32. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 1098-1128

Sansa

She is in the lofty and strange Eyrie, pretending to be Alayne Stone. It is a lonely place, with her only usual company her aunt, her elderly maid, and "the Lord Robert, eight going on three." Marillion is there, too, and he is still putting the moves on her, singing songs addressed to Sansa, to Lysa's irritation: "Her aunt was far from pleased. Lady Lysa doted on Marillion, and had banished two serving girls and even a page for telling lies about him." (Marillion swings both ways?) Littlefinger is often away, dealing with troubles in the Vale.

She gets up and opens the shutters to discover that it is snowing. She remembers happier times when it would snow at Winterfell, and gets up and dresses warmly. In the garden she starts to make snowballs, remembering a snowball fight with Arya, but there is no one to fight with. She decides to make a snow castle, and "before very long Sansa knew it was Winterfell."

Her maid calls down to ask if she wants breakfast, but Sansa says no. Lysa looks down briefly from her balcony, and Maester Colemon watches her for a while from the rookery. She is trying to build a bridge that will stay up when Littlefinger appears and tells her to pack the snow around a stick for support. He recognizes it as Winterfell, and says he used to dream of it. "In my dreams it was ever a dark place, and cold." Sansa replies that it was warm, heated by the hot springs, and that "inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer."

She sets out to make the glass roof over the gardens, and he shows her how to create the frame from twigs. He pauses for a moment to observe that she is smiling, perhaps for the first time since her deliverance from King's Landing. Playfully, she tosses some snow at him. He says, "I told you that nothing could please me more than to help you with your castle. I fear that was a lie as well. Something else would please me more." He pulls her to him and kisses her.

She pulls away from him and protests for the sake of Lysa, but he persists: "I think you might be even more beautiful than your mother was your age." He reminds her of the drunken Marillion. But then they are interrupted by Lord Robert, who is carrying "the threadbare cloth doll he carried everywhere." When she tells him it is Winterfell, "The great castle of the north," Robert pretends to be a giant and, swinging the doll, knocks down parts of it. Sansa appeals to him to stop, and grabs the doll, ripping off its head.

Robert wails, and then begins to have a seizure, collapsing on the castle and knocking it to pieces. Littlefinger grabs the boy's wrists and shouts for the maester. Soon a crowd of servants, trained by Lysa to respond to any sound that indicates the boy is upset, arrives and the maester gives him some dreamwine and has him taken to the maester's chambers for a leeching. Sansa says she didn't mean to rip the doll, but Robert protests, "She killed him! I hate her! She's a bastard and I hate her!"

"My lord husband," Sansa thinks as he is led away. Then she angrily sticks the doll's head on a broken branch and puts it "atop the shattered gatehouse of her snow castle." Littlefinger laughs, and she leaves him there to return to her chambers. She hopes Lysa will banish her from the Eyrie, and vows to tell her that she doesn't want to marry Robert.

Late in the afternoon, Lysa sends Marillion to summon her. He tells her he is composing a song about "a baseborn girl so beautiful she bewitched every man who laid eyes upon her." She lets him accompany her to the High Hall, where he bars the doors and leaves the guards outside. Lysa is sitting on the dais, but Robert isn't there. Sansa curtsies to her, and Lysa says, "I saw what you did." Sansa says she didn't mean to rip the doll apart, but Lysa informs her that that's not what she saw: "I saw you kissing him."

"He kissed me," Sansa replies, but Lysa insists, "You threw yourself at him." Sansa persists in her defense, but Lysa won't hear it: "They all tried to take him from me. My lord father, my husand, your mother ... Catelyn most of all. She liked to kiss my Petyr too, oh yes she did." Sansa backs away and says, "My mother?" But Lysa rants on about how Catelyn tried to win Littlefinger, asking, "But you remember none of it, do you? ... Do you?" Sansa is confused, and protests that she wasn't born, and wonders if Lysa is "drunk, or mad?" Lysa rambles on about giving her virginity to Littlefinger. "He told me he loved me then, but he called me Cat, just before he fell back to sleep." Sansa is terrified, and asks if she may leave, but Lysa says no.

