19. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 690-728

Theon

An army is gathering outside Winterfell, and Maester Luwin has come to advise Theon to yield. There have been no responses to the birds Luwin sent to Theon's uncle and his father. Theon insists that there's enough food in Winterfell to last out a year's siege, but he is so outnumbered that resistance is pointless. He orders Luwin to send more ravens, to tell Wex to polish his armor, and to have the garrison assemble.

He tells the assembled men that Ser Rodrik Cassel and the Stark bannermen will attack before night, but that he intends to stay and resist the assault. "Those who would stay and fight, step forward." No one moves for a few moments, but finally seventeen men join him. The ten men his sister had brought are not among them.

Black Lorren tells him that the people of the castle will join the side of the attackers once the fighting begins, which Theon already knows. He has a deterrent planned. He goes to the watchtower and examines the banners of the gathered troops. There are no Glovers or Boltons or Umbers among them, he notes.

Then words comes that Ser Rodrik wants "to parley with Theon Turncloak." The epithet stings, though it's accurate: His mission had been to get his father's ships to attack the Lannisters. He calls down to the messenger that he will be coming out by himself. Ser Rodrik is waiting for him in the market square, and spits on the ground when Theon addresses him, and reminds him that Eddard Stark "raised you among his own sons, the sweet boys you have butchered, and to my undying shame I trained you in the arts of war." He orders Theon to surrender. "Those who murdered no children shall be free to walk away, but you shall be held for King Robb's justice."

Theon presents his terms: "You have until evenfall to disperse. Those who swear fealty to Balon Greyjoy as their king and to myself as Prince of Winterfell will be confirmed in their rights and properties and suffer no harm. Those who defy us will be destroyed." Ser Rodrick replies that he has two thousand men to his fifty. "Seventeen in truth," Theon thinks, then says, "I have something better than men." He gives a signal, then watches Ser Rodrik's face: "He is not surprised, he thought with sadness, but the fear is there."

The anger is, too. Ser Rodrik calls Theon a "Viper," and declares, "I ought cut you down here and now and put an end to your lies and deceits." Theon replies, "Forswear your oath and murder me, and you will watch your little Beth strangle at the end of a rope." Ser Rodrik offers to take his daughter's place as hostage, but Theon refuses. "If this host is still in arms before my gate when the sun sets, Beth will hang." He rides back through the gate, above which Beth Cassel, a noose around her neck, stands between the small heads of the miller's boys whom Theon had killed in place of Bran and Rickon.

Theon goes back to Ned Stark's chambers, aware that the attack will still take place and that they are outnumbered. He has Wex bring his bow, and he goes to practice firing arrows. "If I hang the girl, the northmen will attack at once, he thought as he loosed a shaft. If I do not hang her, they will know my threats are empty. He knocked another arrow to his bow. There is no way out, none." But then Maester Luwin appears with a way out: "Take the black." Ser Rodrik, he tells Theon, will let him join the Night's Watch if he surrenders. Theon seizes on the idea and begins to persuade himself to do it.

He has almost made up his mind to follow Luwin's advice when one of his men appears: "More men came up, hundreds of them, and at first they made to join the others. But now they've fallen on them!" When he hears the description of the new men's banners, Theon knows who they are.

The flayed man of the Dreadfort. Reek had belonged to the Bastard of Bolton before his capture, Theon recalled. It was hard to believe that a vile creature like him could sway the Boltons to change their allegiance, but nothing else made sense.

He goes to see this battle, followed by Luwin. The Dreadfort men had taken Ser Rodrik's men by surprise and are prevailing over them. It begins to grow dark and smoke from the burning inn hides what is happening. Then a column of horsemen emerge from the smoke and ride toward the main gate of Winterfell. It is led by a knight in dark armor and a red helmet. Three bodies are dumped before the gates: Ser Rodrik's, Leobald Tallhart's and Cley Cerwyn's. Maester Luwin falls to his knees in dismay and is sick.

Theon orders the gates opened for the Dreadfort men. The knight removes his helmet and Theon identifies him as Reek. But in fact he is the Bastard of Bolton, Ramsay Snow, who changed clothes with the real Reek, who was killed. He reminds Theon that he was promised a girl if he brought two hundred men, and instead he brought his father's garrison. Theon orders the kennel girl, Palla, brought out, but the Bastard wants Theon's own bedmate, Kyra. When Theon angrily protests, the Bastard backhands him with a mailed fist and Theon blacks out.

When Theon wakes up he finds that the Dreadfort men have taken Winterfell and are slaughtering his men. He sees Maester Luwin stabbed from behind. "'Save me the Freys,' the Bastard was shouting as the flames roared upward, 'and burn the rest. Burn it, burn it all.'" The last thing Theon sees is his horse, Smiler, running from the stables with his mane on fire.

Tyrion

In his delirium, Tyrion dreams of death and the dying. "My work, thought Tyrion Lannister. They died at my command." There are so many corpses that he thinks, "Why did I kill them all? He had known once, but somehow he had forgotten." There are silent sisters in gray moving among them, removing their armor and their clothes, and he tries to speak to them but realizes he doesn't have a mouth. "Smooth seamless skin covered his teeth. The discovery terrifies him."

When he wakes again he finds himself in his own bed under a heap of blankets and furs. He is sweating profusely. "Fever, he thought groggily." He tries to remember the battle, and when he sees Ser Mandon, fear causes him to wet himself. He calls out for help but no one comes, and he falls back to sleep. He sees Cersei and his father standing over him, but thinks it must be a dream because Lord Tywin is supposed to be off fighting Robb Stark. Others appear, such as Varys and Littlefinger. He hears them talking but can't understand the words.

He realizes that they must have won the battle. "We must have, else I'd be a head on a spike somewhere. If I live, we won." He can sense that he is regaining control of his senses. The next time he wakes, Podrick Payne is standing over him but runs off when he sees Tyrion open his eyes.  He tries to call out but can't. Then he feels his face and realizes it is covered with bandages and plaster.

Podrick returns with a maester and asks if he wants something to drink. He sips through a copper funnel inserted through a hole in the plaster and bandages, but realizes that is is milk of the poppy and he's asleep before he can object. This time he dreams he's at a feast and his bravery is being celebrated. He kneels before Jaime and is made a knight. Shae is there, too.

When he wakes this time the room is cold and empty, and he feels the pain in his face and the right side of his body. He remembers that Ser Mandon Moore had tried to kill him and that Podrick had saved him. The room isn't his, and he gives out an angry moan. "They have moved me here to die." He dreams that he is in a seaside cottage with Tysha, his wife, but remembers how angry he was when he discovered the trick that had been played on him.

He wakes from another drugged sleep to see the maester's "soft pink face" over him, urging him to drink more of the opiate. He reaches and grabs the maester's chain and starts to choke the man. When the maester gets his breath back, Tyrion motions for him to remove the bandages on his face. The man protests, "You are not yet healed, the queen would...." That Cersei has had a hand in this infuriate him and he threatens the maester with a fist. Through the mask Tyrion orders, "Do. It."

The maester removes the bandages, and Tyrion feels the fiery pain as his faces is uncovered. The maester says it would have been wiser to keep the bandages on longer, but adds, "Still, it looks clean, good, good. When we found you down in that cellar among the dead and dying, your wounds were filthy." He tells Tyrion one of his ribs was broken and they were afraid he'd lose an arm because of the arrow wound in it, but "now it seems to be healing clean."

Tyrion asks the maester's name and learns that it's Ballabar. He asks for a looking glass, which the man is reluctant to provide. He also asks for wine. "No poppy." After two cups of wine, Tyrion feels ready to look at his face. There is a long gash starting under his left eye and extending to the right jaw. "Three-quarters of his nose was gone, and a chunk of his lip." He remembers Ser Mandon Moore extending his left hand and then a sword blow aimed at his head that he had dodged, though not enough to avoid the cut. "Cersei must have paid him to see that I never came back from the battle.... Another gift from my sweet sister."

He asks where he is, and learns that he is in Maegor's Holdfast over the Queen's Ballroom. "Her Grace wanted you kept close, so she might watch over you herself," Maester Ballabar tells him. He says he wants to be taken to his own chambers, but is told that the King's Hand has taken them over. He learns now that his father has been named Hand, and that it was Tywin's arrival with Lord Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers and Littlefinger that turned the tide of battle. "The smallfolk say it was King Renly's ghost, but wiser men know better."

Tyrion thinks who he can send for that he can trust, and finally asks for Podrick Payne. When Pod arrives, Tyrion tells him to send for Maeser Frenken, not Ballabar, and have him make dreamwine. He wants his own guard, and learns that Bronn has been knighted. Then he asks about Ser Mandon. "The boy flinched. 'I n-never meant to k-k-k-k-" All Tyrion wants to know for certain is that Mandon is dead, and when he's assured of that, he says, "Good. Say nothing. Of him. Of me. Any of it. Nothing."

