15. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 395-419

Daenerys

Daenerys is growing worried about the ships that are blockading Slaver's Bay, but all her admiral, Groleo, can offer her is advice to turn her dragons loose and burn them. Barristan assures her that the city is well-supplied for the time being.


Skahaz, attended by two of the guards known as Brazen Beasts because they wear animal masks of brass, tells her that Hizdahr has been visiting the wealthy of Meereen, and that it has been twenty-six days since the Sons of the Harpy have committed a murder. Skahaz believes that Hizdahr is himself the Harpy and wants to torture the truth out of him. To his displeasure, Daenerys forbids it.


He then presents her a list of all the Meereenese ships participating in the blockade, which represent all the ruling families of the city. He wants to send the Brazen Beasts to all the houses and imprison all the kin as hostages. Again, she forbids it to prevent "open war inside the city. I have to trust in Hizdahr. I have to hope for peace." Skahaz glowers as she burns the list.


Later, Barristan praises her restraint, saying her brother Rhaegar would approve. But she remembers what Jorah Mormont said: "Rhaegar fought valiantly, Rhaegar fought nobly, Rhaegar fought honorably. And Rhaegar died."


At her public hearing of grievances, there are very few attending, and Reznak mo Reznak tells her people are afraid to leave their houses. Then that evening, Galazza Galare arrives, along with Grey Worm. They tell her that a dying man arrived on a pale horse to say that Astapor is burning. He was emaciated and feverish, suffering from bloody dysentery. She realizes that if the Yunkai'i have taken Astapor, they will aim at Meereen next, and tells Barristan to recall her bloodriders and her sellswords.


Brown Ben Plumm and the Second Sons are the first to arrive, eight days later. They bring with them three Astapori with harrowing tales of the fall of the city. Two of them thank Daenerys for giving them refuge in Meereen, but she sees the truth in the eyes of the third: "She knows I cannot keep them safe. Astapor is burning, and Meereen is next." And Brown Ben says there are hundreds, even thousand of refugees still to come. "The Cats and the Windblown are swarming through the hills with lance and lash, driving them north and cutting down the laggards."


Daenerys is troubled by what to do about them: She is the one who disturbed the order in their city. Reznak mo Reznak has an answer for her: Marry Hizdahr. But Daenerys also remembers Quaithe's warning: "Beware the perfumed seneschal." Brown Ben's solution is to unleash the dragons, but she tells him she can't do that. Then they should leave Meereen, he advises, "and start west with wagons full o' gold and gems and such."


She determines, however, that they should stand and fight: "I defeated the Yunkai'i before. I will defeat them again." But her counselors disagree on the answers to her questions: "Where, though? How?" She commissions the Second Sons to scout the enemy, but she says the Astapori refugees must be welcomed. Barristan protests, "Your Grace, I have known the bloody flux to destroy whole armies when left to spread unchecked. The seneschal is right. We cannot have the Astapori in Meereen." So she tells them to set up a refugee camp outside the walls.


Privately, she consults with Barristan, whose assessment of the situation is gloomy. And she recognizes what she needs to do to at least stabilize the city: "I need Hizdahr zo Loraq."


Melisandre


In her chambers, Melisandre gazes into the fire, seeking to be sure of what she has seen there. She looks especially for "the grey girl on the dying horse," who she has told Jon is his sister Arya. She sees "A wooden face, corpse white," and it sees her. "Beside him, a boy with a wolf's face threw back his head and howled." She hears voices out of the past: "'Melony,' she heard a woman cry. A man's voice called, 'Lot Seven.'" She hears Jon Snow's name, and sees his face appear and disappear.

Now he was a man, now a wolf, now a man again. But the skulls were here as well, the skulls were all around him. Melisandre had seen his danger before, had tried to warn the boy of it. Enemies all around him, daggers in the dark. He would not listen.

She thinks, "I pray for a glimpse of Azor Ahai, and R'hllor shows me only Snow." She asks Devan, Stannis's squire, to bring her a drink of water. He was upset when Stannis left him behind to stay with Melisandre, but she had asked for him specifically, knowing that Davos had already lost four sons.


Devan suggests that she eat something, and when she sends him to fetch her breakfast she tells him to find Rattleshirt and send him to her. When he arrives, she notices that he isn't wearing his armor of bones. "He was cloaked in shadows too, in wisps of ragged grey mist, half-seen, sliding across his face and form with every step he took." When she comments on the missing bones, he tells her, "The clacking was like to drive me mad."


In the iron fetter he wears on his wrist, there is a ruby. He says he can feel its warmth, and sometimes it even burns and he's tempted to pry it out. She tells him, "The spell is made of shadow and suggestion. Men see what they expect to see. The bones are part of that," and wonders if she made a mistake by sparing him. She tells him that Lord Snow's rangers will return today, "with their blind and bloody eyes." That, he tells her, is the work of the Weeper -- one of the wildling chieftains who remained north of the Wall.


Then she tells him about the girl on the dying horse, whom she still assumes to be Arya Stark. She wants to send him out to rescue her. He scoffs at the idea: "No one ever trusted Rattleshirt but fools. Snow's not that. If his sister needs saving, he'll send his crows. I would." He asks where she saw the girl, and from her description he recognizes Long Lake. But their conversation is interrupted by the sound of a warhorn. It is the signal for returning rangers, and she tells him to stay there. When the Watch sees what has happened to the rangers, they will be angry at the wildlings.


She goes out and follows the tunnel through the Wall to where Jon and the black brothers are gathered around three spears, each with the head of a ranger impaled on the point, the eyes gouged out of each head. Bowen Marsh identifies the rangers for her, and comments that with the ground so frozen it must have taken half the night for the wildlings to drive the spears so deep. He worries that they are still close by, watching, but Jon says they have gone. "Ghost would have their scent if they were still out there." He orders the heads taken and burned until nothing but bone is left.


When he sees Melisandre, he asks her to walk with him, which pleases her. They walk slowly, according to her plan, because her warmth causes the ice in the tunnel beneath the Wall to melt and drip: "He will not fail to notice that." He asks if she has seen the other six rangers, and she tells him she hasn't. She does tell him that she had a vision of "towers by the sea, submerged beneath a black and bloody tide." He takes that to be Eastwatch, but although she isn't entirely sure that is what the vision signified, she agrees with him. She asks him to come to her chambers, and he agrees.


