13. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 344-376

Cersei

King Tommen wants to sit on the Iron Throne, but Cersei is not having any rebelliousness, partly because she suspects that Lady Margaery is putting him up to it. She threatens to send for his whipping boy, Pate, "and have him beaten till he bleeds." He confesses that it was Margaery's suggestion, and Cersei probes until he admits that she suggested he attend council meetings too: "She says I have to learn to be king." She says he would just be bored and fall asleep. "The rule was hers; Cersei did not mean to give it up until Tommen came of age. I waited, so can he. I waited half my life."

This little quarrel puts her in a bad mood until Grand Maester Pycelle arrives with some good news: "Wyman Manderly has done as you commanded, and beheaded Lord Stannis's onion knight." Even then, Cersei is skeptical that Davos has really been killed, but Pycell says that his head and hands have been mounted on the walls of White Harbor and that one of the hands has Davos's shortened fingers.

After an annoying meeting the envoy from Braavos, Noho Dimittis, who is pressing for repayment of the debt and claims that all Lord Gyles does is cough at him, Cersei returns to her apartments to bathe and change for dinner. She is accompanied by Ser Osmund Kettleblack, whom she presses on the matter of his brother Osney's seduction of Lady Margaery. The problem, he tells Cersei, is that Osney and Margaery are never alone together. But when he says that there are often men about her, Cersei thinks she can do something with that and asks what men. Osmund says she likes "singers and jugglers and such," and that Ser Tallad is often there, along with the Redwyne twins and Jalabhar Xho.

As they pass by the ruins of the Tower of the Hand, she sees that across the yard Margaery and her group are cheering a squire who has been jousting with the quintain. Then she realizes that the boy is Tommen. When she reaches him, he is being helped from his horse by Loras Tyrell, who praises Tommen and says he must continue to practice. Cersei's arrival puts a chill on the celebration of Tommen, but she says when he is grown he will be as great a champion as his father.

Margaery asks what tourneys Robert won that Tommen should know about, causing Cersei to flush: She had been thinking about Tommen's real father, Jaime, when she spoke. She says that Robert defeated Prince Rhaegar at the tourney of the Trident and named her "his queen of love and beauty," then hurriedly leaves, asking Osmund to help Tommen with his armor and Ser Loras to accompany her. She berates Loras for putting Tommen at risk and says that any training he receives should be conducted by the master-at-arms -- which, Loras reminds her, they currently don't have. "She did not want Tommen growing close to Loras Tyrell. The Knight of Flowers was no sort of man for any boy to emulate." (Again, Loras's homosexuality is only hinted at.) She says she'll look into the matter of appointing a new master-at-arms, but in the meantime, his job is to protect Tommen. "No more."

Lord Qyburn is waiting for her in her solar. He has various reports for her, including the slave revolt that has spread from Astapor to Meereen, and numerous reports of dragons. She says they must mean harpies -- "'It is harpies in Meereen.' She remembered that from somewhere." And why should she care about slave revolts, since they don't have slaves in Westeros? There is also a report from Dorne that Prince Doran has imprisoned Ser Daemon Sand and that the daughter of the Knight of Spottswood has been betrothed to the elderly Lord Estermont. Both of them were close to Doran's daughter, Arianne, Qyburn says, but again Cersei doesn't know why she should be bothered by this.

Finally, there is another "trifling matter." A puppet show has become popular in King's Landing in which puppet lions ruling a kingdom devour a stag but at the end are devoured by a dragon. "The ending took the puppet show from simple insolence to treason," Cersei realizes, so she orders spies sent to the shows and the names of any "men of note" taken down. They can fine the ones who have money, put out an eye of anyone who doesn't, and cut off the heads of the puppeteers. Qyburn asks if he can imprison a couple of the puppeteers, especially a woman, and she agrees.

She is soaking in her bath when Jaime enters with Tommen. The king insists on being allowed to train and that Ser Loras should be his trainer: "Margaery says that everyone has to do what the king says. I want my white courser saddled on the morrow so Ser Loras can teach me how to joust. I want a kitten too, and I don't want to eat beets." Jaime laughs, but Cersei doesn't. Tommen is afraid when she tells him to come closer, but he does, and she promises him that he will learn to joust, but not from Loras because "knights of the Kingsguard have more important duties than playing with a child." When she calls on Jaime to agree he says, sarcastically, "Riding around the city walls, for an instance." Finally, Tommen gives in when she promises him a kitten.