Jon

They are trapped, and Qhorin Halfhand sends Jon for some brush to build a fire. He wonders if Ghost will howl for him when he's dead, the way Bran's wolf did when he fell. Only Jon and Qhorin remain of the five rangers in the party. Dalbridge, Ebben, and Stonesnake had been sent off on reconnaissance, and they had heard a horn that let them know that Dalbridge had been killed. Ebben had been dispatched back to Mormont and the rest of the expedition. Stonesnake's horse had been frightened by a shadowcat and broke its leg, so he remained behind to try to pick off the pursuers. "At every dawn and every dusk they saw the eagle soaring between the peaks, no more than a speck in the vastness of the sky."

One night Qhorin asks Jon to repeat the oath of the Night's Watch with him. Their horses are worn out, and Jon doubts that Qhorin's will last another day. Then Qhorin tells him, "If we are taken, you must yield." Jon refuses, but Qhorin says, "You will. I command it of you."

"If we are taken, you will go over to them, as the wildling girl you captured once urged you. They may demand that you cut your cloak to ribbons, that you swear them an oath on your father's grave, that you curse your brothers and your Lord Commander. You must not balk, whatever is asked of you. Do as they bid you ... but in your heart, remember who and what you are. Ride with them, eat with them, fight with them, for as long as it takes. And watch."

Jon agrees reluctantly. Then Qhorin has him build the fight "bright and hot," and ride away with him. They reach a place for the night that is hidden behind a waterfall, and Qhorin takes the first watch. The next morning they ride through a narrow passage that they have to persuade the horses through, and Jon thinks that they have lost their trackers. But when they emerge they see the eagle perched on a tree a hundred feet above them. Ghost tries to catch it but the bird flies off.

When he sees the direction the bird took, he tells Jon that this is where they will make a stand. They hear a hunting horn and know that they'll be there soon. They see the wildlings appear on a ridge a half mile away. Jon counts fourteen, with eight dogs. Qhorin and Jon draw their swords. The wildlings halt ten yards away and their leader, wearing armor made of bones, comes forward alone. Qhorin addresses him as "Rattleshirt," which provokes the wildling. He is joined by a woman, one of the wildlings' "spearwives," who reaches into a sack and pulls out Ebben's head. Rattleshirt calls for the bowmen to aim.

"No!" The word burst from Jon's lips before the bowmen could loose. He took two quick steps forward. "We yield!" 


"They warned me bastard blood was craven, he heard Qhorin Halfhand say coldly behind him. "I see it is so. Run to your new masters, coward."

Jon goes down the slope to Rattleshirt, who says, "The free folk have no need of cravens." But behind him one of the archers removes her sheepskin helmet and says, "This is the Bastard of Winterfell, who saved me. Let him live." Rattleshirt, however, says he doesn't trust him, and the eagle "split the air with a scream of fury." Ygritte says the bird was a man before Jon killed him. Rattleshirt tells the spearwife, "Ragwyle, gut him." But she suggests they put him to the test first.

Jon says he'll do whatever they order him to do, and Rattleshirt orders him to kill Qhorin Halfhand. So Jon fights Halfhand, remembering, "You must not balk, whatever is asked of you." Halfhand almost overcomes him, and Jon "could feel his arms growing numb" when Ghost moves in and seizes Qhorin by the calf. Then Jon sees his opening and slashes at Halfhand's throat, cutting it with the very tip of the sword.

Jon thinks, "He knew what they would ask of me." He thinks of his companions on the Wall and wonders if he has lost them the way he lost his family at Winterfell. Rattleshirt still wants to kill him, but others remind him that he yielded and that he killed his brother of the Watch. Rattleshirt insists that he couldn't have done it without the wolf's help and that "He is a warg ... and a crow. I like him not." The others prevail, however. "These are a free folk indeed, thought Jon."

They burn Halfhand's body, and Rattleshirt claims some of the bones. Jon asks Ygritte if they are going back through the Skirling Pass, but she tells him, "There's nothing behind us.... By now Mance is well down the Milkwater, marching on your Wall."

Bran

Through the wolf's eyes, Bran sees the burning of Winterfell, "and in the sky he saw a great winged snake whose roar was a river of flame." He hears the barking of dogs and the screams of horses and men, but he and his brother stay hidden in the forest. In the morning, when the fire has died, they prowl through the ruins, frightening the crows away from the corpses. He and his brother find a dying horse and fight over it. He wins, and feeds first, then lets his brother feed.

Then he feels himself being pulled back into the darkness, as a voice whispers, "Bran, come back." "He closed his third eye and opened the other two, the old two, the blind two." Meera asks what he saw, and he tells her "It was Winterfell. It was all on fire. There were horse smells, and steel, and blood. They killed everyone, Meera." He drinks some water eagerly, and asks, "How long?" Jojen tells him that he has been away for three days. Jojen says that's too long, and when Bran insists that he ate, tells him, "The wolf ate.... Not you."

He asks for Osha, and she speaks to him out of the darkness. He tells her that he saw Winterfell burning, and she says it was a dream. But he insists that they have to go see if it was true. Osha is afraid that Thoren will catch her and flay her as he had threatened, so Meera tells Bran she'll go. Osha lights a torch, and Bran can see the tombs of the Starks. "And in the mouth of the empty tomb that waited for Lord Eddard Stark, beneath his stately granite likeness, the six fugitives huddled round their little cache of bread and water and dried meat."

Bran assures them that he has seen the ruins of the castle, so they prepare to go above. Bran is hoisted into the basket on Hodor's back, and they make their way past the effigies of the old Kings in the North. Osha goes first and is away long enough for them to grow uneasy. Finally she returns to say that something is blocking the door to the crypt and she can't budge it. Bran says, "Hodor can move anything."

When they reach the door, they take Bran from the basket as Hodor pushes and shoves at the door until finally it gives way. They emerge into the ruins of the First Keep. "Nearby some crows were pecking at a body crushed beneath the tumbled stone, but he lay facedown and Bran could not say who he was." Osha observes that they "made enough noise to wake a dragon," but no one has come to see what it was. And then they hear a sound, and Summer and Shaggydog appear.

They explore the ruins and discover Theon's men among the corpses, and one with the sigil of the Dreadfort. Summer gives a howl and runs to the godswood. They follow and find Maester Luwin lying prone by the pool under the heart tree. He is still alive and pleased to find that Bran and Rickon are, too, though he had known that neither of the boys Theon had killed was Bran because of the muscles in the legs. Bran tells him that they had doubled back and hidden in the crypt.

Osha wants to make a little so they can carry Luwin to get help, but he insists that he's dying. He tells Osha that the boys must be separated and taken to different places. He warns them that many of the people friendly to the Starks are dead, including Ser Rodrik. He tells Bran that he must be strong, and all of them but Osha to leave him now.

When she joins them shortly, she says Hodor should take Bran, and she will take Rickon. Meera and Jojen say they will go with Bran. They find some still-edible provisions in the kitchens. Bran watches Osha and Rickon and Shaggydog leave by the East Gate, then they go out through the Hunter's Gate. It is Jojen who decides which way to go: north.

Bran looks back at Winterfell and reflects, "It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either."

9. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 372-403

Catelyn

Catelyn has gone to a sept to pray before the battle between Stannis and Renly, and she finds the faces of the gods as portrayed in the charcoal drawing on the walls of this simple place of worship remind her of people.

The Father's face made her think of her own father, dying in his bed at Riverrun. The Warrior was Renly and Stannis, Robb and Robert, Jaime Lannister and Jon Snow. She even glimpse Arya in those lines, for just a moment.... When she looked up at the Mother again, it was her own mother she saw.... She was always so calm, Catelyn thought, remembering her mother's soft hands, her warm smile.... She wondered what Lady Minisa would make of her eldest daughter, kneeling here before her.... I have lost my daughters, Robb does not want me, and Bran and Rickon must surely think me a cold and unnatural mother. I was not even with Ned when he died....

And then she thinks of Cersei, who is also a mother, and wonders if she prays to the Mother as well. If Cersei had killed Ned and Jon Arryn because they learned her secret, Catelyn wonders, "Would I do any less for my own?" And then she remembers Bran's fall and the attack on him and realizes that he must know something too. "Gods be good, he must have seen something, heard something, that was why they tried to kill him in his bed."

She returns to Renly's pavilion, where Brienne is helping him put on his armor, and tells him she needs to talk with him. He is arguing with two of his knights, who urge him to attack before daybreak, but Renly maintains that would be "unchivalrous." Finally he agrees to speak with Catelyn, who tells him of the attack on Bran. There had been a hunt on the day when Bran fell, and most of the men had gone, but Jaime had remained behind at Winterfell, as had Cersei. Renly gets the point: "you believe the boy caught them at their incest." She begs him to let her go tell Stannis as well. She says Robb will set aside his crown if Renly and Stannis will too. Then they can call a Great Council at which "the assembled lords of the Seven Kingdoms choose who shall rule them."

But Renly laughs at the idea. "The time for talk is done. Now we shall see who is stronger." Brienne kneels to buckle the belt that holds Renly's longsword. Suddenly there is a gust of wind that opens the entrance to the tent. When Catelyn turns to look, she sees what she takes to be Renly's shadow on the walls of the tent, lifting his sword. But she realizes that Renly's sword is still sheathed.