As they walk, she can sense his mistrust, and she recognizes it as the same mistrust Stannis once had in her. "In truth, the young lord commander and her king had more in common than either one would ever be willing to admit." She notes that he hasn't asked about Arya, and he tells her that his oath to the Watch means that he has no sister, and that there is no way he can help her. When they enter her chambers, he sees Rattleshirt and bristles. The wildling taunts him, but turns his attention to Melisandre, telling her that he'll need half a dozen good horses and some spearwives to accompany him. "The girl's more like to trust them, and they will help me carry off a certain ploy I have in mind."


Melisandre explains to Jon that she is sending Rattleshirt to rescue Arya. Jon objects, furiously, "If he tries to leave Castle Black without my leave, I'll take his head off myself." But Melisandre sends Devan away, then touches the ruby at her neck and speaks a word. "The wildling heard one word, the crow another. Neither was the word that left her lips." Suddenly, Rattleshirt is transformed into Mance Rayder. And Jon learns that it was Rattleshirt who was burned. He calls it "sorcery," but she replies, "Call it what you will. Glamor, seeming, illusion." But to her self she admits it was a difficult spell to bring off. "When the flames had licked at Rattleshirt, the ruby at her throat had grown so hot that she had feared her own flesh might start to smoke and blacken. Thankfully Lord Snow had delivered her from that agony with his arrows."


She points out that Mance won't betray him, because they hold his son and because Jon had pleaded against his execution. "There he stands, Lord Snow. Arya's deliverance. A gift from the Lord of Light ... and me."

14. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 372-394

Jon

Jon is sending out rangers beyond the Wall, and among them is his old enemy, Alliser Thorne, who says, "So the bastard boy sends me out to die." Jon keeps his cool, but Thorne threatens to come back as a wight and single him out. There are three groups of rangers, and Dywen is leading the one that includes Thorne. Jon thinks, "Thorne is in better hands than he deserves."

The commanders of the outlying posts have been seeing more activity from the wildings still to the north of the Wall, and have requested more men -- men that Jon doesn't have. He has sent some of the free folk who joined at Mole's Town, but this has only caused Cotter Pyke and Denys Mallister, the commanders of the castles, to complain. Pyke wrote, through Maester Harmune, "I wouldn't trust such to clean my chamber pot."

He sees Iron Emmett, the master-at-arms, training his men, and asks for his three best trainees. Then he spars with them, taking on all three at once. He demonstrates his skill, but when he's finished Rattleshirt is there, scoffing at Jon's taking on mere trainees and wondering if he has the skill to take on someone with experience. Jon accepts the challenge, telling Rattleshirt, "Stannis burned the wrong man," meaning Mance Rayder. But Rattleshirt replies, "He burned the man he had to burn, for all the world to see. We all do what we have to do, Snow. Even kings."

Jon orders real armor, not bones, for Rattleshirt, and observes that he seems taller and more muscular in mail and plate than in bones. The first blow Rattleshirt lands surprises him with its power and quickness, and he uses the two-handed greatsword he has chosen with more speed than Jon expected. Finally, both men lose their swords and wind up wrestling on the ground until two members of the Watch pull them apart. Rattleshirt snarls, "If I had me a dagger, you'd be less an eye by now."

When they have separated, Iron Emmett tells Jon, "he threatened your life, we all heard. He said that if he had a dagger--" Jon points out that Rattleshirt "does have a dagger. Right there on his belt." He recalls what Ser Rodrik, the master-at-arms at Winterfell, once told him and Robb: "There is always someone quicker and stronger.... He's the man you want to face in the yard before you need to face his like upon a battlefield."

They are interrupted by Clydas, who has a message from Ramsay Bolton. Jon reads it and learns that Moat Cailin has been taken, and that Roose Bolton is summoning the lords loyal to him to Barrowton to affirm their loyalty and to witness Ramsay's marriage to Arya. Jon is astonished at this news, having thought that Arya died in King's Landing. "By now she'd be eleven, Jon thought. Still a child." He tells Clydas that there will be no answer from him to the letter.

He is covered with bruises and that night "felt as stiff as a man of sixty years." His thoughts full of Arya, remembering when he had given her Needle, he goes out into the bitter cold. Ghost is there and follows him. Through Ghost he senses a thousand smells in the night, and then senses someone behind him: "Someone who smelled warm as a summer day." He turns and thinks he sees Ygritte, but when he speaks her name, Melisandre replies.

Then she tells him, "Do not despair, Lord Snow. Despair is a weapon of the enemy, whose name may not be spoken. Your sister is not lost to you." She says she has seen Arya in her fires, "fleeing from this marriage they have made for her. Coming here, to you. A girl in grey on a dying horse." Then she asks if she may touch Ghost. Jon warns her that he is not used to strangers, but the wolf comes to her, at first warily, but then shoves his nose into her warm hand. And when Jon calls to Ghost, the wolf looks at him as if he were the stranger.

Melisandre tells him, "Your Wall is a queer place, but there is power here, if you will use it. Power in you, and in this beast. You resist it, and that is your mistake. Embrace it. Use it." Jon is wary, and replies, "Dalla told me something once. Val's sister, Mance Rayder's wife. She said that sorcery was a sword without a hilt. There is no safe way to grasp it." Melisandre says she was wise, but that even a sword without a hilt is a sword, "a fine thing to have when foes are all about." Then she tells him that of the nine raiders he sent out, three are dead. "They have not died yet, but their death is out there waiting for them, and they ride to meet it." Then she tells him to take her hand and let her save his sister.

Davos

He is in a cell in the Wolf's Den, waiting for Wyman Manderly to carry out his sentence. To his surprise, the cell is "large and queerly comfortable," and the food is excellent. His jailer/executioner, Garth, is disgusted at this: "The dead should not eat better than the living." He has warm, clean clothing, a fire, and when he asks for paper and ink and a book to read, they are supplied to him. He writes letters of farewell to his wife and his three sons, advising them to flee to Braavos if Stannis loses his war.

He is rereading his letters when the cell door opens and a man enters, telling Davos to come with him. He is surprised when the man says "please," a courtesy not usually extended to condemned prisoners. He asks the man's name and learns that he is Robett Glover, who tells him that Stannis has retaken Deepwood Motte, that Moat Cailin has fallen and that Ramsay Bolton is to marry Arya Stark and lay claim to Winterfell.

Still confused, Davos asks that his letters be delivered when he dies, but Glover informs him that he's not about to die. Glover leads him through a long series of cellars and tunnels and finally into a room where Wyman Manderly is sitting. Manderly apologizes for his treatment of Davos, and asks him to drink to the safe return of his son Wylis. A feast is being given for him now, and Manderly has excused himself from it on the pretext of visiting the privy.