When he's gone, Jaime asks, "Are you drunk, or merely stupid?" They fight about Ser Loras, and Cersei is incensed that she is getting so much resistance: "No one had ever balked her lord father. When Tywin Lannister spoke, men obeyed. When Cersei spoke, they felt free to counsel her, to contradict her, even refuse her." Finally, she orders him out. She has ordered an expensive new dress because "her wretched washerwomen had shrunk several of her old gowns so they no longer fit," but she took the price of the new gowns out of the washerwomen's wages.

Her guests include Lady Falyse, whose mother, Lady Tanda, has suffered a broken hip in a fall from a horse. Ser Balman Byrch explains that the saddle girth broke, and that the stableboy should have seen that it was worn. He talks about the "sparrows" they encountered on the road, and Cersei observes that the new High Septon will have to deal with them once he's chosen. There had been a leading candidate for the position until the sparrows found him in a brothel.

Ser Balman then brings up the unpleasant subject of the naming of Lollys's son: Tyrion. He assures Cersei that neither he nor Falyse had any role in it. "Lollys is a simple creature, and her husband is given to black humors." Cersei decides to use it to enlist them in her cause, and talks about her fear that the Imp will attack her next, and that Bronn is working on his behalf. "I ... I would sleep more easily of a night if I were to hear that Ser Bronn had suffered a ... a mishap ... whilst hunting, perhaps." Ser Balman gets the message.

Cersei checks in on Tommen after dinner and is surprised to find three black kittens asleep in bed with him. Ser Meryn Trant, on guard, says that Margaery had given them to him, and he had been unable to decide which one to keep. Cersei wishes they weren't black, which is unlucky. And she is reminded of the murder of Rhaegar's daughter, who might have been hers if King Aerys hadn't thwarted Tywin's plan to marry Cersei to Rhaegar. "Next to Rhaegar, even her beautiful Jaime had seemed no more than a callow boy." The day she met Rhaegar was the day she had visited Maggy the Frog. "She had only done it to show Jeyne and Melara that the lioness fears nothing." They had laughed at the old woman's prophecies, but at the end of the tourney Tywin had informed her that Aerys had rejected the idea of betrothing her to Rhaegar.

Brienne


Hyle Hunt decides to take the heads of Shagwell, Pyg, and Timeon with them as they journey back the way they came. But by the time they reach Maidenpool, the stench of the heads has Brienne and Podrick keeping their distance from Hunt, who gives them to a guard and tells him to mount them on the wall above the gate. Randyll Tarly is astonished when he hears that Brienne had killed all three of them, but he sticks to his conviction that she has no business carrying on like a knight: "It's time you took off that mail and donned proper clothes again," he says, telling her to find a ship in the harbor that will take her to Tarth.


Brienne refuses, of course, and insists on continuing her search for Sansa. She suggests seeking out Sandor Clegane, but Tarly scoffs at the idea. Clegane has joined the outlaws, he says, and they have eluded his efforts to track them down and kill them. "We've hanged dozens of outlaws, but the leaders still elude us. Clegane, Dondarrion, the red priest, and now this woman Stoneheart ... how do you propose to find them, when I cannot?" He decides that if he can't stop her, he'll let her try, but when she asks if she and Podrick might stay there for the night he refuses. "No man deserves to be cursed with such as you. Live or die, Lady Brienne, do not return to Maidenpool whilst I rule here."


There are no rooms for them at any of the inns, but Podrick suggests they see if they can find a place to sleep that night on one of the ships in the harbor. They finally find shelter on a galley that has suffered damage in a storm and is waiting until the captain can get enough money together to have her repaired. Brienne spends a restless night dreaming about the men she had killed.