"Cold," said Renly in a small puzzled voice, a heartbeat before the steel of his gorget parted like cheesecloth beneath the shadow of a blade that was not there. He had time to make a small thick gasp before the blood came gushing out of his throat.

Brienne cries out when she sees the blood, and screams when he collapses into her arms. Catelyn recognizes that "Something dark and evil had happened here," but all she knows is that "Death came in that door and blew the life out of him as swift as the wind snuffed out his candles." Ser Robar Royce and Ser Emmon Cuy come rushing in, and when they see Brienne covered with Renly's blood they assume that she has killed him. Emmon picks up a battle-axe and starts for Brienne as Catelyn cries out. But Brienne swiftly pulls Renly's sword and parries the attack, then pivots and cuts off the hand of a man who has moved in behind her with a torch. Brienne holds off the attackers, and Catelyn tries to persuade Ser Robar that Stannis had killed Renly.

It was sorcery of some kind, she argues, as Brienne kills another guardsman. Hearing shouts from outside, Catelyn says, "She is innocent, Robar. You have my word, on my husband's grave and my honor as a Stark." Robar believes her, and tells Catelyn to get Brienne away. Emmon is still fighting with Brienne, but Catelyn knocks him down with an iron brazier, and she and Brienne escape into the darkness outside.

They move slowly to avoid attracting notice, but already the word has spread and there is disarray among the troops. Brienne asks Catelyn what had happened, and Catelyn tells her about the shadow that she first thought was Renly's but then recognized as Stannis's. "I felt him. It makes no sense, I know...."

Catelyn's escort is waiting for her, and she persuades Brienne to ride with them. "We were both with the king when he was killed. That will not be forgotten." As they ride away, Catelyn realizes that "Stannis has won all with a single evil stroke. I am the rightful king, he had declared, his jaw clenched hard as iron, and your son no less a traitor than my brother here. His day will come as well."

Jon

They have reached a hill that rises above the forest. It's known as the Fist of the First Men because of its shape. At its top there is a space enclosed by "a chest-high wall of tumbled rocks" that was said to have been "a ringfort of the First Men in the Dawn Age." Lord Mormont thinks it a good site for their encampment, but Jon is concerned because of the lack of water. And when he finds Ghost, the wolf won't enter the circle of stones. "It was not like him to be so unsettled." When the darkness comes on, Jon finds his own "sense of foreboding" increases, but he tells himself to "Stop acting the boy."

Mormont proposes to settle in and fortify the encampment, then wait for the wildlings to pass by. Jon protests that if the rangers don't move from sight of the Fist, then it will be hard for them to find his Uncle Benjen. But Mormont provokes him to think for a moment and Jon realizes, "it might be easier for one man to find two hundred than for two hundred to find one." Mormont concurs: "If Ben Stark is alive and free, he will come to us, I have no doubt." But they also acknowledge the possibility that he might come to them if he's dead, too.

Jon is not the only one feeling uneasy. The forester Dywen says, "I know this wood as well as any man alive, and I tell you, I wouldn't care to ride through it alone tonight. Can't you smell it?" He says it "smells ... well ... cold." The others scoff, but Jon agrees, remembering the night the undead man attacked in the Lord Commander's chambers. "It smells like death." He hears the sound of wolves howling, and then sees Ghost's red eyes glowing -- the wolf has decided to come inside the ringfort, but he is still uneasy. Jon follows him outside and down the hill, wondering why he is doing this.

When he reaches the stream, Ghost is drinking, but then he is off again. Jon calls on him to stay, but Ghost doesn't obey. Jon thinks of returning to the fort, but he follows Ghost into the forest where he finds the wolf digging into what Jon thinks at first is a grave. Two feet beneath the loose earth he finds a bundle. It contains a dozen knives, as well as spearheads and arrowheads, carved from "Dragonglass. What the maesters call obsidian." There is also a warhorn filled with more arrowheads.  When Jon examines the cloth in which all of this was wrapped he finds that it is "the black cloak of a Sworn Brother of the Night's Watch."

Bran

Bran is summoned to Maester Luwin's quarters where Rickon and the Frey cousins are already gathered. A raven has arrived with news of Robb's victory. Though he is pleased by the news, he feels uneasy because Tywin Lannister remains undefeated, and he remembers Osha saying that Robb was "marching the wrong" way when he left. There is also news that the Freys' uncle Stevron Frey was killed in the battle, but the two Walders are unmoved by it and fall to arguing about who will be their grandfather's heir. Luwin scolds them for not grieving for their uncle, but Bran has a sudden revelation: "They like the taste of this dish better than I do."

He returns to his room, where he asks Osha if she has ever seen a three-eyed crow. She laughs and says she hasn't. Then Jojen and Meera come to his room, and Bran admits that he has seen the fulfillment of Jojen's dream about Maester Luwin serving him some delicious meat that he doesn't enjoy, and serving the Freys inferior meat that they relish. Bran's muted response to the news of Robb's victory and the Freys' gossiping after the news of their uncle's death are parallel to what Jojen had dreamed. "The green dreams take strange shapes sometimes," Jojen says. So Bran now wants to hear about the dream of the bad thing coming to Winterfell.

"It is the sea that come," Jojen says. He dreamed that the castle had flooded, and among the drowned men floating in the yard are Alebelly, the septon, and the smith, Mikken. Bran says they must warn them, but Jojen says it won't make any difference, and Meera argues that they won't believe him. As he agreed he would, he now tells Jojen and Meera what he dreams: the wolf dreams, the crow urging him to fly, the tree that calls his name, and the nightmares about falling. Meera asks if that's all, and he lies and says yes, omitting the ones in which Jaime Lannister appears.

Jojen says people will call him a warg, a shapechanger, if they hear about the wolf dreams. "Some will hate you if they know what you are. Some will even try to kill you." Bran insists that he doesn't want to be a warg; he wants to be a knight.

"A knight is what you want. A warg is what you are. You can't change that, Bran, you can't deny it or push it away. You are the winged wolf, but you will never fly." Jojen got up and walked to the window. "Unless you open your eye." He put two fingers together and poked Bran in the forehead, hard.

Bran is left more confused by this, and he keeps poking at his forehead to try to find the third eye. He also tries to warn Mikken and Septon Chayle about Jojen's dream, but as Jojen predicted, they don't believe him. Alebelly does, however, and refuses to bathe until the other guards gang up on him and wash away his stink.

Ser Rodrik returns from his task, which was to rescue Lady Hornwood, who had been kidnapped by Roose Bolton's bastard son. They had killed the bastard, but failed to rescue Lady Hornwood, who had starved to death in the tower the bastard had locked her in after their wedding. He had forced her to sign a document naming him her heir, which means that Roose Bolton has a claim to her lands. This has touched off a battle between other factions claiming the inheritance. Ser Rodrik has taken prisoner the bastard's servant, "a fleshy young man with fat moist lips and long hair who smelled like a privy," and who is consequently known as Reek.

Bran tells Ser Rodrik about Jojen's prophecy that Winterfell is going to be attacked by the sea. Luwin says he has "spoken to Bran about the uncertainty of such prophecies, but if truth be told, there is trouble along the Stony Shore. Raiders in longships, plundering fishing villages. Raping and burning." Since there is a possibility that Ser Rodrik might have to deal with these sea-dwellers, he asks if Jojen saw him drowned, and Bran says no.

That night, Bran and Jojen and Meera are playing a game, and Bran suggests that if they don't go near the sea, the prophecy might not come true, but Jojen insists, "The things I see in green dreams can't be changed." Meera asks what's the point of a prophecy if you "can't heed it and change what's to come," but Jojen insists that's the way it works. She blurts out that Bran should fight to change things, and then realizes that she's said too much. Bran sees that she's hiding something from him and asks, "Was I drowned?"

"Not drowned." Jojen spoke as if every word pained him. "I dreamed of the man who came today, the one they call Reek. You and your brother lay dead at his feet, and he was skinning off your faces with a long red blade.... I saw you and Rickon in your crypts, down in the dark with all the dead kings and their stone wolves.... The dream was green, Bran, and the green dreams do not lie."

Tyrion

News has arrived of Renly's death, and Varys is sharing it with Cersei, Littlefinger, and Tyrion.  "Most of the lords who rode with Lord Renly to Storm's End have gone over banner-and-blade to Stannis, with all their chivalry." Storm's End hasn't fallen, however, and Loras Tyrell has left for Bitterbridge with his sister, Renly's wife, and other soldiers. Renly's body has disappeared. Tyrion sees an opportunity to gain the Tyrells and their bannermen. They should arrange a marriage between Joffrey and Margaery Tyrell.