He informs Davos that he has been executed and his head and hands displayed. They had executed a criminal who looked enough like Davos that when his head was dipped in tar no one will question it, and had trimmed the fingers of his hand to match Davos's. "My lord," he says, "I bear you no ill will. The rancor I showed you in the Merman's Court was a mummer's farce put on the please our friends of Frey." He had to pretend that he supported the Lannister claim to the Iron Throne for the sake of his hostage son, Wylis. If he had refused, "Wylis would die a traitor's death, White Harbor should be stormed and sacked, and my people would suffer the same fate as the Reynes of Castamere." Even after Tywin was killed, the Freys still threatened him unless he proved his loyalty, which he did by his treatment of Davos.

Davos comments on the risk he had taken, but Manderly assures him that if any of the Freys had climbed up and taken a closer look at the head over the gate, he would have blamed the jailers and executed Davos after all. He can't trust anyone, even his maester, who is a distant kin of the Lannisters, so he can't write to Stannis about his real situation. But he hates the Freys for murdering his son Wendel.

Davos assures him that Stannis can provide the justice he wants, but Glover and Manderly say that "Stannis Baratheon remains your king, not our own." But Robb died at the Red Wedding, Davos protests. That's true, Manderly says, "but that brave boy was not Lord Eddard's only son." He tells Glover to "bring the lad." Davos is confused, and when the boy appears Davos knows that he isn't Bran or Rickon, whom he assumes to have been murdered by Theon Greyjoy. He's much older than they would be, and he doesn't look like a Stark at all. He asks the boy for his name.

Glover explains that the boy is mute, and since there is no parchment to write on in the room, he hands the boy a dagger. He carves his name in a beam on the wall: Wex, Theon Greyjoy's squire. Through Wex they have learned that Theon is still alive, and have heard much about the Boltons' destruction of Winterfell and the atrocities committed by Ramsay Bolton.

Davos hopes that all of this will turn Lord Wyman to Stannis's side, but Wyman says he is still forced to submit to the Boltons and the Freys, and to attend the wedding of Ramsay and "Arya." However, "I can deliver King Stannis the allegiance of all the lands east of the White Knife, from Widow's Watch and Ramsgate to the Sheepshead Hills and the headwaters of the Broken Branch. All this I pledge to do if you will meet my price." He needs a smuggler, he says.

Davos is still confused, and Glover takes over the story. Wex had been at Winterfell when Ramsay Bolton killed the men of Winterfell as well as Theon's ironmen. He climbed a tree in the Winterfell godswood, where he hid until he heard Bran and Rickon, Hodor, Osha, Meera, and Jojen. "Four went one way, two another. Wex stole after the two, a woman and a boy. He must have stayed downwind, so the wolf would not catch his scent."

Davos realizes what Lord Wyman wants: Rickon. "Roose Bolton has Lord Eddard's daughter," Wyman says. "To thwart him White Harbor must have Ned's son ... and the direwolf. The wolf will prove the boy is who we say he is, should the Dreadfort attempt to deny him." If Davos can bring Rickon and Shaggydog to him, he will swear allegiance to Stannis.

Glover tells Wex to show Davos where the boy is, and Wex throws the dagger at the map on Manderly's wall. The location makes Davos want to ask to be sent back to his prison cell. It is a place "where men were known to break their fast on human flesh."

8. A Dance With Dragons, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 203-231

Daenerys

Daenerys is entertaining Xaro Xhoan Daxos of Qarth, who has brought with him a company whose dancers, male and female, perform naked, the men with full erections. The dance ends with copulation set to music. Daenerys is somewhat distracted by the performance: She is hoping to initiate a trade agreement with Xaro, but her mind is really on the imminent return to Meereen of Daario Naharis and his Stormcrows.

Xaro is full of compliments for Daenerys, but he also knows her predicament: "It is said that your enemies have promised wealth and glory and a hundred virgin slave girls to any man who slays you." He also notices the absence of Jorah Mormont. Once again, he presents her with the idea of marrying him, but she's wise to him: "I saw which dancers you were watching," she tells him.

He is open to the prospect of resuming trade with Meereen, but on his own terms: gold for slaves. Daenerys is insistent that the city remain free, but she recognizes the truth in Xaro's characterization of the city she rules: "A poor city that once was rich. A hungry city that once was fat. A bloody city that once was peaceful." He also informs her that her enemies are buying up sellswords: "The Company of the Cat, the Long Lances, the Windblown. Some say that the Wise Masters have bough the Golden Company as well." She counters that she has her dragons, but he notes that he hasn't seen them since he has been there.

But he offers her ships: "There are thirteen galleys in the bay. Yours, if you will have them. I have brought you a fleet, to carry you home to Westeros." In short, he wants to get rid of her. He tells her to inspect the ships, and "When you are satisfied, swear to me that you shall return to Westeros forthwith, and the ships are yours. Swear by your dragons and your seven-faced god and the ashes of your fathers, and go." She will not live long, he tells her, if she stays in Meereen.

When Xaro is gone, she asks Barristan what he thinks of the offer, and he admits that with the ships, "we might be home before year's end." He offers to take Admiral Groleo and inspect "every inch of those ships." She agrees, but worries about what will happen to Meereen when she leaves.

The next morning she hears Lord Ghael of Astapor plead with her to supply some of her Unsullied to defend his city, and when she declines he spits in her face. Strong Belwas seizes him and knocks him to the marble floor, breaking out some of his teeth. She tells Belwas to take him away, but spares his life. That afternoon, Barristan and Groleo return from the inspection of the ships to tell her that they are old but well-maintained. Reznak complains that her followers will be killed if she leaves, so she offers to take anyone with her who wishes to go. Barristan chides them for cowardice: "Her Grace freed you from your chains. It is for you to sharpen your swords and defend your own freedom when she leaves."

The argument grows heated, and finally Daenerys has had enough: "I will not abandon Meereen to the fate of Astapor. It grieves me to say so, but Westeros must wait." Groleo and Barristan are aghast at the decision, but she sticks to it. She calls for Xaro and tells him that she intends to stay. He is angry, and warns, "When your dragons were small they were a wonder. Grown, they are death and devastation, a flaming sword above the world." And he adds, "I should have slain you in Qarth." She tells him to leave the city immediately.


The next morning, Xaro has gone, but his ships remain. And a messenger from the ships brings her "a black satin pillow, upon which rested a single bloodstained glove." It is a token of war.