Then she tells Sansa that she was forced to marry Jon Arryn, who took her even though he knew she wasn't a virgin. She and Littlefinger, she says, "made a baby together, a precious little baby.... When they stole him from me, I made a promise to myself that I would never let it happen again." They wanted to send Robert to Dragonstone, she says, or to marry him to Cersei, but she prevented it. Sansa says what she thinks Lysa wants to hear: "I swear, I won't every kiss him again, or ... entice him." But Lysa takes this as a confession, and seizes Sansa by the wrist, calling out to command Marillion to sing a song, "The False and the Fair."

As he sings, Lysa drags Sansa toward "a white weirwood door set in the marble wall" and held in place by bronze bars. Sansa recognizes it as the Moon Door. Lysa commands her to raise the bars, and Sansa goes along, hoping that if she obeys Lysa will come to her senses. When the bars are removed, the wind blows the door open with a bang. Lysa begins to push her toward the door, and when they reach the opening tells her to look down. "There was nothing in front of her but empty air, and a waycastle six hundred feet below clinging to the side of the mountain."

Marillion continues to sing as Sansa struggles with Lysa at the door. Finally, Sansa grabs her aunt's hair as they teeter on the brink. Lysa shrieks, "Let go of my hair!" Outside, the guards have heard the disturbance and bang on the door, and Marillion stops singing. Then Littlefinger enters from the unguarded back way, and asks what Lysa is doing. Lysa grabs Sansa's hair and says, "She kissed you.... I was teaching her a lesson, that was all." Littlefinger says, "I think she understands now. Isn't that so, Alayne?" Sansa sobs that she does.

Lysa says that Sansa doesn't belong her, and Littlefinger assures her that they'll send her away. "Let her up, now. Let her away from the door." But Lysa cries, "NO!" grasping Sansa tighter.

Tears ran down her aunt's puffy red face. "I gave you my maiden's gift. I would have given you a son too, but they murdered him with moon tea, with tansy and mint and wormwood, a spoon of honey and a drop of pennyroyal. It wasn't me, I never knew, I only drank what Father gave me...."

So the tansy that Lord Hoster talked about in his final delirium was not a woman, as Catelyn thought, but an abortifacient.

Littlefinger moves closer, trying to quiet Lysa. "We don't want Alayne to know more than she should, do we? Or Marillion?" But Lysa refuses to let go of Sansa's hair. "I saw you kissing in the snow. She's just like her mother. Catelyn kissed you in the godswood, but she never meant it, she never wanted you." Littlefinger comes closer. "There's no cause for all these tears," he says, and the word reminds Lysa of the poison, the tears of Lys, that she says Littlefinger told her to put in Jon Arryn's wine. She wrote to Catelyn to say the Lannisters did it, just as he suggested. "We're together now, we're together after so long, so very long, why would you want to kiss herrrrrr?"

Littlefinger assures her that they will be together now, forever. Lysa asks, "Truly?" And Littlefinger replies, "Truly. Now unhand the girl and come give me a kiss." Lysa lets go of Sansa, who crawls away from the Moon Door and grasps a pillar firmly. Littlefinger lets Lysa hold him for a moment, then puts his hands on her arms and assures her, "I've only loved one woman, I promise you." Lysa wants him to swear it: "Only one?"

"Only Cat," he says, and pushes her out the Moon Door. Marillion gasps in surprise. Then Littlefinger goes to Sansa, sees that she's all right, and tells her, "Run let my guards in, then. Quick now, there's no time to lose. This singer's killed my lady wife."

Epilogue

Merrett Frey has come to ransom his nephew, Petry, known as Petyr Pimple. He had volunteered for the task, despite the derision of his father, Lord Walder. Merrett is waiting for the old man,who is almost ninety-two, to die, though when he thinks about it, he's not sure if his successor, whoever that may be among his many prodigy, will be better. It was Lord Walder who ordered the massacre of the Red Wedding, but the plot had been laid by Lame Lothar, along with Roose Bolton, even "down to which songs would be played." So there is likely to be a bloodbath among the sons when Lord Walder dies. Merrett himself is ninth in line of succession, and possessed of no particular skills or luck. After being beaned by a mace in a tourney, he has suffered from crippling headaches.