When Cersei objects, "Joffrey is betrothed to Sansa Stark," Tyrion says, "What advantage is there in wedding the king to the daughter of a dead traitor?" And Littlefinger adds that the Tyrells are richer than the Starks, and that Margaery is beautiful "and beddable besides" -- Sansa is not yet old enough to marry. Cersei says that Joffrey is not old enough to think about "such things" as sex, but Tyrion knows better. He "had spoken with Varys about how they might arrange for Joffrey to visit Chataya's. A taste of honey might sweeten the boy." Cersei argues that Joffrey would never consent to the marriage, but Tyrion points out that until he comes of age in three years, he has to do what the regent and the Hand tell him to do.

So Cersei gives in. "Make your offer then, but gods save you all if Joff does not like this girl." Then they argue about who should go to Bitterbridge and persuade the Tyrells to the marriage. Littlefinger volunteers to do so, to Tyrion's surprise: "What gain does he see in this?" He doesn't trust Littlefinger and would rather keep him around where he can control him, but the only other option is to go himself, and if he left King's Landing, "all that he had managed to accomplish would be undone." Then Littlefinger argues for a large contingent of guards and a commission in writing signed and sealed by Joffrey and all the members of the council.

After the meeting, Cersei tells Tyrion, "I know we do not always agree on policy, but it seems to me that I was wrong about you. You are not so big a fool as I imagined." And to his astonishment she kisses him on his forehead. He is certain she is up to something. 

4. A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 142-196

Daenerys

Like everyone else, Daenerys believes the comet has a special personal significance. In her case "It is the herald of my coming, she told herself as she gazed up into the night sky with wonder in her heart. The gods have sent it to show me the way." But the way it points to is, her maid Doreah tells her, "the red lands, Khaleesi. A grim and terrible place, the riders say."

But given that the only other options meant encountering other Dothraki who would murder or enslave her, Daenerys chooses to head in the direction indicated by the comet. Given that she  has only a handful of followers left, including four guards, three handmaidens and a contingent of people who are too old, too sick, or too young to do anything else but follow her also limits her options.

But, as she says, she has her dragons. Ser Jorah is not so sure that's much help. For one thing, they're still tiny and vulnerable. For another, they could attract thieves: "Your dragon eggs were more precious than rubies. A living dragon is beyond price. In all the world, there are only three. Every man who sees them will want them, my queen."

Still, they're hers, she insists, and so they set out into the desert lands, traveling by night. People and animals start dropping dead as they move through the barren plains with their scant water sources. Even the dragons start to show signs of debility until Daenerys remembers something her brother once told her: "Only dragons and men eat cooked meat." From then on, the dragons get their share of charred horsemeat, and they start to get bigger and stronger. She names them: "The green one shall be Rhaegal, for my valiant brother who died on the green banks of the Trident. The cream-and-gold I call Viserion. Viserys was cruel and weak and frightened, yet he was my brother still. His dragon will do what he could not." As for the black one, he is called Drogon.

Things get worse for the humans, however, and finally Doreah, the handmaiden who had coached Daenerys in the art of pleasing Khal Drogo, dies. Ser Jorah admits that the journey is harder than he had expected, and even he is suffering from it. But finally a scout returns with news that they have sighted a city an hour's ride away. She sends out more scouts to find out whether they will have a friendly reception there.

But the city turns out to be deserted, with buildings that are falling down, and signs that it had been looted by Dothraki. Still, they camp out in the ruins, and soon people return with news that there are trees laden with fruit in the city, and cisterns full of good water. There are also human bones, which cause the maid Irri to warn Daenerys that there are ghosts in the city. Daenerys scoffs, "Dragons are more powerful than ghosts."

When Ser Jorah brings her a peach, she asks him to tell her more about his life. He tells her he grew up on Bear Island, which "lies far to the north, and our winters are more terrible than you can imagine." He married young, a marriage arranged by his father, and his wife suffered two miscarriages before dying of a third. His father, Jeor Mormont, joined the Night's Watch, leaving Jorah Lord of Bear Island. Then Balon Greyjoy rebelled against Robert Baratheon, and Jorah responded to Ned Stark's call to join in putting down the rebellion.

After the victory, there was a tournament near Lannisport, and there he saw a beautiful woman named Lynesse. He asked to wear her favor in the tournament and after defeating all comers and breaking nine lances in competition with Jaime Lannister, he was named champion. He asked for Lynesse's hand and they were happy, he tells Daenerys, for a fortnight, which was how long it took for them to sail for Bear Island.

She was miserable there, and he spent enormous sums trying to keep her happy. Finally he "did things it shames me to speak of," which led to his being exiled. "Nothing mattered but our love, I told myself. We fled to Lys, where I sold my ship for gold to keep us." But it didn't last, so he turned mercenary soldier, and while he was away fighting someone's battle, she became the mistress "of a merchant prince named Tregar Ormollen. They say she is his chief concubine now, and even his wife goes in fear of her." When Daenerys asks what Lynesse looked like, he tells her, "Why, she looked a bit like you, Daenerys." She realizes that Jorah is in love with her, but when she tries to imagine making love with him, she can only envision Drogo.

The next day, she calls her bloodriders and sends them out on a scouting expedition. "When I leave this place, I do not mean to strike out blind again. I will know where I am bound, and how best to get there." Days pass and finally Rakharo returns to say that due south there is only desert. "He had passed the bones of a dragon, he swore, so immense that he had ridden his horse through its great black jaws. Other than that, he had seen nothing."

Aggo returns from the southwest, where there are only the ruins of some small cities. Jhogo is gone so long that Daenerys thinks he must be dead, but when he returns from the southeast he is accompanied by three strange figures riding camels -- or at least, "ugly humped creatures that dwarfed any horse." Daenerys asks them to introduce themselves.

The first, a pale man with blue lips, says in Dothraki, "I am Pyat Pree, the great warlock." The second, a bald man with jewels in his nose, says in Valyrian, "I am Xaro Xhoan Daxos of the Thirteen, a merchant prince of Qarth." The third, a woman wearing a lacquered wooden mask, says in the Common Tongue of the Seven Kingdoms, "I am Quaithe of the Shado. We come seeking dragons."

"Seek no more," Daenerys Targaryen told them. "You have found them." 

Jon

The expedition has reached a deserted village called Whitetree, which is dominated by a gigantic weirwood, eight feet in diameter. It has a face with a cavernous mouth in which there are human bones. It is the biggest tree Jon has ever seen, and he feels its power. There are ashes along with the bones, and Mormont comments that the wildlings always burn their dead. "Now I wished [sic] I'd asked them why, when there were still a few around to ask." Jon, remembers the undead wight and thinks he knows why.

Mormont sends the men in teams of two to explore the houses, and Jon is partnered with Eddison Tollett, known as Dolorous Edd. But they find nothing of value in the house, which fits the pattern. This was the fourth deserted village they'd come across. "The people were gone, vanished with their scant possessions and whatever animals they may have had."

A small man named Bedwyck, nicknamed "Giant," has climbed the tree and tells them that there's what appears to be a lake to the north and some flint hills to the west, but otherwise nothing to report. There are three more hours of daylight, so Mormont decides they should go north to the lake, where they might be able to catch some fish. Then he asks Jon to give him some paper so he can send a message to Maester Aemon. He gives the report to Jon and has him find Sam to dispatch a raven with it.

Jon finds Sam watering horses and gives him the message. Sam has been teaching the ravens to talk, and he tells Jon that three of them can say "snow." "One bird croaking my name was bad enough," Jon says, and besides, snow is a bad word in the north because it often means death. Sam tells Jon that he's not as frightened as he was, and holds out his hand to show Jon how steady it is. "The world is strange, Jon thought. Two hundred brave men had left the Wall, and the only one who was not growing more fearful was Sam, the self-confessed coward."

Ghost appears from the woods, but doesn't seem to have had any luck finding game. Jon decides that it has all been frightened away by the noise the expedition was making on its march. He rejoins Mormont and comments that if his uncle had found deserted villages,

"-- he would have made it his purpose to learn why," Lord Mormont finished for him, "and it may well be someone or something did not want that known. Well, we'll be three hundred when Qhorin joins us. Whatever enemy waits out here will not find us so easy to deal with. We will find them, Jon, I promise you."

Or they will find us, thought Jon.

Arya

They reach the river that flows south out of Gods Eye, but there is no easy place for the wagons to cross, and there is smoke to the north and west. So Yoren decides they will stay to the  east of the lake. He remembers a town with a holdfast and a towerhouse, so he proposes to follow the river north to the town and get a boat they can sail across the Gods Eye.

They reach the town and find it deserted. Yoren divides them into search parties, and Arya is grouped with Gendry, Hot Pie, and Lommy. She wonders what would frighten the people so much that they would leave. They reach the lake, but there are no boats. When they return to Yoren he says there are no horses and pigs but he saw a goose and some chickens, and there are fish in the lake. Gendry suggests that they could build a raft, and Yoren takes it into consideration. He proposes that they spend the night in the holdfast. Arya thinks they should leave, like the people who lived there, but Yoren argues that since they are Night's Watch and they have no allegiance to any side in the conflict, they have no enemies. Arya thinks, "And no man's our friend."

The holdfast has ten-foot-high walls and encloses a barn. Underneath the straw in the barn there is a trap door leading to a tunnel that comes out by the lake. Yoren has a wagon placed over the exit to hide it. They retreat inside it and cook the goose and the chickens for dinner.