Jon


Jon is touring the "wormways," the tunnels beneath the wall, and the vaults where food supplies are stored. He is impressed with how much food is there, but Bowen Marsh, the Lord Steward, who is with him, cautions that these supplies were sufficient to sustain the watch for three or for years of winter, but now that the wildlings and the queen's and king's men are there, "We'll be down to turnips and pease porridge before the year is out. After that we'll be drinking the blood of our own horses." Marsh also warns about sickness and malnutrition and advises that they go on winter rations now.


Jon reflects on the difficulty of obtaining supplies, and considers asking for aid from the Eyrie. He "wondered how Lady Catelyn's sister would feel about feeding Ned Stark's bastard. As a boy, he often felt as if the lady grudge him every bite."


When they return to the surface he finds Devan Seaworth, Stannis's squire, waiting for him, stiff with fright at the presence of Ghost. Jon sends the direwolf away, and Devan tells him that the king wants to see him. In Stannis's solar he finds Ser Richard Horpe and Ser Justin Massey, who had been sent south on a mission whose nature Jon hadn't been told. Also present are Sigorn, the new Magnar of Thenn, and Rattleshirt, who gloatingly shows him a ruby that he says was a present from Melisandre, who is also there.


Stannis surprises Jon by saying that he is presenting Rattleshirt to him as a gift: "You did say you wanted men, Lord Snow." Jon protests that he can't trust Rattleshirt, but Melisandre says a few words in a language Jon doesn't understand, and both the ruby at her throat and the one on Rattleshirt's wrist begin to pulse with light. She tells Jon that as long as he wears the ruby he is bound in her service. And Rattleshirt says he will obey, as long as he doesn't have to wear the black.


Stannis then asks Jon to tell him about Mors Umber, who has offered his allegiance to Stannis for a price: "He wants Mance Rayder's skull for a drinking cup, and he wants a pardon for his brother, who has ridden south to join Bolton." Jon advises him to accept the terms, telling him that if the brother, Hother Umber, has joined the Boltons, it is because the Lannisters hold Greatjon Umber captive.


There is some blustering from the queen's men about the value of Jon's advice, but Stannis silences it. He then tells Jon that he plans to march on the Dreadfort, the seat of the Boltons. Ramsay, he says, has gone south, apparently to strike at Moat Cailin, and to clear the way for Roose Bolton to return north. He plans to take the Dreadfort unaware, but Jon says he can't. This causes outrage among the queen's men, but Stannis silences it. Jon explains that they must cross Umber lands to reach the Dreadfort, and their movements will be reported. And even if they reach the Dreadfort, Ramsay Bolton will cut off their retreat. "Moat Cailin will fall before you ever reach the Dreadfort. Once Lord Roose has joined his strength to Ramsay's, they will have you outnumbered five to one."


Others join in arguing against Jon's position, and Stannis says he will also have the support of the wildlings, under the command of the Magnar. "He means to plunder our armory, Jon realized. Food and clothing, land and castles, now weapons. He draws me in deeper every day." Jon also informs Stannis of the hatred of northerners for the wildlings. "Taking them will only serve to turn my lord father's bannermen against you."


Stannis grinds his teeth, then dismisses everyone except Jon. And Melisandre. Stannis tells Jon that both Horpe and Massey want to be Lord of Winterfell, and that Massey "wants the wildling princess," meaning Val. Jon replies that Winterfell belongs to Sansa, but Stannis doesn't want to hear  of that, because of Sansa's marriage to Tyrion Lannister. He offers Jon another chance to "amend your folly, Snow. Take a knee and swear that bastard sword to me, and rise as Jon Stark, Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North." Jon refuses again.


Stannis then informs Jon that he intends to proceed with the attack on the Dreadfort, "Despite the counsel of the great Lord Snow." Jon observes that the attack might not be necessary to gain the allegiance of the north if he could persuade Wyman Manderly, who controls White Harbor. But Stannis hasn't heard from Davos, and is persuaded that White Harbor isn't going to be his. The only way he can persuade the north to his side is by a successful battle against the Boltons.


Jon then presents a bargain: If Stannis will give him the wildlings, he will show the king where he can find the men he needs. He indicates on the map where the mountain clans live. "Your Grace will need to go to them yourself. Eat their bread and salt, listen to their pipers, praise the beauty of their daughters and the courage of their sons, and you'll have their swords." Once he gains their support, Stannis should attack Deepwood Motte. Stannis realizes what Jon is proposing: "If I can smash the ironmen ... the north will know it has a king again."

And I will have a thousand wildlings, thought Jon, and no way to feed even half that number. 

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."

6. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 188-226

Catelyn

Robb has arrived at Riverrun, and Catelyn is eagerly awaiting her son. She can't go to meet him because she is still denied the run of the castle, and the return of Ser Robin Ryger after his boat was sunk by Brienne, foiling the recapture of Jaime, has only put her in more disrepute. Moreover, some news has come that caused a stir, making about forty men leave the castle in what seems to be anger, but no one will tell her what it was.

Finally the summons comes to meet Robb in the Great Hall. It's crowded when she arrives, and she has an uneasy feeling as she moves through the crowd. Robb, on the dais, looks harder and leaner and battle-worn, but also regal. There are several people on the dais she doesn't recognize, including Robb's squire. She wonders if they are prisoners, but realizes that they wouldn't be on the dais with Robb. As she approaches him, "it seemed to her that it was not anger she saw in her son's eyes, but something else ... apprehension, perhaps? No, that made no sense. What should he fear? He was the Young Wolf, King of the Trident and the North."

Ser Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, comes down from the dais and hugs her, and Robb greets her as "Mother." He tells her about the wound, an arrow through the arm, that he suffered, and assures her that it has healed. And she says, "They will have told you what I did. Did they tell you my reasons?" He knows it was an attempt to rescue his sisters, and she says, "I had five children. Now I had three."

But Lord Rickard Karstark comes forward to remind her of his sons, killed by Jaime, and to say, "You have robbed me of my vengeance." Jon Umber, the Greatjon, interposes himself between Catelyn and Karstark to say, "It was a woman's folly. Women are made that way," but Karstark rejects that excuse: "I name it treason." Robb cries out, "Enough," and Catelyn tells Karstark she "would gladly make amends" for what she did. But Karstark is not satisfied, and leaves the hall angrily.