He thought his luck had changed when Roose Bolton chose his daughter, Fat Walda, for a wife, but his father soon disabused him of that notion: Bolton had chosen her because of her weight, because the promised dowry was his bride's weight in silver and not because Bolton liked the prospect of a connection with "Merrett Muttonhead." Even at the Red Wedding, he had been assigned the task of getting the Greatjon too drunk to fight, and he had failed at that.

But now if he could bring back Petyr Pimple, it might put him in favor with Petyr's father, Ser Ryman, the heir apparent to the Twins. The meeting with the outlaws holding Petyr has been set for Oldstones. He hears music and follows the sound to find a man we recognize as Tom Sevenstrings, playing on a woodharp. Then a harsh voice asks if he has brought the gold, and Merrett finds himself surrounded by outlaws. With them is a woman in a hooded cloak. The speaker, "a big bearded man with crooked green teeth and a broken nose," repeats his question, and Merrett tells him it's in his saddlebag and he'll produce it when he sees Petyr. But another of the outlaws simply steps forward, reaches in the saddlebag, and finds the money.

Panicked that they will take the money and keep Petyr too, Merrett asks which one of the men is Beric Dondarrion, thinking that because he had been a lord before he was an outlaw, Dondarrion "might still be a man of honor." A couple of the men claim to be Dondarrion, and then begin to quarrel over which of them really is. So he asks for his nephew -- "actually more a great half-nephew, but there was no need to go into that" -- and says he'll be gone. A man in a yellow cloak says he's in the godswood and he'll take Merrett to him.

"Petyr Pimple was hanging from the limb of an oak, a  noose tight around his long thin neck." Merrett protests that he wasn't supposed to be killed, and that he had kept his end of the bargain, but suddenly finds a noose around his own neck. "You'd never dare hang a Frey," he says, and the man in the yellow cloak replies, "That other one, the pimply boy, he said the same thing." Merrett says his father will pay more to ransom him, but Sevenstrings says Lord Walder isn't the kind to be fooled twice: "Next time he'll send a hundred swords instead of a hundred dragons, I fear." Then he offers to let Merrett go if he'll tell them where they can find Sandor Clegane.

Merrett has no idea, so the singer tells Lem to go ahead with the hanging. Merrett pleads, "I have children," and the one-eyed outlaw replies, "That Young Wolf never will." Merrett protests that Robb had shamed them with his marriage.

"It was vengeance, we had a right to our vengeance. It was war. Aegon, we called him Jinglebell, a poor lackwit never hurt anyone, Lady Stark cut his throat.... Stark's direwolf killed four of our wolfhounds and tore the kennelmaster's arm off his shoulder, even after we'd filled him full of quarrels..."

Lem, the man in the yellow cloak, says, "So you sewed his head on Robb Stark's neck after both o' them were dead." Merrett says it was his father's idea. "All I did was drink. You wouldn't kill a man for drinking." He remembers hearing that Beric Dondarrion always lets a man have a trial. "I only drank some wine ... you have no witness."

But they do, the singer says, and the woman comes forward and lowers his hood. Merrett can't believe what he's seeing: "No. No, I saw her die. She was dead for a day and night before they stripped her naked and threw her body in the river. Raymund opened her throat from ear to ear. She was dead."

The gash in Catelyn's neck is hidden by her cloak, but her flesh is soft and "the color of curdled milk." She has lost half of her hair and what remains is white, and her face is "shredded skin and black blood where she had raked herself with her nails." Her eyes are full of hatred.  Lem says she can't speak because the cut in her throat went too deep. He asks her if he took part in it, and she nods. Merrett is hoist in the air, "kicking and twisting, up and up and up."

8. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 273-310

Catelyn

Two boys, Tion Frey and Willem Lannister, squires captured and held as hostage, have been murdered by a group led by Lord Rickard Karstark, seeking retribution for the death of his own sons. The bodies of the murdered boys make Catelyn think of Bran and Rickon, and she wonders if Robb does too. Karstark, brought in as prisoner by Greatjon Umber, is defiant, and blames the deaths on the boys on Catelyn, for releasing Jaime Lannister.

