" And he admits, "I wanted to be one of them." And she replies, "We have more in common than you know."

When they reach Lord Rickard's tomb, she observes that his sword is missing too. And he points out that Brandon's is gone as well. "He would hate that," she says, and then tells Theon that Brandon, Ned's brother, had taken her virginity. She had hoped to marry him, but Rickard Stark pledged him to Catelyn Tully, ambitious to unite his house with one in the south. Her father had though she would marry Eddard, but after Brandon's death, he married Catelyn. So she married Lord Dustin, but he died when Ned Stark called out his banners in support of Robert Baratheon's rebellion.

"He told me that my lord had died an honorable death, that his body had been laid to rest beneath the red mountains of Dorne. He brought his sister's bones back north, though, and there she rests ... but I promise you, Lord Eddard's bones will never rest beside hers. I mean to feed them to my dogs."

Theon doesn't understand, and she explains that Catelyn had Eddard's bones sent north, but when Balon Greyjoy took Moat Cailin, their progress to Winterfell had been interrupted. "I have been watching ever since. Should those bones ever emerge from the swamps, they will get no farther than Barrowton."

When they return from the crypt, she warns him that he must repeat nothing of what she has said. He says, "Hold my tongue or lose it." And she replies, "Roose has trained you well."

18. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 473-499

Daenerys

Daenerys has come out to see the Astapori refugee camp, and is nauseated by the filth and disease. Ser Barristan urges her to turn back, but is, as usual, resolute. The refugees, many of them calling her "Mother," cry out for her help, but she has done all she can, sending out healers and even attempting a quarantine of the sick, but to no avail. Over the protests of Barristan and others in her retinue, she decides to nurse as many as she can, and they grudgingly join her. She also sends for the Unsullied, who have no fear of illness or death, to aid in the task.

Eventually, she returns, weary and depressed, to her pyramid, where Missandei helps her bathe before Reznak mo Reznak and the Green Grace arrive to discuss the wedding plans. She balks at some of the traditional rituals, including an inspection of her "female parts" by the women of Hizdahr's family, but agrees to be married in the Temple of the Graces instead of in a Westerosi ritual. At first she refuses to wash Hizdahr's feet, but agrees to do so if he will wash hers. But as it turns out, Hizdahr claims no more allegiance to tradition than she does.

However, he tells her that to establish peace, Yunkai will have to resume the slave trade. She observes that this is already a fait accompli: "The Yunkai'i resumed their slaving before I was two leagues from their city," and she didn't turn back. But he says the people of New Ghis don't trust her: "They would see us wed, and they would see me crowned as king, to rule beside you."

She is pondering how to reply when Barristan brings the news that the Stormcrows have returned and that the Yunkai'i are marching toward Meereen. Hizdahr protests that she is dining, but Daenerys tells him that she must speak with Daario and has Barristan show Hizdahr out. Then she changes into something more attractive to greet Daario.

He describes for her the strength of the forces moving toward Meereen by land and sea, but mentions that they have also gained some supporters: "Some Westerosi too, a score or more. Deserters from the Windblown, unhappy with the Yunkai'i." On the other hand, Brown Ben Plumm and the Second Sons have turned their cloaks and now support the Yunkai'i. Daenerys wonders if Plumm is one of the three treasons she was to experience, and if marrying Hizdahr will put an end to all of these attacks.

The news of Plumm's desertion causes an uproar, but Daenerys silences it. Then she orders the gates of the city closed, which means leaving the Astapori refugees to fend for themselves. She dismisses everyone but Daario, using the pretext that he has a wound that needs to be seen to.

Her handmaids tend to his wound, and then she sends them away, leaving her alone with Daario.

The Prince of Winterfell

Theon is helping Jeyne Poole prepare for her marriage to Ramsay Bolton. When she tells him that she "will be a better wife than the real Arya could have been," he recognizes the danger that she faces if she doesn't think of herself as Arya, just as he forces himself to think that he is Reek. He tells her that she is "Arya Underfoot. Your sister used to call you Arya Horseface." But Jeyne tells him that she is the one who made up that nickname. "Her face was long and horsey. Mine isn't. I was pretty."

She asks if Ramsay thinks she is pretty, and Theon lies, saying, "He's told me so." But she knows whom she's marrying: "They say he likes to hurt people," she says, and that he hurt Theon. But Theon claims he made him angry and that "Lord Ramsay is a ... a sweet man, and kindly." Then she begs him to help her: They could run away together, she says desperately, "I could be your wife, or your ... your whore ... whatever you wanted. You could be my man." But Theon begs her to try to please Ramsay and not to talk "about being someone else." He thinks, "Jeyne, her name is Jeyne, it rhymes with pain." He notices that her eyes are brown whereas Arya's were gray, and worries that someone will notice.