Robb tells her they must talk and signals for the steward, Utherydes Wayn, to dismiss the audience. As the company leaves, she realizes what she has been missing in the hall: Grey Wind, Robb's direwolf, is not there. Finally she is there with only Robb, her three uncles, and the six strangers she had seen on the dais. Robb presents the Lady Sybell Westerling, her brother Ser Rolph Spicer, her son Ser Raynald Westerling, his sister Elenya, his brother and Robb's new squire Rollam Westerling. And finally a shy young woman: "'Mother,' he said, 'I have the great honor to present you the Lady Jeyne Westerling, Lord Gawen's elder daughter, and my ... ah ... my lady wife.'"

Catelyn thinks first that Robb's only a child, second that he is already pledged to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's daughters, and third, "Mother have mercy, Robb, what have you done?" But she has no choice except to welcome her new daughter-in-law, and to remember that the girl is now a queen. At least, she observes, she has "good hips" and "should have no trouble bearing children, at least."

When the Westerlings have left, Catelyn observes that Lady Jeyne's father, Lord Gawen, is sworn to Tywin Lannister and is now imprisoned by Jason Mallister, held as a hostage at Seagard. "We wed without his consent, I fear," Robb admits, "and this marriage puts him in dire peril." She also observes that by the marriage, he has lost the allegiance of the Freys, and asks how many swords he gained by the marriage.

"Fifty. A dozen knights." His voice was glum, as well it might be. When the marriage contract had been made at the Twins, old Lord Walder Frey had sent Robb off with a thousand mounted knights and near three thousand foot. "Jeyne is bright as well as beautiful. And kind as well. She has a gentle heart."

Catelyn is flummoxed by what she sees as Robb's stupidity, but she just asks him "how this came to be." He replies that when they took the Crag, the Westerling castle, he was wounded and the wound festered. Jeyne nursed him through the fever, and when the news came of the fall of Winterfell and the deaths of Bran and Rickon, "That night, she ... she comforted me, Mother." "And you wed her the next day," Catelyn says.

Robb insists that "It was the only honorable thing to do" and that he's "made a botch of everything but the battles." She agrees that he has: "Not only have you broken your oath, but you've slighted the honor of the Twins by choosing a bride from a lesser house." Robb replies that the Westerlings are "an ancient line, descended from the First Men," but Catelyn says this will only make Lord Walder angrier: "It has always rankled him that older houses look down on the Freys as upstarts."

Brynden Blackfish diplomatically interrupts these recriminations and suggests that they go somewhere more private. As they are leaving, she asks Robb where Grey Wind is. He says he is outside, and that "Jeyne's anxious around him, and he terrifies her mother." This doesn't make Catelyn feel any better about the marriage: "He is part of you, Robb. To fear him is to fear you." And when he tells her that Grey Wind bares his teeth when Jeyne's uncle, Ser Rolph, come around, Catelyn is even more concerned: "Send Ser Rolph away. At once." When Robb resists, she insists:

"Robb." She stopped and held his arm. "I told you once to keep Theon Greyjoy close, and you did not listen. Listen now. Send this man away. I am not saying you must banish him. Find some task that requires a man of courage, some honorable duty, what it is matters not ... but do not keep him near you.... Any man Grey Wind mislikes is a man I do not want close to you. These wolves are more than wolves, Robb. You must know that. I think perhaps the gods sent them to us. Your father's gods, the old gods of the north. Five wolf pups, Robb, five for five Stark children."

Robb reminds her there was a sixth, for Jon, whom Catelyn has conveniently omitted. And he argues that he stopped believing in the wolves when he heard of Bran and Rickon's deaths: "Small good their wolves did them." But he agrees that he'll find some pretext for sending Ser Rolph away, "Not because of his smell, but to ease your mind. You have suffered enough."

When they are in private, it is Edmure Tully's turn to be scolded, first by the Blackfish and then by Robb. Edmure had been commanded only to defend Riverrun, and not to wage a campaign against the Lannisters at the fords, which Edmure had been boasting about. Robb's aim had not been to attack Lannisport or Casterly Rock, but to lure Lord Tywin further west, and distract him from what was happening at King's Landing: "'Lord Stannis was about to fall upon King's Landing,' Robb said. 'He might have rid us of Joffrey, the queen, and the Imp in one red stroke.'" When Edmure delayed Lord Tywin it gave time for word to reach him about what was happening in the east, so that he could turn and rescue King's Landing.

Once the wedding of Joffrey and Margaery is over, Robb says, the Lannisters will turn their attention to him instead, and they'll have the Tyrells on their side, and possibly the Freys. Catelyn says that Robb's "first duty is to defend your own people, win back Winterfell, and hang Theon in a crow's cage to die slowly. Or else put off that crown for good, Robb, for men will know that you are no true king at all." Robb says that the last news he had had was that Ser Rodrik was about to retake Winterfell, and that he may have done it already. "We must win back the Freys," he says. "I am willing to give Lord Walder whatever he requires ... apologies, honors, lands, gold ... there must be something that would soothe his pride...."

"'Not something,' said Catelyn. 'Someone.'"

Jon

He is watching giants riding mammoths. The giants are "more bearlike than human," as much as fourteen feet tall, covered with hair. "Their sloping chests might have passed for those of men, but their arms hung down too far, and their lower torsos looked half again as wide as their upper." They also smell very bad, "but perhaps that was the mammoths." Tormund, who is with Jon, is full of tall tales about the giants and of his other exploits, but he is also teasing Jon for not having sex with Ygritte, who has been sleeping next to him every night and making her availability plain. But Jon is still trying to keep his vow of chastity, and he has tried to get Ghost to sleep between them. He is also shocked by the sexual mores of the wildlings, who don't regard bastardy as a stigma. He gives as his excuse for not having sex with Ygritte his determination not to bring another bastard into the world.

He is coming to know the various subcultures among the wildlings, most of whom, he has discovered, have never even seen the Wall and don't speak the Common Tongue of Westeros. He is following Qhorin Halfhand's order to "Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them.... And watch." He is becoming more aware of the difficulty of his task, and of the possibility that he may have to kill their leader, Mance Rayder, "a man he half admired and almost liked," to save Winterfell and the north from "Rattleshirt and Harma Dogshead and the earless Magnar of Thenn."

He knows they are drawing near to the Fist of the First Men and that "Mormont will not run.... He is too old and he has come too far. He will strike, and damn the numbers." He also knows that it's not the thousands of wildlings they need to kill but just one: Mance Rayder. "The King-beyond-the-Wall was doing all he could, yet the wildlings remained hopelessly undisciplined, and that made them vulnerable." The vast majority of them are on foot, not on horseback or on mammoths.