Arya dozes off and comes awake with a start when she hears the howling of a wolf -- or dreams that she does. She wakes the others, and they realize that it was the sentry, Kurz, who had been given a hunting horn to sound an alarm. Arya scrambles up to the catwalk just below the top of the wall and sees men with torches, setting fire to the houses. Gendry joins her and sees men on horses heading toward the holdfast.

A knight rides up to the gate and orders them to open it. Yoren climbs up to the battlement with his black cloak tied to a staff and calls down that the townsfolk are gone, and that they are men of the Night's Watch. He shows them the black cloak, but the knight says that all banners look black at night. He identifies himself as "Ser Amory Lorch, bannerman to Lord Tywin Lannister of Casterly Rock, the Hand of the King. The true king, Joffrey." He orders them to open in the name of the king.

Yoren continues to defy the order, and a spear comes through the air. It was meant for Yoren, but it kills a man named Woth. Ser Amory orders them to storm the walls. A torch is flung over the wall and when a man's hand appears at the top of it, Arya stabs it with Needle. Hot Pie, who is behind Arya, yells out a warning as a man starts to climb over the wall, and Arya stabs at his eyes. The man loses his grip and falls. They don't have ladders, but the unmortared stones of the wall are easy to climb, and soon there are more men climbing over and more torches flying into the holdfast.

Soon it's apparent that the gates have been breached, and Yoren yells at her to get out through the trap door and the tunnel. She grabs Gendry and they call Hot Pie and Lommy, who is bleeding from a spear in his calf. The entrance to the tunnel is through the barn, which is burning. The horses and donkeys are terrified, and as Arya runs for the tunnel she sees the three men chained to the wagon. They plead for her to unshackle them. Arya asks Gendry where he left the axe when he split wood earlier, and she runs to get it. When she finds it, "a mailed hand grabbed her arm. Spinning, Arya drove the head of the axe hard between his legs," then runs back into the blazing barn where "she could hear the screams of the poor animals inside, donkeys and horses and men." She throws the axe into the wagon and hears the men using it to chop their way free. She plunges into the tunnel and begins crawling.

Tyrion

Cersei has received a copy of the letters sent by Stannis and is enraged. She wants every copy of them burned. Tyrion reflects, "It was astonishing to see how angry Cersei could wax over accusations she knew perfectly well to be true." He tries to calm her down, but when she says, "I will not suffer to be called a whore!" Tyrion says to himself, "Why, sister, he never claims Jaime paid you." Then he observes the phrase "Done in the Light of the Lord," which Davos had tried to persuade Stannis to change. Grand Maester Pycelle identifies this as a reference to "The god of the red priests." Tyrion suggests that they "can use that against him. Urge the High Septon to reveal how Stannis has turned against the gods as well as his rightful king...."

But Cersei is fixated on the charge of incest, and wants to council to "issue an edict. Any man heard speaking of incest or calling Joff a bastard should lose his tongue for it." Pycelle calls this "A prudent measure," but Tyrion scoffs: "When you tear out a man's tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world that you fear what he might say." He suggests that they shouldn't bring attention to the accusation, since Stannis offers no proof of it. "'How could he, when it never happened?' Tyrion gave his sister his sweetest smile."

Cersei is stymied for a moment, and Littlefinger jumps in on Tyrion's side. "If we attempt to silence this talk, we only lend it credence. Better to treat it with contempt, like the pathetic lie it is. And meantime, fight fire with fire." He proposes spreading the counter-rumor that Lady Selyse cuckolded Stannis and that their daughter is illegitimate. Cersei begins to see the appeal of this and to debate whom they might accuse of being Selyse's lover. Finally, Littlefinger observes, "in my experience, the more bizarre and shocking a tale the more apt it is to be repeated. Stannis keeps an especially grotesque fool, a lackwit with a tattooed face." The idea appeals to Cersei's worst instincts.

This goes beyond even Tyrion's imagination. Littlefinger, he realizes, "is more dangerous than I knew." But he points out that the story shouldn't originate with them, "'or it will be seen for a self-serving lie.' Which it is, to be sure." And Littlefinger once again agrees: "Whores love to gossip, and as it happens I own a brothel or three. And no doubt Varys can plant seeds in the alehouses and pot-shops."

This reminds Cersei that Varys isn't present for this meeting, and when Tyrion excuses himself too, she demands to know what he is up to. He tells her that he's "having a gift made for Joffrey. A little chain." Cersei is not satisfied with this answer, but Tyrion escapes without further explanation. Outside, Bronn tells him that the smiths are waiting in his audience chamber. Tyrion goes first to his room where his squire, Podrick Payne, helps him dress for the meeting.

He shows the assembled smiths, armorers, and ironmongers what he wants them to make. From a bag he produces "three immense steel links, twisted together," and tells them he wants a thousand more like them. He expects this work to take priority over anything else, even the queen's order of new armor and weaponry for the City Guard. A master armorer protests that he makes "armor such as a god might wear," not this coarse stuff, but Tyrion says, "You will make chains, or you will wear them."

Bronn meets him with a litter and some mounted Black Ears to guard him as he goes through the city. Tyrion has done what he can to alleviate the food shortage, including building more fishing boats, opening the kingswood to hunters, and having the gold cloaks forage to the south and west, but he realizes that he's not popular. As he rides, he thinks about how Cersei was so angry about the accusation of incest that she missed the real point: that Stannis has proclaimed himself king, despite the fact that his own brother has done the same thing. "They could not both sit the Iron Throne."

After a while he dozes, and awakes when they reach the destination: a brothel. Inside, he is greeted by Chataya, who takes him through the rooms to the one occupied by her own daughter: "My people hold that there is no shame to be found in the pillow house. In the Summer Isles, those who are skilled at giving pleasure are greatly esteemed. Many highborn youths and maidens serve for a few years after their flowerings, to honor the gods."

She leaves him with Alayaya, who tells him, "If my lord will open the wardrobe, he will find what he seeks." Inside the wardrobe he finds a secret panel that opens onto a shaft with a ladder that takes him below street level to a tunnel and finally to Varys, who is in disguise. Tyrion asks Varys if Chataya can be trusted, and Varys says nothing is certain. "Chataya has no cause to love the queen, though, and she knows that she has you to thank for ridding her of Allar Deem."

They follow the tunnel and finally emerge in a stable, where a horse is waiting. Varys provides Tyrion with a threadbare cloak as a disguise: "Dwarfs are not so common a sight as children, so a child is what they will see. A boy in an old cloak on his father's horse, going about his father's business. Though it would be best if you came most often by night." It is a trick that will allow Tyrion to visit Shae at the house where he has set her up.

Before he leaves, they talk about the letter from Stannis. Tyrion wonders how Stannis knew of Cersei and Jaime's incest. Varys replies, "Perhaps he read a book and looked at the color of a bastard's hair, as Ned Stark did, and Jon Arryn before him. Or perhaps someone whispered it in his ear." But Varys denies that he was the whisperer. Besides, he says, Robert Baratheon's "bastards were there for all to see." So who was the whisperer, Tyrion asks. "Littlefinger?" Varys replies, "I named no name."

Tyrion tells Varys, "sometimes I feel as though you are the best friend I have in King's Landing, and sometimes I feel you are my worst enemy." Varys replies, "How odd. I think quite the same of you."

Bran

Winterfell is crowded with guests, and Bran, as the heir apparent to the throne now held by his brother Robb, has to attend formal greetings and business sessions, though the actual business is mostly left up to Maester Luwin and Ser Rodrik Cassel. Bran would rather be participating in the games, such as tilting at quintains, but is of course unable. And even though he is the heir, he is still subject to stares when he rides in a specially made basket on Hodor's back. The Walders are particularly given to making fun of this conveyance, though when Maester Luwin overhears their jibes, he silences and scolds them.

Bran has to sit through discussions of new customs officers and coinage, though his interest is roused by talk of building warships. There is also discussion of finding a new husband for Lady Donella Hornwood, who lost her husband and her son in the recent battles, and about Tywin Lannister's offer to release Lord Wyman Manderly's son, captured at the Green Fork, in exchange for a promise that he will withdraw allegiance to Robb. Lord Wyman assures them that he remains loyal to King Robb. Other matters concern the coming winter, and whether the various lords are putting away enough of their harvest in preparation. Bran learns that the balance of power could depend on whom Lady Donella chooses to marry -- someone sworn to Robb, or someone neutral. But he is glad when he can finally be excused from the meeting.

Hodor takes Bran to the godswood where he sits by the pool with Summer. Osha surprises him by appearing from the pool, and she sits and talks with him about the conflict with the Frey boys. She asks if he has had more wolf dreams, and he says no, just because he doesn't want to talk about the dreams.