They have agreed to meet Hyle Hunt at the Stinking Goose in the morning, and they breakfast there -- to Hunt's dismay when he arrives: "Gods, I hope you did not eat the food here," he says. He has inquired about Clegane and tells them he was last seen at Saltpans before riding west along the Trident. He hasn't joined the outlaws, but in fact the outlaws are looking for him. Saltpans, he suggests, would be the best place to start looking for the Hound. There is a septon named Meribald who knows the territory intimately and is leaving tomorrow to go in the direction of Saltpans. Hunt says he's going with him. "You and Podrick can go wherever you bloody well like."


Brienne suspects that Lord Randyll has put him up to this, but he tells her he has been dismissed from Tarly's service. He has decided to become a hedge knight, and if he happens to find Sansa Stark, so much the better. Brienne gives in and she and Podrick join up with Hunt and Septon Meribald, "a septon without a sept, only one step up from a begging brother in the hierarchy of the faith." He has a donkey laden with "Food for the poor and hungry of the riverlands," he tells her. He also has a large dog, who is called Dog. Meribald is barefoot, and says he hasn't worn shoes for twenty years; he has "the biggest feet that Brienne had ever seen, bare and black and hard as horn."


They make their way through the marshlands, where Meribald is well-known by the people who live there, and he tells them about how bad the wolves have grown lately. "They say the pack is led by a monstrous she-wolf, a stalking shadow grim and grey and huge." (The reader remembers Nymeria, Arya's direwolf, driven away at the Trident.) He warns them not to go out onto the mudflats by themselves, or the mud may swallow them up. And he tells them of the "broken men" who have gone off to fight in some lord or other's wars and finally are so undone by their experiences that they desert and find themselves living "from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man.... In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them ... but he should pity them as well."


Brienne realizes that Meribald himself had been one of the broken men.

5. A Feast for Crows, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 116-144

Jaime

He has resisted offers from other members of the Kingsguard, such as Loras Tyrell, to stand vigil over his father's bier, though his joints are stiffening and he feels a throbbing where his sword hand should be. "My hand is hungry for a sword. I need to kill someone. Varys, for a start, but first I'd need to find the rock he's hiding under." He had waited for Varys the night of Tyrion's escape, taking the eunuch by surprise in his own chambers and drawing him into the plot to free Tyrion. He now wonders if Tyrion killed Varys, too, and thinks about the maze of tunnels and passages that he had discovered in the castle after his father's death. If Tyrion had killed Varys, "it might be years before his bones were found."

During the search he had found a mosaic of the three-headed dragon, and remembers when he last saw Prince Rhaegar, whom he had begged to let someone beside himself guard the king. Rhaegar had told him that he planned to call a council to deal with the problems caused by the madness of Rhaegar's father, but of course he never returned from the battle. "He was right more than he knew. When the battle was done, there were changes made," changes that resulted from Jaime's killing King Aerys.

He is surprised that he feels no grief standing over his father's corpse, as first the lords and ladies do homage and later the common people. He thinks about how the investigation of the murder had been botched: The turnkeys who had been found asleep were killed, and Ser Boros Blount claimed that Cersei had ordered it, so Ser Osmund and his brothers did the deed. "I told Varys no one was to be harmed in this escape, Jaime thought, but I should have told my brother and my sister." And he remembers what Tyrion had told him about Cersei: "... she's been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and Moon Boy for all I know...."

As the stench from the corpse increases, he thinks of the smell of the battlefield where the crows feasted on the slain: "How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king?" He knows the crows are gathering over Baelor's Sept.

Every crow in the Seven Kingdoms should pay homage to you, Father. From Castamere to the Blackwater, you fed them well. That notion pleased Lord Tywin; his smile widened further. Bloody hell, he's grinning like a bridegroom at his bedding.

Jaime laughs outloud at this notion, aware that the smile on Tywin's face is caused by the accelerating decomposition, and at the irony of "standing vigil for a father I helped to slay, sending men forth to capture the brother I helped to free." He thinks of Brienne on her quest for Sansa, and alternates between "Stupid stubborn ugly wench" and praying, "Father, give her strength," uncertain whether the Father he invoked was the deity imaged in the sept or the one lying dead before him.