He has been chosen to give the bride away because, as Lady Dustin tells him, "You were her father's ward, the nearest thing she has to living kin." He realizes that if he is seen to accept her as Arya, the northmen gathered for the wedding "would have no grounds to question her legitimacy." And even those who suspected that she wasn't really Arya "would be wise enough to keep those misgivings to themselves." He is part of the deception, which is why he has been dressed as a lord instead of in his usual rags. When it's over, he will become Reek again, he realizes. "Unless the gods were good, and Stannis Baratheon descended on Winterfell and put all of them to the sword, himself included. That was the best he could hope for." 

The ceremony is taking place in the godswood, which Theon remembers from childhood. The hot springs make it a warm oasis in the midst of the snow, and it shrouds the faces of the guests in mist. The trees are full of ravens, and Theon thinks, "Maester Luwin's birds. Luwin was dead, and his maester's tower had been put to the torch, yet the ravens lingered." Ramsay Bolton is standing by the heart tree as he delivers Jeyne/Arya to him. She gives him a final look, pleading for him to do something, before she gives herself to Bolton.

Theon lingers as the wedding party leaves, and he hears a voice whisper, "Theon."

His head snapped up. "Who said that?" All he could see were the trees and the fog that covered them. The voice had been as faint as rustling leaves, as cold as hate. A god's voice, or a ghost's. How many died the day that he took Winterfell? How many more the day he lost it? The day that Theon Greyjoy died, to be reborn as Reek. Reek, Reek, it rhymes with shriek.

He hurries away from the godswood to the Great Hall.

In the yard, among the ruins of Winterfell, dead men were hanging from ropes. The castle had been full of squatters when Bolton and his company arrived, and those who resisted had been hanged. Those who agreed to help repair the gates and put a new roof on the Great Hall were told they would be spared. But after the work was finished, Bolton hanged them anyway. "True to his word, he showed them mercy and did not flay a one."

He makes his way into the warmth of the hall, where a bard named Abel is singing. As he passes through the crowd, he hears someone call him, "Theon Turncloak," and someone spits. "He was the traitor who had taken Winterfell by treachery, slain his foster brothers, delivered his own people to be flayed at Moat Cailin, and given his foster sister to Lord Ramsay's bed. Roose Bolton might make use of him, but true northmen must despise him."

Nevertheless, he has a seat on the dais at the high table, next to Lady Dustin. He looks at Jeyne and sees the fear in her eyes, and thinks, "I could beg her for the honor of a dance and cut her throat. That would be a kindness, wouldn't it?" And then, if the gods are kind, Ramsay would kill him. "Theon was not afraid to die. Underneath the Dreadfort, he had learned there were far worse things than death. Ramsay had taught him that lesson, finger by finger and toe by toe, and it was not one that he was ever like to forget."

Lady Dustin notices that Theon isn't eating, which is hard for him since Ramsay had broken so many of his teeth. She points out Wyman Manderly, who is wolfing down his food, "the very picture of the jolly fat man." She calls him "craven," and observes, "His son died at the Red Wedding, yet he's shared his bread and salt with Freys, welcomed them beneath his roof, promised one his granddaughter." But she knows Manderly would betray them all, and so does Roose Bolton, she says. She points out how Roose doesn't eat or drink anything until Manderly has taken some of it first. And she tells Theon, "Roose plays with men. You and me, these Freys, Lord Manderly, his plump new wife, even his bastard, we are but his playthings."

Some maesters enter the hall, and deliver news to Roose Bolton, who rises to tell the assembly that Stannis has left Deepwood Motte and could be at Winterfell in a fortnight, while Crowfood Umber is traveling down the kingsroad and the Karstarks are on the way from the east. He tells the lords to join him in his solar while Ramsay and his bride consummate the marriage.

When Lady Dustin leaves, Theon decides it is time to go, but one of Ramsay's attendants grabs him: "Ramsay says you're to bring his bride to his bed." Theon is terrified, but knows he has to obey. Jeyne is sitting alone, and Theon goes to her, realizing that she has drunk a good deal of wine. "Perhaps she hoped that if she drank enough, the ordeal would pass her by." Accompanied by some of Ramsay's men, he leads Jeyne up the stairs to the bedchamber.

Lord Ramsay is seated there when they enter, and he tells everyone but "Reek" to leave them. Then he tells Theon to undress "Ned Stark's little daughter." Theon starts to unlace her gown, but Ramsay tells him it will take too long: "Cut it off her." With the dagger in his hand, Theon thinks of killing Ramsay, but fears that he will fail and that Ramsay will flay the hand that held the dagger. Jeyne is trembling and he has to hold her still. When the gown falls, Ramsay tells him to take off her underclothes as well. When she is naked, he realizes how young she is. "Sansa's age. Arya would be even younger."