He is riding beside Ygritte, and she and others have been singing a song, "The Last of the Giants," when suddenly she cries out: "JON!" There is the sound of wings and "Blue-grey feathers filled his eyes, as sharp talons buried themselves in his face." He falls from his horse, but the eagle clings to his face, flapping and pecking. When he comes to, Ygritte is bending over him and the eagle has disappeared. He can't see out of one eye, but Ygritte tells him it's blood from the lacerations to his face. Tormund is there as Rattleshirt rides up and the eagle reappears and settles on the giant's skull he wears as a helmet. He orders Jon to come with him to see Mance Rayder.

As they ride, Jon sees the Fist of the First Men rising above the trees, and wonders if Mormont has attacked the wildlings. But as they get closer, he sees first one dead horse and then another. Blood is everywhere inside the garrison, and ravens are flapping around the dead animals. Jon wonders what has happened to Sam. A few tents are still standing, and Mance Rayder is in one of them. He gives Jon a "grim and cold" look as he enters, and says, "tell me how many they were. And try and speak the truth this time, Bastard of Winterfell."

With the pain from his wounds, Jon finds it hard to think, but he decides that his only recourse is to stick to the truth: "There were three hundred of us." Rayder says he should never have lied to them, and asks whose tent this was. Jon says, "You did not find his body?" Rayder says, "The next time you answer me with a question, I will give you to my Lord of Bones." As Rayder moves closer, Jon's hand moves toward his sword, but Rayder notices. Finally, Jon tells him: "The Old Bear." And when Rayder asks who is commanding at Castle Black, Jon tells him that Bowen Marsh is, which elicits derision from Rayder. But he also admits that if he had tried to storm the hill, he would have lost five men for every one defending it.

Rayder also knows that the garrison has been attacked by the wights, and "when the dead walk, walls and stakes and swords mean nothing," so the Watch may have done him a favor by drawing their attention away from his own forces. He dispatches various of his men to see if the wights can be located, making sure that they all have torches.

Rattleshirt wants to kill Jon, but Ygritte steps forward to defend him. He asks Jon if he and Ygritte are lovers, and Jon lies, "Yes." So he says they are to go with Jarl and Styr, "Over the Wall. It's past time you proved your faith with something more than words, Jon Snow." Styr protests, but Rayder points out that Jon "knows the Watch and he knows the Wall, ... and he knows Castle Black better than any raider ever could."

Rattleshirt threatens Jon, but Ygritte points out Ghost on top of the ringwall, glaring at Rattleshirt, so he moves off. When they are alone, Jon says he didn't ask her to lie for him, and she says didn't. She said "that we fuck beneath your cloak many a night. I never said when we started, though." And then she tells him to find another place for Ghost to sleep that night.

Sansa

Sansa is being fitted with a new gown, and is surprised to hear that the orders have come from Cersei and not from Margaery or her grandmother. She has been spending time with the ladies of the Tyrell court and enjoying herself, though she feels a little superior to them: "Their dreams were full of songs and stories, the way hers had been before Joffrey cut her father's head off. Sansa pitied them. Sansa envied them."

Margaery has been talking to her about her brother Willas, and calling Sansa sister, which has led her to give Margaery more warnings about Joffrey's cruelty. But Margaery dismisses her fears: She has her brother Loras to protect her, she says. Sansa is not so sure:

Joff might restrain himself for a few turns, perhaps as long as a year, but soon or late he will show his claws, and when he does ... The realm might have a second Kingslayer, and there would be war inside the city, as the men of the lion and the men of the rose made the gutters run red.

She has also been warned by Ser Dontos not to marry Willas: "I tell you, these Tyrells are only Lannisters with flowers." He wants her to go through with their plan to escape: "The night of Joffrey's wedding, that's not so long, wear the silver hair net and do as I told you, and afterward we make our escape." But Sansa says she doesn't want to escape now. Ser Dontos tries to make her see reality: The Tyrells want her to marry Willas because it gives them a claim to Winterfell. She leaves him and avoids the godswood after that, but he has planted a doubt in her mind. She assures herself that Robb will get married and produce an heir. "Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell?"

She fills her head with romantic images of being married to Willas, though occasionally she brings herself back to reality: "Willas Tyrell was twice her age, she reminded herself constantly, and lame as well, and perhaps even plump and red-faced like his father. But comely or no, he might be the only champion she would ever have." And then she dreams she marries Joffrey instead and on their wedding night he turns into Ilyn Payne, the headsman. She worries again about Margaery and when she goes to the sept she prays to the Mother to protect Margaery and to the Warrior for Loras.

Then she thinks of the new dress Cersei has ordered for her, and assumes it is for the wedding. "She could scarcely wait to wear it."

3. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 75-104

Sansa

The marriage of Joffrey to Margaery Tyrell has relieved Sansa of one anxiety: having to be married to him, but not, as both Cersei and Ser Dontos warned her, of his power over her. So an invitation to dine with Margaery is not exactly welcome: "She's to be queen now, she's beautiful and rich and everyone loves her, why would she want to sup with a traitor's daughter?" She has paranoid thoughts that it's a trick being played by Joffrey to further humiliate her.

But she has to accept, feeling alone and unprotected now that the Hound has disappeared. She wishes she had accepted his offer to help her escape, and she has kept his white cloak as a remembrance of him. He is disgraced now, wherever he is, because of his apparent cowardice during the battle, though she knows the story of how his brother, Gregor, burned his face, and fully understands why the fire terrified him so.

On the night of the dinner, she is escorted to it by Margaery's brother, Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers, now dressed in the white of the Kingsguard. He tells her that their grandmother, Lady Olenna, will be there too. "The Queen of Thorns, she's called," Sansa says. "Isn't that right?" He laughs and warns her not to use that name around her. She's embarrassed at having said it, but also charmed by the warmth of his laughter and by his beauty.

On the way, they see his brother, Garlan, practicing swordsmanship against three opponents. Loras tells her that Garlan is a better swordsman than he is, but that he's better with a lance, which gives her the opportunity to comment on the time she saw him unhorse Ser Robar Royce at a tourney. He had given her a rose after the victory. But he doesn't seem to remember, and instead he mentions that he killed Robar at Storm's End.

"That was when Lord Renly was killed, wasn't it? How terrible for your poor sister," she says, but his reaction is not what she expects: "'For Margaery?' His voice was tight. 'To be sure. She was at Bitterbridge, though. She did not see.'" She's puzzled by the reply, and although she apologizes for bringing up what is evidently a sad memory, he seems to cool to her. She admonishes herself and reminds her to keep her tongue from now on.