At midnight the septons and septas enter for their devotionals, and after they have left Cersei enters. She is dripping wet from the rain, and is disguised as "a tavern wench in a heavy roughspun cloak." She reminds him of the time she disguised herself to get past their father's guards so they could meet at an inn. She tells him that Kevan has refused to serve as Hand, and that he had revealed his knowledge of their incest. She also voices her suspicions that the High Septon knows as well, and pleads with him again to become Tommen's Hand, and speaks of him as "our son." He refuses, harshly, and says, "Tommen is no son of mine, no more Joffrey was.... You made them Robert's too." For a moment he wants to take her in his arms, but he resists, even when she pleads. "I was made for a battlefield, not a council chamber. And now it may be that I am unfit even for that." She leaves, angrily.

When dawn comes and the light shines in on the corpse, it is "rotting visibly. His face had taken on a greenish tinge, and his eyes were deeply sunken, two black pits. Fissures had opened in his cheeks, and a foul white fluid was seeping through the joints of his splendid gold-and-crimson armor to pool beneath his body." One of the septons faints during the morning devotions, and the addition of incense creates "a sweet rotten smell that made Jaime want to gag."

When the nobility arrives that morning, Cersei and Tommen are accompanied by Ser Osmund Kettleblack, and Jaime remembers Tyrion's mocking accusation that she had been fucking him. Having seen Ser Osmund naked in the baths, Jaime is revolted by the image that comes to mind and assures himself, "She would not do that. The Imp lied." She and Tommen climb the steps to kneel before the bier, but Tommen is horror-stricken.

"Pray," she whispered, and Tommen tried. But he was only eight and Lord Tywin was a horror. One desperate breath of air, then the king began to sob. "Stop that!" Cersei said. Tommen turned his head and doubled over, retching. His crown fell off and rolled across the marble floor. His mother pulled back in disgust, and all at once the king was running for the doors, as fast as his eight-year-old legs could carry him.

Jaime calls for Ser Osmund to relieve him and goes after Tommen, whom he takes outside "where the air was as fresh and clean as King's Landing ever got." He consoles the boy, who asks Jaime how he could bear the smell. Jaime recalls having his own rotting hand hanging around his neck, and tells him, "A man can bear most anything, if he must." He had smelled a man being roasted alive by King Aerys. "The world is full of horrors, Tommen. You can fight them, or laugh at them, or look without seeing ... go away inside."

Tommen knows what he means: "I ... I used to go away inside sometimes ... when Joffy...." But he doesn't get a chance to name what his brother had inflicted on him, because Cersei appears behind them and corrects the name to Joffrey and chides Tommen for shaming her. She continues to scold him until Jaime says, "Cersei, enough." She retorts that he was supposed to stand vigil for seven days and seven nights until the wake was over, but he says it's over: "Go look at him." Their argument is interrupted by the arrival of Mace Tyrell, who expresses concern about Tommen and asks if he can do anything. Jaime suggests that he take supper with Cersei and discuss it.

When he leaves, Cersei rounds on Jaime and asks, "why am I having supper with that grasping fool and his puerile wife?" She is not going to name him Hand, if that's what Jaime wants. It isn't: Jaime wants her to ask him to take Storm's End. "Either he will deliver Storm's End to you, or he will muck it up and look like a fool. Either way, you win." Cersei considers the idea, but says that Tyrell plans to stay until the marriage of Tommen and Margaery. So let the marriage take place right away, Jaime says, "and send him off to play at war."

"Why, our Lord of Highgarden might even lose his life in such a venture," Cersei says with a smile. And Jaime replies, "Especially if his patience runs thin this time, and he elects to storm the gate." To which Cersei observes, "for a moment you sounded quite like Father."

Brienne

She has reached Duskendale, but the gates are shut, and she has to stay outside with farmers and other people who are waiting for them to open. She is halted at the gate by the captain of the guards, who wants to know her business in the town, and she says she is there to see the Lord of Duskendale or his maester. The captain notices the emblem on her shield, and she explains that the arms aren't hers. As it happens, he says, his sister paints arms on shields, and tells Brienne where to find her.

Brienne takes his advice and goes directly to the captain's sister, who tells her she can have the work done by the next morning. So she takes a room in the inn nearby and bathes, remembering how Jaime had gotten into the tub with her at Harrenhal. She tries to think of Renly instead, but can't remember his face. Then she goes to the castle, but finds that the lord is away, so she speaks with the castellan, Ser Rufus Leek. She presents the letter with Tommen's signature that Jaime had given her, but Ser Rufus can't read, so he sends her to the maester.