Ramsay asks what he thinks of her. She is pitiful, and there is "a spiderweb of faint thin lines across her back where someone had whipped her." But he says she is beautiful. Ramsay asks if he'd like to fuck her first: "The Prince of Winterfell should have that right, as all lords did in the days of old." He tells her to get on the bed and spread her legs, and then orders Theon, "Get her ready for me." Theon stammers, "I ... do you mean ... m'lord, I have no ... I...." (Although never stated outright, it is evident that Theon has been castrated.) Ramsay tells him to use his mouth. "And be quick about it. If she's not wet by the time I'm done disrobing, I will cut off that tongue of yours and nail it to the wall."

Theon does as he's told.

10. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 253-275

Reek

Still clinging for dear life to the persona of Reek, Theon sets off for Moat Cailin. He no longer reeks and is dressed warmly for the first time in many months, but he still suspects that he is going to be the butt of some horrible trick played by Ramsay Bolton. Lord Ramsay had reminded him, even as Theon was being bathed, "You'll always be Reek, no matter how sweet you smell."

Moat Cailin had been taken by the ironmen, but it is in ruins. Its strategic value remains: "The only dry road through the Neck was the causeway, and the towers of Moat Cailin plugged its northern end like a cork in a bottle." As Theon draws nearer to it, the number of rotting corpses he encounters increases.

"The garrison will never know me," he thinks. Even if some of them knew him as a boy before he went to Winterfell as Lord Eddard's ward and hostage, he is unrecognizable: His hair has turned white and he has lost much of it. He is feeble and thin from his ordeal in the dungeons. And although he is wearing gloves, a close observer can see that he has lost three of his fingers.

A voice calls out from the castle, challenging him. Theon raises the peace banner and signals that he is unarmed. Even if the men in the castle fill him with arrows, he thinks, it would be a swift death compared to what Ramsay would deal out to him if he returned a failure. And an arrow does fly, but it pierces the banner, which he drops as he falls from the saddle. The voice tells him to get inside, quickly. Another arrow flies as he scrambles through the gate.

The man grabs him and puts a knife to his throat. Tyrion quickly says he is ironborn, and Lord Balon's son, which the man doubts. He continues, "Lord Ramsay took me captive after Winterfell. He's sent me here to treat with you. Do you command here?" The man tells him he only guards the door, and that Ralf Kenning is in charge.

On the floor next to the guard is a corpse, and Theon learns that he died of drinking the water. So many have died that they no longer take the trouble to cart them off but just leave them where they are. When Theon asks how many of the garrison are left, the man doesn't know. He says that in one tower there were only two men left alive, and they were eating the dead. The man sent to find out about them killed them, too.

"Moat Cailin has fallen, Reek realized then, only no on has seen fit to tell them." He asks to see Kenning, but the man says he hasn't seen him in a while. He was dying, and may be dead. But he agrees to take Theon to him. Kenning is feverish and covered with oozing sores and his own vomit. The guard tells him that Kenning was shot with a poisoned arrow by one of the people who live in the swamps. Theon decides that the only thing to do is put Kenning out of his misery, so he takes the captain's sword and cuts his throat. Then Theon and the guard fleet the awful stench that issues from the body.

He asks where the rest of the men are and is taken to the great hall. He remembers being there once with Robb and the Greatjon and Roose Bolton. There are about two dozen men in the hall. He tells them that Kenning is dead, and asks who was second in command. They just stare at him, so he tells them that he is there on Ramsay Bolton's orders, and that they are caught between his forces and that of his father. "Lord Ramsay is prepared to be merciful if you yield Moat Cailin to him before the sun goes down." He has letters to that effect that he shows them, but no one seems interested.

One  of the men stands up and says, "Dagon Codd yields to no man." And the guard says, "Victarion commanded us to hold, he did. I heard him with my own ears." Theon tells them that his uncle isn't returning to Moat Cailin. "The kingsmoot crowned his brother Euron, and the Crow's Eye has other wars to fight." They have been "left behind to die." He can see that they have already realized this fact, and he tells them Ramsay Bolton will treat them honorably, though he thinks: "He has only taken toes and fingers and that other thing, when he might have had my tongue, or peeled the skin off my legs from heel to thigh."

Dagon Codd remains defiant, and draws his longsword. But he is felled by a throwing axe from one of the other men, and Theon has won. In the end there are fifty-eight men who are strong enough to march and to carry five others as they accompany Theon back to Bolton. When they reach the castle Lord Ramsay appears, and he orders them fed and the wounded among them taken to the maesters.

Bolton praises his "old friend Reek," and asks what he wants as a reward. Theon knows enough to be very careful. "Give him the answer that he wants," he tells himself, so he fawningly says, "my place is here, with you. I'm your Reek. I only want to serve you." But he asks for "red wine, the strongest that you have, all the wine a man can drink." Bolton laughs and says, "You're not a man, Reek. You're just my creature. You'll have your wine, though." And he tells him he can sleep with the dogs instead of returning to the dungeon.