Robb, who is furious, orders Karstark's men hanged, but says he will deal with Karstark himself. But before he can do so, Brendyn Tully arrives, and Robb goes to speak with him privately, bringing his mother with him. The Blackfish reports that all of Karstark's men have left. "Near three hundred riders and twice as many mounts," Robb comments, "melted away in the night." Catelyn silently blames herself for the situation, which leaves Robb "surrounded by enemies to every side but east, where Lysa sat aloof on her mountaintop." Moreover, Willem Lannister was Ser Kevan's son, which could be taken as a pretext to do harm to Sansa, as Catelyn knows to her agony.

Edmure suggests that Lord Karstark not be executed but be kept prisoner, a hostage that will ensure the loyalty of his son. But Robb is not willing to do this. He asks Catelyn if her sister is going to answer her calls for help, and she admits that she has no doubt that her messages have reached Lysa and been ignored: "Lysa was never brave." The Blackfish agrees: No help should be expected from that quarter. Robb now knows how uneasy lies the head that wears the crown:

"Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king? When everyone was shouting King in the North, King in the North, I told myself ... swore to myself ... that I would be a good king, as honorable as Father, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies ... now I can't even tell one from the other. How did it all get so confused? Lord Rickard's fought at my side in half a dozen battles. His sons died for me in the Whispering Wood. Tion Frey and Willem Lannister were my enemies. Yet now I have to kill my dead friends' father for their sakes." 

He puts on his crown and says, "Lord Rickard dies." Edmure protests, but Robb says he has no choice. "Rickard Karstark killed more than a Frey and a Lannister. He killed my honor. I shall deal with him at dawn."

The executioner is waiting at dawn, but Robb takes the axe from him. "He dies at my word. He must die by my hand." Lord Rickard reminds Robb of their kinship. "The Karstarks traced their descent to Karlon Stark, a younger son of Winterfell who had put down a rebel lord a thousand years ago, and been granted lands for his valor. The castle he built had been named Karl's Hold, but that soon became Karhold, and over the centuries the Karhold Starks had become Karstarks." But Rickard's last words are, "Kill me, and be cursed. You are no king of mine." The blow Robb delivers kills him, but it takes three blows to sever the head.

Later, Jeyne comes to see Catelyn, wondering what she can do to console Robb, but all she can do is counsel patience. She also takes the opportunity to remind her daughter-in-law that she needs to produce an heir. Jeyne tells her that her mother "makes a posset for me, herbs and milk and ale, to help make me fertile. I drink it every morning." When she leaves, Catelyn remarks once again that she has good hips for child-bearing.

Jaime

They are riding through a desolate landscape, with destruction on all sides. Jaime's mind is on Cersei, and he thinks that maybe the stories about them have opened a new possibility: "there was nothing left to hid. Why shouldn't I marry Cersei openly and share her bed every night? The dragons always married their sisters. Septons, lords, and smallfolk had turned a blind eye to the Targaryens for hundreds of years, let them do the same for House Lannister." They could even marry Joffrey to Myrcella and send Sansa home. He had already decided that they should send Sansa back to her family: "the notion of keeping faith when they all expected betrayal amused him more than he could say."

Suddenly they are under attack. An arrow hits Jaime's gelding and he has to cling to its neck to keep from being thrown. Ser Cleos is less skillful; he is thrown from his horse but his foot is caught in the stirrup and he is dragged along the ground. Brienne is still mounted on her horse, but she has an arrow lodged in her back and another in her leg. Jaime calls out to her that the archers are behind a wall, and he charges them, hoping that Brienne will follow. She does, and the archers flee.

They go in search of Cleos and find him dead, his foot still caught in the stirrup and his head bashed in from being dragged across the rocky ground. Jaime lays claim to his horse and his clothes, shocking Brienne with his callous attitude toward his own cousin. He pulls Cleos's sword from its scabbard and pivots to find Brienne ready to parry his blow. Even though his hands are still chained, he is able to meet her blows, and they fight for some time until he realizes that he is tiring. "She is stronger than I am."

Finally, as they are fighting in a stream, he slips but manages to cut her thigh before he strikes a rock with his knee. Finally she gets the better of him and cries, "Yield, or I'll drown you!" Suddenly laughter rings out around them. There are armed men on both sides of the brook. "The scum of the earth surrounded them: swarthy Dornishmen and blond Lyseni, Dothraki with bells in their braids, hairy Ibbenese, coal-black Summer Islanders in feathered cloaks. He knew them. The Brave Companions."