The next day brings more guests and more meetings. Mors Umber asks to marry Lady Donella, and Hother Umber wants ships to patrol the coasts and prevent more wildlings from sneaking into his lands. The following day comes another suggestion about what to do about Lady Donella, when Leobald Tallhart proposes that she take his younger son to foster -- the idea being that he would take the name Hornwood and become her heir. Bran speaks up to thank him for the idea and says they will bring it to the attention of Robb and Lady Hornwood. "Leobald seemed surprised that he had spoken ... but he saw pity in his pale blue eyes, mingled perhaps with a little gladness that the cripple was, after all, not his son. For a moment he hated the man." Afterward, Maester Luwin rather likes Tallhart's suggestion, which leads Bran to say, "Lady Hornwood can have one of our Freys.... She can have both of them if she likes."

Finally the procession of vassals thins out. One day, Bran is riding his horse in the yard when Cley Cerwyn, a fourteen-year-old friend of the Stark boys, arrives. He asks if Winterfell had received one of the letters from Stannis. Bran has heard nothing about it, so Cley tells him, "He says Queen Cersei bedded her brother, so Joffrey is a bastard." Bran is so shaken by this news that "had he not been strapped onto his saddle he might well have fallen."

That night he has a nightmare that "was worse than any wolf dream." He is being pecked at by the three-eyed crow who cries, "Fly or die!" The crow pecks out each of his eyes and then begins to peck into his skull, "but when the crow wrenched out its beak all slimy with bits of bone and brain, Bran could see again." He is miles up in the air, clinging to a tower, and his dead legs were dragging him down. He cries for help.

A golden man appeared in the sky above him and pulled him up. "The things I do for love," he murmured softly as he tossed him out kicking into empty air.

17. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 729-761

Bran

Ser Rodrik Cassel has returned to Winterfell to train more men, but Bran, who watches the training with Maester Luwin, is not impressed with the way things are going. And he is, of course, depressed by his inability to fight. So he tells the maester about the dream he has had: A crow with three eyes has flown into his bedroom and told him to go down into the crypt; there he met his father and talked with him. He had been particularly bothered by how sad his father seemed. That morning, he had asked Hodor to take him down to the crypts, but Hodor was frightened to go down into them.

Maester Luwin tries to reassure Bran that his father isn't in the crypts, and that he won't be for many years. He is a prisoner in King's Landing, he says, so he can't possibly be there. Bran insists that he wants to go see for himself, so Luwin asks Osha to carry Bran. Luwin goes, too, as does Summer. But at a certain point the wolf balks and will go no farther, even when Bran, in Osha's arms, continues. Bran tells Osha what he knows about the lords buried there, and mentions that his father's brother, Brandon, and sister, Lyanna, are there too, represented by statues even those are supposed to be reserved for lords only.

Art Parkinson as Rickon Stark

They reach the place reserved for Eddard Stark's tomb, which is where Bran had dreamed of seeing him. Luwin assures him that his father isn't there, but when he reaches inside the empty tomb, something springs out and sinks its teeth into Luwin's hand. Bran screams for Summer, who comes and attacks. The attacker turns out to be Shaggydog. Bran's little brother Rickon emerges from the tomb and calls off Shaggydog. 

"You let my father be," Rickon says to Luwin. Bran tells Rickon that their father isn't there, but Rickon insists that he is, that like Bran he saw him in his dreams. "He's coming home now, like he promised." Luwin is clearly puzzled that the two boys should have had the same dreams. And although he resists Bran's suggestion that he and Rickon and their wolves should go to the maester's tower to wait for their father's return, he finally gives in.

There Osha dresses Luwin's bite wounds, and the maester tells them about the legends of the children of the forest, the people of the Dawn Age before the arrival of the First Men. Luwin tells the boys that the children are all gone now, but Osha insists that they still exist north of the Wall. Luwin dismisses this notion as superstition, but as he continues with his story, suddenly first Summer and then Shaggydog start to howl. When the wolves stop howling, a raven arrives. It has dried blood on its wings.

Bran starts to shiver while Luwin reads the letter the bird has carried. "What is it?" he asks, holding Rickon tightly. Osha says, "You know what it is, boy." Luwin turns to them with tears in his eyes and says, "we shall need to find a stonecarver who knew his likeness well...."

Sansa

The torment of what she had witnessed has not left Sansa when Joffrey appears in her room and orders her to appear in court that afternoon. "If you won't rise and dress yourself, my Hound will do it for you," he tells her. Sandor Clegane picks her up from her bed and pushes her toward her wardrobe, though he does so "almost gently."

Sansa backed away from them. "I did as the queen asked, I wrote the letters, I wrote what she told me. You promised you'd be merciful. Please, let me go home. I won't do any treason, I'll be good, I swear it. I don't have traitor's blood, I don't. I only want to go home."

But Joffrey insists that his mother still wants her to marry him, so she has to stay. When she says she doesn't want to marry him because he chopped off her father's head, he replies, "I never promised to spare him, only that I'd be merciful, and I was. If he hadn't been your father, I would have had him torn or flayed, but I gave him a clean death." And when she says she hates him, he replies, "My mother tells me that it isn't fitting that a king should strike his wife," so he has Ser Merwyn Trant do it for him. When she recovers from the blow, she says she will do what he wants.

Bathed and dressed, she appears in the balcony for the court session in which Joffrey dispatches various pleas with arrogance and cruelty. When it's over she finds him waiting for her at the foot of the stairs. He orders her to walk with him. "I'll get you with child as soon as you're able," he tells her. "If the first one is stupid, I'll chop off your head and find a smarter wife."

When she sees that they are going to the battlements, she backs off and refuses to accompany him, but he bullies her into it. "He can make me look at the heads, she told herself, but he can't make me see them." When they reach her father's head, Joffrey orders Sandor Clegane to turn it so she can see the face. "The severed head had been dipped in tar to preserve it longer. Sansa looked at it calmly, not seeing it at all. It did not really look like Lord Eddard, she thought; it did not even look real."

Joffrey is disappointed at her lack of reaction, and takes her to see the other heads. There are two empty spikes that, he tells her, he is saving for Stannis and Renly Baratheon. Then he points out the head of Septa Mordane. To Sansa it doesn't even look like a woman. "Why did you kill her?" she asks, and he says she was a traitor. "Joffrey looked pouty; somehow she was upsetting him."

Then he says that Robb is a traitor too. "Your brother defeated my uncle Jaime. My mother says it was treachery and defeat. She wept when she heard." So he says for his name day he's going to raise and army and kill her brother. "That's what I'll give you, Lady Sansa. Your brother's head." She replies, "Maybe my brother will give me your head." So he has Ser Merwyn hit her again.

As they reach the edge of the parapet, she thinks of pushing him to his death seventy or eighty feet below. "It wouldn't even matter if she went over with him. It wouldn't matter at all." Then Sandor Clegane kneels before her, between her and Joffrey, and dabs at the blood from her split lip. "The moment was gone."

Daenerys

She dreams feverishly of dragons, of her brother Viserys, of Khal Drogo, of her brother Rhaegar. And when she awakes, they find her crawling toward the dragon's eggs. Ser Jorah takes her back to bed, and she struggles to get up again. Her maids and her guard Jhogo are there, and Mirri Maz Duur gives her something to drink that puts her to sleep again. She wakes again and asks for the dragon's eggs, then drifts off.

The third time she wakes, she is holding one of the eggs. She realizes that her fever has gone, and calls for water and dates to eat. She asks for Ser Jorah, and for a warm bath, and for Mirri Maz Duur. And then she remembers Khal Drogo. The maid Irri tells her, "The khal lives," but Daenerys senses that something is not right. Then she asks for her child, wondering why she hadn't thought of him until now. The terrified maid tells her that the baby died.

When Jorah and Mirri Maz Duur arrive, they find her standing over the other dragon eggs in the chest. She asks Jorah to touch one of the eggs and tell her what he feels. He says, "Shell, hard as rock.... Scales.... Cold stone." She seems to be the only one who feels the heat in them. Then she asks him about the child, and he is embarrassed and stammers, "They say the child was...." Finally Mirri Maz Duur completes the statement: "Monstrous." He was deformed and stank of the grave, she says, "He had been dead for years." Daenerys counters that he had been "alive and strong when Ser Jorah carried me into the tent." Mirri Maz Duur insists, "Death was in that tent, Khaleesi."

Ser Jorah had killed her son, Dany knew. He had done what he did for love and loyalty, yet he had carried her into a place no living man should go and fed her baby to the darkness. He knew it too; the grey face, the hollow eyes, the limp. "The shadows have touched you too, Ser Jorah," she told him. The knight made no reply. Dany turned to the godswife, "You warned me that only death could pay for life. I thought you meant the horse." 

Mirri Maz Duur replies, "That was a lie you told yourself." Daenerys asks to see Khal Drogo: "Show me what I have bought with my son's life." Outside she finds an abandoned camp, with only a few people too infirm to move with the khalasar, and the servants who have sworn loyalty. The weak and blind Khal Drogo is lying on the ground. "This is not life, for one who was as Drogo was," she tells Mirri Maz Duur, and demands, "When will he be as he was?"

"When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east," said Mirri Maz Duur. "When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then will he return, and not before." 