When they reach the hall, Margaery comes to greet her graciously, and sends her brother away. She takes Sansa in to the room where a dozen women are seated and makes the introductions. There is her mother, Lady Alerie, several cousins, and other members of the Tyrell entourage. And finally, at the head of the table, there is a "wizened white-haired doll of a woman." Margaery says, "I am honored to present my grandmother the Lady Olenna, widow to the late Luthor Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden, whose memory is a comfort to us all. 

Sansa is deceived by the old lady's scent of rosewater and her diminutive stature into thinking that "There was nothing in the least bit thorny about her." Lady Olenna tells Sansa to kiss her, and says that she knew her grandfather, Lord Rickard. She comments that Sansa has "had your share of grief, I know. We are sorry for your losses." Sansa turns to Margaery and express her condolences on the death of Lord Renly. "He was very gallant."

Lady Olenna gives a snort.

"Gallant, yes, and charming, and very clean. He knew how to dress and he knew how to smile and he knew how to bathe, and somehow he got the notion that this made him fit to be king. The Baratheons have always had some queer notions, to be sure. It comes from their Targaryen blood, I should think."

Margaery replies that "Renly was brave and gentle," and that her father and Loras liked him. She doesn't say anything about her own feelings for her late husband. And when Lady Olenna speaks somewhat scornfully of Loras and of his and Margaery's father, Mace Tyrell, it is Lady Alerie who protests, "Mother." Lady Olenna only reminds her that she is not her mother: "If I'd given birth to you I'm sure I'd remember. I'm only to blame for your husband, the lord oaf of Highgarden."

Margaery scolds her grandmother: "what will Sansa think of us?" Lady Olenna replies, "She might think we have some wits about us. One of us, at any rate." And she turns to Sansa to assert that the claim of Renly to his brother Robert's throne was "treasonous," as long as Robert had two sons and an older brother. After a long diatribe on the subject, she asks Sansa what she thinks, and Sansa can only come up with the observation that the Tyrells can trace their lineage to Garth Greenhand, which Lady Olenna dismisses with the assertion that any number of noble families could do so. "Garth liked to plant his seed in fertile ground, they say. I shouldn't wonder that more than his hands were green."

Lady Alerie tries to rescue Sansa by suggesting that they eat. Lady Olenna bids Sansa sit by her, and orders the fool Butterbumps in to entertain them. Her irreverent remarks about her son and her husband leave Sansa open-mouthed in astonishment, but not nearly so much as when Lady Olenna says, "I want you to tell me the truth about this royal boy.... This Joffrey." Sansa panics, knowing that she can't tell her the truth. But that is exactly what Lady Olenna expects of her, and she persists: "We have heard some troubling tales.... Is there any truth to them? Has this boy mistreated you?"

Frightened, Sansa looks around as Butterbumps is entertaining the other guests, but Lady Olenna is insistent: "I asked a question, I expect an answer. Have the Lannisters stolen your tongue, child?" Sansa tries to dissemble, but the old lady is having none of it. She asks if Sansa is frightened, and assures her, "Tell me the truth, no harm will come to you." When Sansa says, "My father always told the truth," Lady Olenna sees the point: Eddard Stark told the truth and got his head cut off for it. Sansa breaks down under the old woman's piercing gaze: "'Joffrey,' Sansa said. 'Joffrey did that. He promised me he would be merciful, and cut my father's head off.'" He took her up to the wall to force her to see her father's head, she says, and then stops, certain that she has already said too much.

But it is Margaery who intervenes and urges her, "Go on." This terrifies Sansa even more. "What if she tells him, what if she tells? He'll kill me for certain then, or give me to Ser Ilyn." When Margaery points out how frightened Sansa is, Lady Olenna orders Butterbumps to sing a song, and then says to Sansa: "Even when I was a girl, younger than you, it was well known that in the Red Keep the very walls have ears. Well, they will be the better for a song, and meanwhile we girls shall speak freely."

When Sansa mentions Varys, Lady Olenna tells Butterbumps to sing louder, and under cover of the song he bellows, Sansa answers her question, "What sort of man is this Joffrey, who calls himself Baratheon but looks so very Lannister?"

To her other side, Margaery was listening as well. A shiver went through her. "A monster," she whispered, so tremulously she could scarcely hear her own voice. "Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher's boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He's evil and cruel, my lady, it's so. And the queen as well."

Lady Olenna and Margaery exchange glances, and then Sansa realizes that if they call off the wedding, Joffrey will know that she told them about him. But they assure her that she needn't worry about that, and thank her for the truth. Then Margaery suggests she visit Highgarden, and describes its delights. "Once you see it, you'll never want to leave. And perhaps you won't have to." Sansa says she would love to visit, but Cersei would never let her go. But Lady Olenna says that the Lannisters are depending on their alliance to keep Joffrey on the throne, so Cersei can't refuse any request that Lord Tyrell makes -- and intimates that she will see to it that he makes the request. "Of course, he has no hint of our true purpose."

Sansa is puzzled about their true purpose. And Lady Olenna reveals that is is to see Sansa "safely wed ... to my grandson." Sansa immediately thinks that she means Ser Loras, and is thrilled at the idea. Margaery chimes in, "Oh, please say yes, please say that you will consent to marry my brother." Sansa bursts out happily that she would be delighted to marry Ser Loras, but Lady Olenna quickly disabuses her of that notion: "We were speaking of my grandson Willas. He is a bit old for you, to be sure, but a dear boy for all that. Not the least bit oafish, and heir to Highgarden besides."

Sansa is bewildered, and abashed. She doesn't know Willas, she says, and asks, "Is he ... is he as great a knight as his brothers?" Margaery says, "He has never taken vows," and Lady Olenna bluntly explains, "The poor lad is crippled, and that's the way of it." His leg was shattered in his first tourney. But Margaery assures her that Willas "has a good heart" and "You will love him as much as we do, Sansa." So it's arranged that Sansa will go to Highgarden with Lady Olenna after the wedding.

Jon

He has followed through with the plan to infiltrate the wildlings in the guise of a turncloak, which necessitated his killing Qhorin Halfhand, and now he is riding with Rattleshirt and the others on the way to meet the legendary King-beyond-the-Wall, Mance Rayder. Rattleshirt is no friend of his, but Ygritte, whose life Jon spared, assures him, "When Mance hears how you did for Halfhand, he'll take you quick enough" as one of them.