Immediately there is talk from Rorge of raping Brienne, and Jaime feels compelled to defend her against that. He asks who is in charge, and a cadaverous man identifies himself as Urswyck the Faithful. He also addresses Jaime by name: "It takes more than a beard and a shaved head to deceive the Brave Companions," he says. Jaime knows them as the Bloody Mummers, and he asks, "Where's the goat?" Urswyck says that he'd better not call Lord Vargo Hoat that to his name, and Jaime is surprised to hear that Harrenhal has supposedly been promised to Lord Vargo: "Has my father taken leave of his senses?" he wonders.

Then Urswyck informs him that they no longer serve the Lannisters. "We now serve Lord Bolton, and the King in the North." When Jaime expresses his contempt for that, two of the Mummers grab him and Rorge punches him in the stomach with a mailed fist. Brienne calls out that he's under her protection, and dives into the brook to retrieve her sword. It takes four of the men to restrain her and to beat her into submission.

They are dragged back to the plow horse and bound back to back on it. Jaime calls Urswyck over and tries to bargain with him: Take him to King's Landing and collect a ransom. "Hers as well, if you like. Tarth is called the Sapphire Isle, a maiden told me once." (He knows that it's really called that because of the blueness of its lake.) But Urswyck isn't fooled by the offer of ransom, or even of a knighthood, when Jaime brings it up. "I have heard enough, Kingslayer. I would have to be a great fool indeed to believe the promises of an oath-breaker like you."

As they ride toward Harrenhal, Brienne asks him why he lied about the Sapphire Isle, and Jaime says, "The sooner they know how little you're worth in ransom, the sooner the rapes begin." She is silent for a while after that. Late in the day they find Vargo Hoat and more of the Brave Companions sacking a sept and using the corpse of the septon for target practice. "Kingthlayer," Hoat greets Jaime, "You are my captifth." Brienne introduces herself, and Rorge drags her off the horse and begins kicking her. Urswyck tells him not to break any bones: "The horse-faced bitch is worth her weight in sapphires."

Jaime again tries to bargain with Hoat, promising ransom money. Hoat says, "But firth I mutht thend him a methage." Jaime is knocked to the ground and his arms are pulled out in front of him by the chain. A fat Dothraki raises "a huge curved arakh, the wickedly sharp scythe-sword the horselords loved." Jaime refuses to show fear. But when the blade comes "shivering down, almost too fast to see," he screams.

Arya

They are searching for Beric Dondarrion, but so far have only been told to ask the Lady of the Leaves. They reach a forest and in the middle of it a member of the group who is called Jack-Be-Lucky blows a signal on his horn. Rope ladders unfurl from the trees, and Arya climbs with the others into a hidden village in the treetops, presided over by "a stick-thin white-haired woman," the Lady of the Leaves. She tells them that Lord Beric is dead: He was caught by the Mountain, Gregor Clegane, who "drove a dagger through his eye." But Lem tells her it's an old story, and that the lightning lord didn't die of having an eye put out. The woman is pleased to hear that Dondarrion isn't dead, but otherwise has no clue to his whereabouts.

The next village they come to has been destroyed, but in the ruins of its sept an old septon remains. He tells them the village was burned by "Northmen ... Savages who worship trees." Arya is both "angry and ashamed" at the characterization. There are a dozen men living in the vault under the sept, but they have no news of Dondarrion either, even though one of them has a lightning bolt on his cloak.

When they rest for the night, Anguy lets Arya try his bow, but she's unable to draw it. He promises to make her a lighter one when they reach Riverrun. But Tom Sevenstrings says they'll only stay at Riverrun long enough to collect ransom for Arya's return. Lord Hoster hangs outlaws and his son hates music. Lem says it's Tom that the son, presumably Edmure, hates, and Tom retorts, "Well, he has no cause. The wench was willing to make a man of him, is it my fault he drank too much to do the deed?" So presumably Edmure has several weaknesses. And this particular one became the basis for a song Tom wrote.