He tells her that he's been deluged with requests for information about Dontos Hollard, but he can only retell the history of the destruction of House Hollard, of which Dontos was the last. So she has run up on another dead end. Pondering her options, Brienne decides that the best would be to try the Eyrie, because "Lady Lysa would surely welcome her sister's daughter." But as she is thinking, she takes a wrong turn, and backtracking she collides with "a scrawny lad with straight, thin hair and a sty beneath one eye." He looks "vaguely familiar" to her, but when she asks if they know each other, he turns and runs away.

She returns to the inn, where the common room has become crowded. But someone behind her offers his seat, and when she turns around she sees that he's a dwarf with a "veined and bulbous" nose and "dressed in the brown roughspun robes of a holy brother." She tells him she had met other brothers on the road, and he says there are hundreds of them heading for King's Landing. He asks for her story and she says she's looking for her sister, who may be traveling with a knight or perhaps a fool. He remembers seeing a fool at Maidenpool. "He had a furtive air to him," the dwarf says, and he saw him once again at the Stinking Goose, where he "was seeking passage for three across the narrow sea."

She wonders why Ser Dontos would seek passage for three instead of just two; perhaps the third was Tyrion? Then later "some of Lord Tarly's soldiers visited the Goose looking for him, and a few days later I heard another man boasting that he'd fooled a fool and had the gold to prove it." The man's name was Nimble Dick, the dwarf recalls. Brienne tries to decide if this fool could have been Ser Dontos, and whether she should go "To Maidenpool, to look for a man named Nimble Dick in a place called the Stinking Goose?" She could take a ship that would take her north from Maidenpool if the contact with Nimble Dick doesn't pan out.

She listens to the talk at the other tables about the death of Lord Tywin and the "vile little dwarf" who killed him. There is talk about who will rule until Tommen comes of age, and someone suggests the Kingslayer, but the innkeep spits in the fire and calls Jaime an "oathbreaker," so Brienne decides she's heard enough. She goes to her room where she dreams of Renly's death again, except that when she looks "the dying king was not Renly after all but Jaime Lannister, and she had failed him."

In the morning the captain's sister brings her the freshly painted shield, which is so beautifully done that Brienne pays her half again what they had agreed upon. And she sets off, traveling north toward Maidenpool. She finds a marker at the burial site of the northern troops who had been killed in a battle with Lord Randyll Tarly, and says a prayer for them and for Catelyn and Robb. She is reminded of the night when Catelyn had been told that Bran and Rickon were dead, and how Catelyn talked about brushing Sansa's hair. Brienne vows again to find Sansa.

It begins to rain, and she takes shelter in the ruins of what she realizes is a Hollard castle, where Ser Dontos might have been born. She is looking for wood to make a fire when she hears the sound of a rider. It turns out to be the boy she bumped into in Duskendale. He rides past the castle. "He is stalking me, she realized, but that's a game that two can play." She follows him, with the rain muffling the sound of her horse, sneaks up behind him, and gives his piebald horse a smack on the rump with the flat of her sword.

The horse throws the boy, and she stands over him and demands to know who he is. His mouth is full of dirt from the fall, but finally he stammers out his name: Podrick Payne. She asks if he is spying on her for Varys or the queen, but he explains that he is Tyrion's squire, and he's looking for Sansa. "His face twisted in sudden anguish. 'I'm his squire,' he repeated, as the rain ran down his face, 'but he left me.'"  





 

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

The Captain of the Guards

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cersei

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

26. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 894-926

Tyrion

He is informed that he will be tried and judged by Mace Tyrell, Oberyn Martell, and his own father, but he can also choose a trial by combat. But Ser Kevan, his uncle, informs Tyrion that Cersei has named Gregor Clegane as her champion, which causes him to have second thoughts about that option. Bronn had succeeded as his champion at the Eyrie, but probably won't be persuaded to go against the Mountain.