Theon drinks himself into a stupor, but when he wakes briefly, "Somewhere in the night, men were screaming." He goes back to sleep. The next morning, Ramsay sends word to his father that Moat Cailin is no threat. Along the road, "wooden stakes were driven deep into the boggy ground; there the corpses festered, red and dripping." Theon knows that there are sixty-three of them, the men he had promised honorable treatment.  

Three days later, Roose Bolton arrives with a huge contingent of Freys and other northmen. "Collared and chained and back in rags again, Reek followed with the other dogs at Lord Ramsay's heels when his lordship strode forth to greet his father." Theon remembers how he used to make fun of Roose Bolton to Robb Stark, mimicking his soft voice and making fun of his use of leeches. Now he looks at Bolton and realizes "that he had more cruelty in his pinky toe than all the Freys combined."

Then Bolton has two women descend from the coach in which they had been riding. One is very fat, Roose's new wife, Walda Frey. The other is Ramsay Bolton's intended bride, the fake Arya Stark. Theon knows immediately that this can't be Arya, and he thinks for a moment and realizes, "That's Sansa's little friend, the steward's girl. Jeyne, that was her name. Jeyne Poole."

She makes a deep obeisance to Ramsay, and Theon thinks, "The real Arya Stark would have spat in his face." But she promises to make him a good wife and give him strong sons. "'That you will,' promised Ramsay, 'and soon.'"

Jon

Stannis has  marched south, and Jon now leads a contingent southward to talk with the wildlings, though not before Bowen Marsh has registered his complaint about such dealings with the former enemy. On the way, Dolorous Edd points out that the wildlings have begun to carve faces into trees: "The wildlings brought their gods with them after all," he thinks, defying Melisandre's attempt to demonstrate the power of her red god.

The faces that the First Men and the children of the forest had carved into the weirwoods in eons past had stern or savage visages more oft than not, but the great oak looked especially angry, as if it wee about to tear its roots from the earth and come roaring after them. Its wounds are as fresh as the wounds of the men who carved it.

They reach Mole's Town, where the buildings above ground were torched by the Magnar of Thenn before his attack on Castle Black. But the underground dwellings and tunnels are more alive than ever, with a new population of free folk. They begin to emerge from the tunnels when Jon's contingent arrives, and he notes that there are three times as many women as men, but very few infants. "The babes in arms died during the march, he realized, and those who survived the battle died in the king's stockade."

There are many men with visible wounds, such as missing legs, arms, and eyes, but Jon recognizes some fighting men among them too. The black brothers in his contingent begin distributing food, but immediately there are scuffles and disputes and complains that it's not enough. He calls on one of his men to sound the horn, which quiets them. Then he addresses the crowd, telling them that they're giving them what they can, and pointing out that the Watch needs its share to defend the Wall. He talks about the wights, and says, "It's us that keeps you safe, the black crows you despise."

If they want more food, he says, they need to join in the defense of the Wall: "The food's for fighters. Help us hold the Wall, and you'll eat as well as any crow." But he thinks, "Or as poorly, when the food runs short." Sigorn, the new  Magnar of Thenn, says they should kill the Watch instead, but Jon reminds him that if they do, there will be no one to defend the Wall. "Winterfell's walls were strong as well, but Winterfell stands in ruins today, burned and broken. A wall is only as good as the men defending it."

A confusion of voices rises, but Jon speaks up again, telling them that they don't have to join the Watch and take the black, or worship any particular god or gods to help defend the Wall. "It's spears we need. Bows. Eyes along the Wall." He'll take any boy over twelve who can hold a spear or use a bow, and he needs help just maintaining the Wall and doing ordinary tasks. "I will take as many spearwives as will come," he adds. A girl who reminds him of Arya asks about girls, and he says he'll take them sixteen or older. When she protests that he's taking boys as young as twelve, he realizes that he's talking to wildlings: "As you will. Boys and girls as young as twelve. But only those who know how to obey an order." And he warns them that he'll have the head of anyone who disobeys an order and that his brothers have seen him do it.

The girl is the first to volunteer, and gradually others come forward, led by Halleck, the brother of Harma Dogshead: "'I don't like you, crow,' he growled, 'but I never liked the Mance neither, no more'n my sister did. Still, we fought for him. Why not fight for you?'" This breaks down the barrier, and a flood of others follows. But not the Thenns. Sigorn turns and leaves, and his contingent follows him.

In the end, there are sixty-three volunteers. Bowen Marsh still grumbles, worrying about feeding them, and whether they can be relied on if the Wall is attacked by Tormund Giantsbane and his followers instead of by the Others. Jon can only say he hopes that won't happen.