Daenerys tells Jorah and the others to leave her alone with Mirri Maz Duur. She turns on the woman in fury: "You knew what I was buying, and you knew the price, and yet you let me pay it." It was revenge for the destruction wrought on her people, she replies: "The stallion who mounts the world will burn no cities now. His khalasar shall trample no nations into dust." Daenerys says she saved the woman's life, but Mirri Maz Duur replies, "Look to your khal and see what life is worth, when all the rest is gone." Daenerys calls for her guards and has Mirri Maz Duur bound hand and foot.

She has Khal Drogo taken to her tent, where she bathes him, then she takes him outside, "for the Dothraki believed that all things of importance in a man's life must be done beneath the open sky." She does what she can to rouse him, "Yet Drogo did not feel, or speak, or rise." So she goes into tent for a soft silk cushion, "knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down over his face." 

7. A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 272-323

Eddard

References to "the Hand's tourney" keep bugging Ned, who insists it's "the king's tourney." Now he has to deal with an overstretched constabulary that's having to handle the influx of visitors for the event, and the accompanying criminal activity. He orders the Commander of the City Watch to add fifty men to the force, and then retires to his room to read the book that Jon Arryn had been reading before he died: The Lineages and Histories of the Great Houses of the Seven Kingdoms, With Descriptions of Many High Lords and Noble Ladies and Their Children. He hasn't yet figured out what connection, if any, it may have with Lord Arryn's death.

Jory Cassel arrives with reports on the remaining servants to Lord Arryn, none of which seem to have any significance. "The serving girl ... said Lord Jon had been reading more than was good for him, that he was troubled and melancholy over his young son's frailty, and gruff with his lady wife." A former potboy remembered kitchen gossip, including that Arryn and Lord Stannis, the king's brother, had been together to an armorer to order a new suit of plate. A former stableboy, now a watchman, told him that "Lord Jon was as strong as a man half his age. Often went riding with Lord Stannis, he says." Ned reflects that Stannis had never close to Arryn before, and and that Stannis now seems to have absented himself from court and the council on which he sits, staying at his home on Dragonstone, "the Targaryen island fastness he had conquered in his brother's name. And when Jory adds that the boy said Arryn and Stannis went to a brothel, Ned is incredulous: He has just come from a council meeting in which he was reminded that Stannis once tried to outlaw brothels.

Ned decides to visit the armorer, Tobho Mott, himself. He is welcomed effusively, but when he asks if Arryn had ordered work from him, Mott replies, "The Hand did call upon me, with Lord Stannis, the king's brother. I regret to say, they did not honor me with their patronage." Instead, he says, "They asked to see the boy." Ned has no idea who "the boy" might be, but asks to see him. He is taken to "a tall lad about Robb's age, his arms and chest corded with muscle," and told the boy's name is Gendry.

Joe Dempsie as Gendry and Andrew Wilde as Tobho Mott

 The boy shows Ned a helmet he made, but when Ned offers to buy it, he snatches it away. "'I made it for me,' the boy said stubbornly." Mott is embarrassed and apologizes for Gendry's rudeness, but Ned says it's fine. He wants to know what he talked about with Lord Arryn. Gendry says he asked about his mother, "Who shewas and what she looked like and all." He tells Ned, "She died when I was little. She had yellow hair, and sometimes she used to sing to me, I remember. She worked in an alehouse." But Stannis, he says, "just glared at me like I was some raper who done for his daughter."

Ned touched the boy's head, fingering the thick black hair. "Look at me, Gendry." The apprentice lifed his face. Ned studied the shape of his jaw, the  eyes like blue ice. Yes, he thought, I see it. "Go back to your work, lad. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

As he leaves, he asks Mott who paid Gendry's apprentice fee. At first the armorer claims he took him on without a fee, but Ned doesn't believe this for a second. He insists on the truth, and Mott admits that a lord came to see him, paid twice the usual fee, "and said he was paying once for the boy, and once for my silence." Ned listens to the description of the lord, and presses Mott still further for what he knows. The armorer stands his ground. "Why he was before he came to me, that's none of my concern."

Ned leaves, asking himself, "What had Jon Arryn wanted with a king's bastard, and why was it worth his life?"

Catelyn

Catelyn and Ser Rodrik are plodding northward in the rain, heading for an inn at the crossroads between the Kingsroad that takes them to Winterfell and the road that goes westward to her family's home in Riverrun and eastward to the Eyrie, where her sister Lysa lives. The inn is crowded with travelers heading south to the tournament, but they are able to take the last rooms available.

Fortunately, no one seems to recognize them in the common room, where they decide it is safest to pose as father and daughter. Across the table from them is a young singer on his way to King's Landing to try to make some money performing for the crowds at the tournament. His name is Marillion, he tells them.

Emun Elliott as Marillion

Then a servant bursts into the room and calls out, "my lord of Lannister requires a room and a hot bath." Ser Rodrik says, "Oh, gods," before Catelyn can silence him. She sees a man in the black of the Night's Watch, two servants, and Tyrion, They're told that the inn is full, but Tyrion pulls out a gold coin and flips it in the air, and one of the guests volunteers to give up his room.

Tyrion invites Yoren, who is the man in black, to have supper with him, and when they go to sit down Catelyn breathes a sigh of relief because they are at the other end of the room. But Marillion suddenly stands up and calls out to Tyrion, offering to sing him "the lay of your father's great victory at King's Landing!" Anything concerning his father is bound to turn off Tyrion, but as he looks at the singer his eyes suddenly fall on Catelyn. "'Lady Stark, what an unexpected pleasure,' he said. 'I was sorry to miss you at Winterfell.'"

Her identity exposed, Catelyn decides to take a chance. She calls out to several men she can identify by the emblems on their clothing as belonging to families allied with her father.

"This man came a guest into my house, and there conspired to murder my son, a boy of seven," she proclaimed to the room at large, pointing. Ser Rodrik moved to her side, his sword in hand. "In the name of King Robert and the good lords you serve, I call upon you to seize him and help me return him to Winterfell to await the king's justice." She did not know what was more satisfying: the sound of a dozen swords drawn as one or the look on Tyrion Lannister's face.

Sansa

Riding to the tournament with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, Sansa is dazzled and excited by the romance of it all. The jousting goes on all day, and while "Jeyne covered her eyes whenever a man fell, like a frightened little girl, ... Sansa was made of sterner stuff. A great lady knew how to behave at tournaments. Even Septa Mordane noted  her composure and nodded in approval." Jaime Lannister, called "the Kingslayer," is unbeatable, as are Sandor Clegane and his brother, Ser Gregor, who is known as "the Mountain That Rides."

Conan Stevens as Gregor Clegane

Then a man is killed, "a young knight from the Vale," when Ser Gregor's lance pierces his throat and he falls, "not ten feet from where Sansa was seated." Jeyne collapses in hysterics and has to be taken away by Septa Mordane, "but Sansa sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching with a strange fascination. She had never seen a man die before."

The jousts resume, however, and another knight falls to Ser Gregor, and Sandor unhorses Renly Baratheon. In the end, only four are left: the Clegane brothers, Jaime Lannister, and Ser Loras Tyrell, who is known as the Knight of Flowers.

Finn Jones as Ser Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers

At sixteen, he was the youngest rider on the field.... Sansa had never seen anyone so beautiful. His plate was intricately fashioned and enameled as a bouquet of a thousand different flowers, and his snow-white stallion was draped in a blanket of red and white roses.

After each victory he had stopped before a young woman and plucked a white rose from the blanket and given it to her. After the last one, he stopped before Sansa and gave her a red rose. After he rides off, she finds a man standing over her. He says, "You must be one of her daughters.... You have the Tully look." Septa Mordane introduces him as "Lord Petyr Baelish, of the king's small council." Littlefinger tells her, "Your mother was my queen of beauty once," then turns and walks away.

It has grown late, and the last three matches are postponed to the next morning. At the feast that night, Prince Joffrey sits beside her. They haven't spoken since the incident at the river, and she has been dreading seeing him again, but he smiles and kisses her hand, "handsome and gallant as any prince in the songs," and comments, "Ser Loras has a keen eye for beauty, sweet lady." As the feast goes on, Joffrey remains courteous and attentive. "She could see from the way he moved that his right arm was still troubling him, yet he uttered not a word of complaint."

Then there's a disturbance at the king's table. He "had grown louder with each course," and now Sansa is "shocked to see the king on his feet, red of face, reeling. He had a goblet of wine in one hand, and he was as drunk as a man could be." He screams at the queen, "I am king here, do you understand? I rule here, and if I say that I will fight tomorrow, I will fight!" The queen leaves in silence, followed by her servants, and when Jaime Lannister tries to calm the king down, the king shoves him and he falls. Robert mocks him: "The great knight. I can still knock you in the dirt. Remember that, Kingslayer." Lord Renly comes forth and tells his brother, "You've spilled your wine, Robert. Let me bring you a fresh goblet."