In the meantime, he is under house arrest, which makes locating witnesses on his behalf somewhat difficult. He will be allowed access to his squire, Podrick, however. So when Podrick arrives Tyrion sends him in search of Bronn. Podrick is so long in returning, that Tyrion turns his mind to other things, such as figuring out who did poison Joffrey. He decides that it must have been Sansa, though he can't imagine who her accomplice might be in locating the poison, and sends word to his uncle that she should be found.

Podrick finally returns the next day with Bronn, who reveals that he is to marry Lollys, Lady Tanda's daughter, who is pregnant from being raped during the riots. When Tyrion points out to Bronn that Lollys is not the heir to Stokeworth, since she has a married elder sister, Falyse, Bronn point out that Falyse has been married for ten years without giving birth. Besides, Falyse could always die before Lady Tanda does. "Tyrion wondered whether Cersei had any notion of the sort of serpent she'd given Lady Tanda to suckle." Bronn turns down the offer to fight Gregor Clegane: "Either the Mountain spills my guts, or I kill him and lose Stokeworth. I sell my sword, I don't give it away."

When Bronn leaves, Podrick tells Tyrion he's sorry. But Tyrion replies, "Why? Is it your fault that Bronn's an insolent black-hearted rogue? He's always been an insolent black-hearted rogue. That's what I liked about him."

The day of the trial arrives, and Tyrion is ushered to the packed Throne Room. The first witness against him is Ser Balon Swann, who testifies about Tyrion's bravery at the battle of the Blackwater, and says, "I will not believe he did this thing," which surprises Tyrion. But Ser Balon also recalls that Tyrion "knocked the king to the ground and began kicking him" on the day of the riot. And Meryn Trant follows Balon to the stand to recall the same incident, as well as the time Tyrion stopped Joffrey's humiliation of Sansa, reminding him of "what had happened to Aerys Tergaryen. And that when Ser Boros Blount defended the king, Tyrion "threatened to have him killed." Ser Boros confirms the story.

The three Kettleblacks testify next, recalling Tyrion's threats to Cersei. "He said he would wait for a day when she was happy, and make her joy turn to ashes in her mouth," Osney testifies, without mentioning that Tyrion was protesting the whipping of Alayaya. Ser Osmund claims that Joffrey had told him to guard him against Tyrion, "for my uncle loves me not. He means to be king in my place." Tyrion can't restrain himself and shouts, "Liar!" but is admonished by his father. Cersei begs him to put Tyrion in chains, but is turned down.

On the second day, the maesters who conducted the autopsy say they found no sign of choking on the pigeon pie and that Joffrey was killed by poison. Grand Maester Pycelle is shown a number of poisons and tells the court that Tyrion had stolen them from his chambers when he had Pycelle imprisoned. Tyrion asks if any of them caused the kind of choking that Joffrey experienced, and Pycelle admits that they don't, and that you need a poison known as "the strangler." Tyrion asks if any of it was found, and Pycelle replies no, "You used it all to kill the noblest child the gods ever put on this good earth." The characterization so infuriates Tyrion that he blurts out, "Joffrey was cruel and stupid, but I did not kill him." Once again, Tywin warns him to keep quiet. Then there is a parade of witnesses to what happened at the wedding, including the detail of Tyrion emptying the chalice onto the floor after Joffrey began choking.

That evening, Tyrion's uncle, Ser Kevan, tells him, "If you were to admit your guilt before the throne and repent of your crime, your father would withhold the sword. You would be permitted to take the black." Tyrion recalls that "Those were the same terms Cersei offered Eddard Stark. We all know how that ended." But Kevan reminds him that Lord Tywin was not involved in that betrayal, which Tyrion has to admit. He tells his uncle he will think about the offer, and spends the night trying to decide whether to trust his father. He is aware of the consequences of confessing: "They will call me kinslayer till the end of my days. For a thousand years or more, if I am remembered at all, it will be as the monstrous dwarf who poisoned his young nephew at his wedding feast."

The next day, Varys is called to testify. He tells of Tyrion's scheme to separate Joffrey from the protection of Sandor Clegane, and of his talking with Bronn about "the benefits of having Tommen as king." Varys has notes on all of Tyrion's movements and threats that confirm Tyrion's malice toward Joffrey. The weight of the evidence is seriously prejudicial, particularly as it is so meticulously documented. At the end of it Tywin asks Cersei if all the witnesses have been produced, and she tells him there is one more. Tyrion feels a kind of gratitude that it's almost over: "After this farce of a trial, execution will almost come as a relief."