Among Rayder's outriders who come to meet them is "a fleshy blond man with watery eyes who bore a great curved scythe of sharpened steel." Jon recognizes that this must be the Weeper, one of the famous wildling leaders about whom the brothers of the Night's Watch told tales. When he's told how Jon killed Halfhand with the help of his wolf, the Weeper says to bring him to Mance.

Jon reminds himself of his mission, "to play the part of turncloak, and find whatever it was that the wildlings had been seeking in the bleak cold wilderness of the Frostfangs." As they ride, he observes that people are fashioning weapons and practicing fighting, and that a group of women were "fletching arrows. Arrows for my brothers, Jon thought. Arrows for my father's folk, for the people of Winterfell and Deepwood Motte and the Last Hearth. Arrows for the north." But there are also peaceful domestic scenes along the way.

When they make camp, Rattleshirt tells Ygritte and Longspear to come with him as they take Jon to Mance Rayder. Jon observes how huge the camp is, and how it's only one of more than a hundred camps, all of them undefended. "They had numbers, but the Night's Watch had discipline, and in battle discipline beats numbers nine times of every ten, his father had once told him."

Rayder's tent is three times as large as any of the others, with two guards posted at the entrance, one of whom says that Ghost must stay outside. Jon orders Ghost to stay, and he does. Rattleshirt tells Longspear to watch the direwolf as well, and motions Jon and Ygritte inside. There are six people already in the tent, including a young man and woman drinking mead, a pregnant woman grilling fowl over a brazier, and a man with gray hair playing a lute and singing. "Beside the brazier, a short but immensely broad man sat on a stool, eating a hen off a skewer." Another man, tall and lean, is studying a map. He is bald and might have been handsome if he had not lost both of his ears, "whether to frostbite or some enemy's knife could not tell." Jon assumes that one of these men, both of them evidently warriors, is Mance Rayder.

The bald, earless man looks up from his map and listens as Rattleshirt explains who Jon is, and Ygritte tells him that he killed Qhorin Halfhand. This angers the man: "This boy? ... the Halfhand should have been mine." He asks Jon's name, and Jon tells him, adding, "Your Grace," having decided that this must be the King-beyond-the-Wall. This causes the shorter man to laugh "so hard he sprayed bits of chicken everywhere." He tells Jon to turn around, and when Jon does the gray-haired man who had been playing the lute and singing and introduces himself: "'I'm Mance Rayder,' he said as he put aside the lute. 'And you are Ned Stark's bastard, the Snow of Winterfell.'"

Jon is astonished, and asks how Rayder knew. Rayder puts off the answer and asks if it is true that he killed Qhorin Halfhand. Jon says yes, thinking, "Though it was his doing more than mine." Rayder asks if he should thank Jon for killing Halfhand or curse him, given that they had both been brothers of the Night's Watch. Jon finally says, "You ought to thank me for killing your enemy ... and curse me for killing your friend," which gets approval from the short, white-bearded man eating the chicken, and from Rayder as well.

Rayder identifies the earless man as Styr, Magnar of Thenn, and explains "Magnar means 'lord' in the Old Tongue." The "ferocious chicken-eater here is my loyal Tormund," who demands that Rayder enumerate his many titles: "Giantsbane, Tall-talker, Horn-blower, ... Breaker of Ice[,] Thunderfits, Husband to Bears, the Mead-king of Ruddy hall, Speaker to Gods and Father of Hosts." Tormund tells Jon, "I am fond o' wargs, as it happens, though not o' Starks." The woman at the brazier is Dalla, who is pregnant with Rayder's child, and the man and woman drinking mead are Jarl and Dalla's sister, Val.

In response to Rayder's questions, Jon tells him that the Lord Commander had sent him with Halfhand to be trained as a ranger. When Styr asks why they were in the Skirling Pass, Jon says that they had found all the villages deserted and they wondered where the people had gone. Rayder asks who told him where they had gone to, but Tormund says it must have been Craster, which irritates Rayder, who says he knew the answer but wanted to see if Jon would tell him. So he sends the others away, except for Dalla, so he can talk with Jon alone.

When Jon calls him "Your Grace," Rayder says that the free folk just call him Mance or "the Mance." Then he tells Jon how he knew him: He had seen his face before, once when Jon was a boy and he was still with the Watch. They had come to see Jon's father at Winterfell and caught Jon and Robb after a snowfall, waiting to push a mountain of snow off the wall onto the guard known as Fat Tom. Jon remembers that Rayder had promised not to spoil the surprise.

The second time was more recent: When Robert Baratheon came to Winterfell to persuade Ned Stark to become the Hand. Rayder had heard of the king's visit because Jon's uncle Benjen had been sent for, and word had spread from the brothers of the Watch to the wildlings. Rayder wanted to see the king for himself, so he scaled the Wall, bought a horse on the other side, and managed to mix in with the freeriders who had attached themselves to the procession. "The night your father feasted Robert, I sat in the back of the hall on a bench with the other freeriders," getting a good look at Jaime and Tyrion as well as the Stark children and their wolf pups.

"So tell me truly, Jon Snow. Are you a craven who turned your cloak from fear, or is there another reason that brings you to my tent?" Jon knows he has to be careful answering the question, so he decides to take advantage of Rayder's obvious pleasure in "the sound of his own voice," and says, "Tell me why you turned your cloak, and I'll tell you why I turned mine." The trick works, and Rayder says that he did it for a cloak: They were out on a ranging and had killed and were skinning an elk when they were attacked by a shadow-cat. It tore his cloak to ribbons as well as wounding him seriously. The brothers were afraid he would die before they got him back to the maester so they took him to a woman in a wilding village who was skilled in healing. She dressed his wounds and nursed him, meanwhile sewing up his cloak "with some scarlet silk from Asshai." It was a gift to him, because the scarlet silk "was the greatest treasure she had." But when he returned to the Wall, he was given a new cloak of solid black and was told that he couldn't wear the red-and-black one. "I left the next morning ... for a place where a kiss was not a crime, and a man could wear any cloak he chose."

So, having told his story, he asks for Jon's. "There is only one tale that he might believe," Jon realizes. And he asks if Mance remembers that at the feast for King Robert, his brothers and sisters were all seated along with Prince Joffrey, Prince Tommen, and Princess Myrcella "at the table just below where the king and queen were seated." Mance says he remembers.

"'And did you see where I was seated, Mance?' He leaned forward. 'Did you see where they put the bastard?'" Rayder replies, "I think we had best find you a new cloak."