Joffrey then tells Sansa it's getting late and asks if she needs an escort back to the castle. She says no at first, but then realizes that Septa Mordane, who has been drinking wine all evening, has passed out. So she says she would be grateful "for some protection." Joffrey shouts, "Dog!" and the Hound, Sandor Clegane, appears. Joffrey tells him, "Take my betrothed back to the castle and see that no harm befalls her." Then he walks off without even saying good night.

It's not what Sansa was expecting, and the Hound knows it. "'Did you think Joff was going to take you himself?' He laughed. He had a laugh like the snarling of dogs in a pit. 'Small chance of that.'" He tells her to hurry because he needs his sleep. "I've drunk too much, and I may need to kill my brother tomorrow." As he takes her back to the castle, she tries to compliment him: "You rode gallantly today, Ser Sandor." But he snarls, "Spare me your empty little compliments, girl." First of all, he's not a "ser":  "I am no knight. I spit on them and their vows. My brother is a knight. Did you see him ride today?" She tries to find something to say: "He was..." "Gallant?" he says, mocking her. She finally says, "No one could withstand him." This only leads to further mockery: "Some septa trained you well," and he compares her to "A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite."

Then he stops her and squats in front of her, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look at his mutilated face. People believe that the left side of his face was burned in a battle. But he tells her the truth. He was six or seven, and a woodcarver sent him and his brother some toys. "I don't remember what I got, but it was Gregor's gift I wanted. A wooden knight, all painted up, every joint pegged separate and fixed with strings, so you could make him fight." Gregor, he says, is five years older and even then was "near six foot tall and muscled like an ox." So when Sandor stole the toy and Gregor found out, "There was a brazier in the room. Gregor never said a word, just picked me up under his arm and shoved my face down into the burning coals and held me there while I screamed and screamed."

Four years later, Sandor says, his brother was made a knight. Sansa  realizes that she isn't afraid of him anymore, and says, "He was no true knight," which makes him roar with laughter. The rest of the way he is silent, but when they reach her room and she thanks him, he grabs her arm and says, "If you ever tell anyone, ... I'll kill you."

Eddard

The knight from the Vale killed by Gregor Clegane is none other than the former squire to Jon Arryn that Ned has wanted to talk with. "Eddard Stark looked at his face and wondered if it had been for his sake that the boy had died. Slain by a Lannister bannerman before Ned could speak to him, could that be mere happenstance?" He is especially distressed that it happened at a tournament in his name. "This was needless. War should not be a game."

Now Ned turns his mind to the fact that the king has announced his intention to fight in the melee. Ser Barristan Selmy suggests that perhaps the king has forgotten his announcement, but Ned knows Robert Baratheon better than that. They find the king in his pavilion trying to fit into his armor and cursing his squires. Ned tells him the problem isn't with the squires: "You're too fat for your armor, Robert." After a flicker of anger, the king says, "Ah, damn you, Ned, why are you always right?" So he sends the squires for a "breastplate stretcher." Ned observes that the squires are Lannisters, and "it troubled him to see Robert surrounded by the queen's kin, waking and sleeping."

Barristan speaks up and suggests that if he fights in the melee, "It would not be a fair contest. Who would dare strike you?" Ned sees that Barristan has hit the mark: "There's not a man in the Seven Kingdoms who would dare risk your displeasure by hurting you," he adds, knowing that this approach touches the king's pride. "Are you telling me those prancing cravens will let me win?" They indicate that this is so. The king throws his breastplate at Barristan and orders him out of the tent, but calls Ned back.

He tells Ned that his marriage to Cersei is miserable, and "More than once, I have dreamed of giving up the crown." But what stops him is "The thought of Joffrey on the throne, with Cersei standing behind him whispering in his ear. My son. How could I have made a son like that, Ned?" He wishes he had a son like Loras Tyrell, the Knight of Flowers. "Now there's a son any man would be proud to own to." And he falls to reminiscing about their boyhood days, as Ned thinks about his investigation:

If he could prove that the Lannisters were behind the attack on Bran, prove that they had murdered Jon Arryn, this man would listen. Then Cersei would fall, and the Kingslayer with her, and if Lord Tywin dared to rouse the west, Robert would smash him as he had smashed Rhaegar Targaryen on the Trident. He could see it all so clearly.

Ned goes to watch the final jousts with Sansa. The first combat is between Sandor Clegane and Jaime Lannister, and in the first pass, the Hound is almost unseated. But on the second pass, Sandor unhorses Lannister, whose helmet is so twisted and dented in the fall that is unable to get it off, and the crowd bursts out into laughter at his efforts, the king laughing loudest of all.

Next, Gregor Clegane is up against the Knight of Flowers. Gregor "was huge, the biggest man that Eddard Stark had ever seen.... He was well over seven feet tall, closer to eight, with massive shoulders and arms thick as the trunks of small trees." The crowd is delighted by the appearance of Loras Tyrell "in a suit of fabulous silver armor polished to a blinding sheen and filigreed with twining black vines and tiny blue forget-me-nots" that drew a gasp when the crowd realized "that the blue of the flowers came from sapphires." Tyrell is riding a grey mare, and "Ser Gregor's huge stallion trumpeted as he caught her scent." When Gregor kicks the horse to try to control it, the horse almost throws him. And when the joust begins, he continues to have trouble controlling the horse, so that "suddenly Loras Tyrell was on him, placing the point of his lance just there, and in an eye blink the Mountain was falling. He was so huge that he took his horse down with him in a tangle of steel and flesh."

The crowd cheers the Knight of Flowers, whose lance isn't even broken, but Gregor is so enraged that he calls for his sword and kills his horse, "with a single blow of such ferocity that it half severed the animal's neck." Then Gregor attacks Loras Tyrell, knocks him from his horse, and is about to kill him when his brother, Sandor, intervenes. The two brothers do battle until the king calls a halt to their combat and a dozen knights do their best to break it up.

There is one joust left, between the Hound and the King of Flowers, but "Ser Loras Tyrell walked back onto the field in a simple linen doublet and said to Sandor Clegane, 'I owe you my life. The day is yours, ser.'" Once again the Hound denies that he has the right to be called "ser," "but he took the victory, and the champion's purse, and, for perhaps the first time in his life, the love of the commons." Afterward, Ned hears Littlefinger suggest that Tyrell knew the mare he was riding was in heat and chose it because "Gregor has always favored huge, ill-tempered stallions with more spirit than sense."

The melee is a bloody mess, which makes Ned happy that he was able to persuade the king not to take part in it. Arya joins them at the feast, and when Sansa asks how her dancing lessons are going, shows her "a huge purple bruise on her leg." "'You must be a terrible dancer,' Sansa said doubtfully. Later, Ned talks to Arya alone and suggests that maybe Syrio is a little too hard on her, but she stands her ground, insisting, "I want Syrio."

He returns to his room, and ponders all of the things he has learned, trying to put them all together into a pattern. He is sure that Gendry is Robert's son: "The Baratheon look was stamped on his face, in his jaw, his eyes, that black hair." But Robert has had other bastards as well, including "a daughter born in the Vale when Robert was scarcely more than a boy himself.... The girl would be seventeen or eighteen now, he realized, older than Robert had been when he fathered her." But "none of them could threaten Robert's trueborn children."

The steward enters to tell him he has a visitor who will not give his name. Ned admits a man whose face is covered with a cowl, and when the steward has left, the man reveals himself: Varys. He says he has disguised himself because he doesn't want the queen to know that he is speaking to him in private, and has come to tell Ned that there was a plot to kill the king during the melee. Ned protests that the queen had asked Robert not to fight, but Varys replies, "She forbade him to fight, in front of his brother, his knights, and half the court. Tell me truly, do you know any surer way to force King Robert into the melee?" Ned concedes the point.

Ned protests that Varys should have told him sooner, but Varys says if Ned had told the king of a plot that would have only provoked him to fight. Besides, Varys says, he wasn't sure if he could trust Ned. But now, "I comprehend why the queen fears you so much." Doesn't the king have other friends, Ned asks, like his brothers?

"His brothers hate the Lannisters, true enough, but hating the queen and loving theking are not quite the same thing, are they? Ser Barristan loves his honor, Grand Maester Pycelle loves his office, and Littlefinger loves Littlefinger.... No, my lord, when the swords come out in earnest, you will be the only true friend Robert Baratheon will have."

As Varys starts to leave, Ned asks the question that he's been trying to solve: "How did Lord Arryn die." It was a poison called "The tears of Lys," Varys says. As for who gave him the poison, Varys says it must have been "Some dear friend who often shared meat and mead with him."

"There was one boy. All he was, he owed to Jon Arryn, but when the widow fled to the Eyrie with her household, he stayed in King's Landing and prospered. It always gladdens my heart to see the young rise in the world." The whip was in his voice again, every word a stroke. "He must have cut a gallant figure in the tourney, him in his bright new armor, with those crescent moons on his cloak. A pity he died so untimely, before you could talk to him...."

It was the new-made knight, the former squire to Jon Arryn, killed by Gregor in the tournament. But then Ned asks why Jon Arryn was killed: "What was he doing that they had to kill him?"

"'Asking questions,' Varys said, slipping out the door."