That night, Prince Oberyn pays him a surprise visit. He tells Tyrion that Cersei "needs another husband, and who better than a prince of Dorne? Ellaria believes I should accept. Just the thought of Cersei in our bed makes her wet, the randy wench." Of course, Cersei won't consent unless he agrees to convict Tyrion. But he has no love for Cersei.

"To be sure, I have much to thank your sister for. If not for her accusation at the feast, it might well be you judging me instead of me judging you." The prince's eyes were dark with amusement. "Who knows more of poison than the Red Viper of Dorne, after all? Who has better reason to want to keep the Tyrells far from the crown? And with Joffrey in his grave, by Dornish law the Iron Throne should pass next to his sister Myrcella, who as it happens is betrothed to mine own nephew, thanks to you."

Dornish law doesn't apply in King's Landing, Oberyn admits, but that doesn't mean that civil war couldn't result from the claim. When Tyrion says that his father would never support Myrcella over Tommen, Oberyn replies, "Your father ... may not live forever." And Tyrion remembers that Oberyn suspects Tywin of having ordered the rape and murder of Elia, Oberyn's sister: "He wants the head that spoke the words, not just the hand that swung the sword."

Tyrion presses the point: "It was Ser Gregor Clegane who smashed Prince Aegon's head against a wall and raped your sister Elia with his blood and brains still on his hands." But when Oberyn asks if Tywin gave the order, Tyrion can't bring himself to admit it. Oberyn recognizes it as "a very feeble lie," but says he might be able to save Tyrion. He is only one of the three judges, Tyrion says. How could Oberyn save him?

"Not as your judge. As your champion."

Jaime

He has moved into the Lord Commander's quarters, and is spending his days at Tyrion's trial. Tyrion has given no sign that he has seen him, and perhaps hasn't even recognized him. Cersei has kept her distance since the day they had sex in the sept, so Jaime is estranged from his whole family.

He has at his side an enormous book formally known as The Book of the Brothers, but usually called the White Book. It is a history of the Kingsguard, into which each member records his deeds. The records need updating, and Jaime decides he will take care of that once he learns to write with his left hand. He reads through the entry for Ser Barristan Selmy, and observes that his own entry is slender in comparison.

But he sets aside the book when the other members of the Kingsguard arrive, starting with Ser Osmund Kettleblack. There are six of them in all present, with Ser Arys Oakheart away in Dorne. In addition to Ser Osmund, there are Ser Boros Blount, Ser Meryn Trant, Ser Balon Swann, and Ser Loras Tyrell.

Jaime had served with Meryn Trant and Boros Blount for years, adequate fighters, but Trant was sly and cruel, and Blount a bag of growly air. Ser Balon Swann was better suited to his cloak, and of course the Knight of Flowers was supposedly all a knight should be. The fifth man was a stranger to him, this Osmund Kettleblack. 

He begins by pointing out that all five of them were present at the wedding feast, but Joffrey is dead anyway. He observes that this makes Tyrell angry and Balon ashamed, but the other three betray no emotion. And then he asks if Tyrion poisoned Joffrey. It is Meryn Trant who says he must have been the one to poison the wine, and Ser Boros says that spilling it demonstrates Tyrion's guilt. But Ser Balon says the dais was full of people, and that everyone was looking at the doves that flew from the pie. "No one was watching the wine cup."

It's the Knight of Flowers who speaks up to accuse Sansa, "who had reason to want Margaery dead, as well as the king." And she fled afterward. This gives Jaime some hope that Tyrion might be innocent, and he thinks about consulting Varys to find out how Sansa might have escaped. But for now his task is to manage the Kingsguard in protecting Tommen. The first thing he does is to order Ser Boros to "taste everything Tommen eats or drinks." Ser Boros is furious at the idea: "I am no food taster! I am a knight of the Kingsguard!"

But Joffrey knows how Boros yielded Tommen to Bronn. Cersei had stripped him of his white cloak because of it, but Tywin had restored it. He tells Boros that he "will find carrots and pease less threatening than" Bronn. "You should have died before you let Tommen be taken." Boros retorts, "As you died protecting Aerys, ser?" As a "cripple," Boros says, Jaime should be the one to taste the food. He reaches for his sword, and Jaime tells him to go ahead and draw it, "and we shall see how your two hands fare against my one." Boros spits at Jaime's feet and walks out -- to Jaime's relief, knowing that he is still no match for any of them with his left hand.

Then he turns to Ser Osmund and says he doesn't know him and asks where he served. Osmund's answer reveals that he had been a sellsword, and even the source of his knighthood -- "Ser Robert ... Stone. He's dead now, my lord" -- is questionable. Jaime wonders, "What was Cersei thinking when she gave this one a white cloak?" Jaime reflects that at least Kettleblack knows how to fight, so he tells him to go.

Next it's Meryn Trant's turn, and Jaime questions his role in helping Joffrey abuse Sansa. He asks him to point out in the White Book "where it is in our vows that we swear to beat women and children." Trant replies that he was just following the king's orders, and Jaime tells him to obey the Queen Regent, the King's Hand, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard from now own. Tommen "is eight. Our first duty is to protect him, which includes protecting him from himself.... If Tommen wants you to saddle his horse, obey him. If he tells you to kill his horse, come to me." He dismisses Ser Meryn.

Then he tells Ser Balon that he has seen him fight and "The Kingsguard is honored by your presence." Balon warily thanks him, and Jaime continues, "but Varys tells me that your brother rode with Renly and then Stannis, whilst your lord father chose not to call his banners at all and remained behind the walls of Stonehelm all through the fighting." Balon replies that his father is an old man, "Well past forty. His fighting days are done." As for his brother, he was wounded in the battle and afterward pledged fealty to Joffrey with the other captives. But Jaime says it's not his brother he's concerned with but Balon. What will he do if his brother joins with another usurper and Balon has to defend the king against him. Balon assures him, "that will never happen." But it happened to Jaime himself, he reminds Balon. Embarrassed, Balon says, "On my sword, on my honor, on my father's name, I swear ... I shall not do as you did."

The answer pleases and amuses Jaime, who tells Balon to return to his duties and tell his brother "to add a weathervane to his shield." This leaves only the Knight of Flowers. There is a spell of measuring up against each other: both had been called to the guard as young men, Loras at seventeen, Jaime at fifteen, and both had distinguished mentors. "He's me, Jaime realized suddenly. I am speaking to myself, as I was, all cocksure arrogance and empty chivalry. This is what it does to you, to be too good too young." Then he reminds Loras that a member of the Kingsguard has no secrets from the Lord Commander and asks who was wearing Renly's armor in the Battle of the Blackwater. Loras hesitates before admitting that it was his brother, Garlan, and that the idea was Littlefinger's.

Loras goes on to say that he will defend King Tommen, but that Renly "was the king that should have been. He was the best of them." Jaime admires Ser Loras's loyalty, but he has a duty left for him: Brienne. Loras insists that she won her place in the Rainbow Guard with a trick. Jaime reminds Loras of the trick he used by riding "a mare in heat against a foe mounted on a bad-tempered stallion." But Loras insists that Brienne killed Renly. "Or let him die." Which brings them back to Joffrey's death: "There were five of you at the wedding feast.... How could Joffrey die? Unless you were part of it." When Loras says there was nothing they could have done, Jaime tells him that's exactly what Brienne said of Renly's death. "Show me how you'd fight a shadow. I should like to see that."

Ser Loras insists that Brienne's flight with Catelyn Stark is evidence of her guilt. But he admits that there is no way a sword could have pierced Renly's armor. "If not her, though ... how could it be a shadow?" Jaime tells him to go to Brienne in her cell, ask her questions and listen to her answers. "All I ask is that you judge her fairly, on your honor as a knight." He dismisses Loras, but the knight turns at the door and says, "if she's innocent, then Robar and Emmon...." But he can't finish the sentence, and Jaime is left to think, "The Knight of Flowers had been so mad with grief for Renly that he had cut down two of his own Sworn Brothers, but it had never occurred to Jaime to do the same with the five who had failed Joffrey."