Arya is more interested in the idea that she will be ransomed, and Harwin says, "You will not be the first highborn captive we've ransomed. Nor the last, I'd hope." Arya then worries what will happen if if Robb doesn't pay the price they want for her. The next day they reach a hill called High Heart, which is encircled by the "huge pale stumps" of what was once a circle of weirwoods, and had been a sacred place for the children of the forest. "No harm can ever come to those as sleep here," Tom tells her.

That night, a storm comes up and blows the coverlet off of Arya. She runs after it, and then hears voices around the fading coals of the campfire. Tom, Lem, and Greenbeard are talking to a tiny, wrinkled old woman.

"The old gods stir and will not let me sleep," she heard the woman say. "I dreamt I saw a shadow with a burning heart butchering a golden stag, aye. I dreamt of a man without a face, waiting on a bridge that swayed and swung. On his shoulder perched a drowned crow with seaweed hanging from his wings. I dreamt of a roaring river and a woman that was a fish. Dead she drifted, with red tears on her cheeks, but when her eyes did open, oh, I woke from terror. All this I dreamt, and more. Do you have gifts for me, to pay me for my dreams?"

The symbols in her dreams are more suggestive for the reader than they are for Lem, who scoffs at them, but Tom Sevenstrings agrees to sing a song for her. Arya doesn't recognize it, but thinks that Sansa would. Singing is not one of Arya's skills. The next morning she asks Tom if the children of the forest still live on High Heart, and he knows that she saw the old woman. He tells her "she's only an old dwarf woman," but that "she knows things she has no business knowing, and sometimes she'll tell you if she likes the look of you." He also says that they now have a lead on Dondarrion.

Arya asks why, if he's their leader, he's so hard to find. Harwin says that he doesn't tell people his plans so no one can betray him. He doesn't want people following him around, either, because that way he keeps his followers scattered so they "can strike in a dozen places at once, and be off somewhere else before they know." If someone captures them, they can't torture them and find out where Lord Beric is. Arya is reminded of the way the Tickler had tortured the people around the Gods Eye to try to find him.

That day they ride to Acorn Hall, where Lady Smallwood welcomes them, but also scolds them for "dragging a young girl through the war," and is even more scandalized when she finds out that Arya is highborn. She has Arya scrubbed and scented and dressed "in girl's things," none of which Arya takes well to. When Lady Smallwood talks about her own daughter and her love of dancing, she asks Arya what she likes to do. Arya finally comes up with "Needlework," and when Lady Smallwood says that it's "restful," Arya says, "not the way I do it." And when she's asked if she works at it every day, Arya says, "I did till I lost Needle. My new one's not as good." When Arya goes down to supper in her feminine finery, "Gendry took one look and laughed so hard that wine came out his nose, until Harwin gave him a thwack alongside his ear."

Lady Smallwood tells them that the lightning lord passed by a fortnight ago, and that they were driving sheep. "Thoros gave me three as thanks. You've eaten one tonight." She says that she's heard of famine near Stoney Sept and the Threepenny Wood, and that she would look for Lord Beric there. She also says that some of Robb's followers came by looking for Jaime. Arya asks who they were, which surprises Lady Smallwood, but she describes the sigil, which Arya identifies as the Karstarks.  She thinks that if she could find them and slip away from the outlaws, they might take her to Riverrun.

Lem asks how Jaime escaped, and Lady Smallwood says, "They claimed that Lady Catelyn set him free." Tom says, "That's madness," and Arya refuses to believe it, though she holds her tongue. Harwin, however, says to Arya that she shouldn't be hearing such talk, and the others agree. Greenbeard tells her, "Be a good little lady and go play in the yard while we talk, now." Arya leaves, angrily, but Gendry follows her and they go to the smithy. He asks if the Thoros being talked about is the same one who was at King's Landing, "A red priest, fat, with a shaved head?" When Arya tells him she thinks so, he remembers that Thoros used to come to the forge where he apprenticed. His master disapproved of Thoros's flaming swords because they ruined the steel, but Thoros only used cheap swords that he dipped in wildfire.

Gendry compliments her on looking like "A proper little girl," and says, "You even smell nice for a change." She tells him he stinks, and they begin to wrestle until they are dirty and her dress is torn. When they return to the hall, Harwin bursts out laughing and says, "She was much the same at Winterfell." Lady Smallwood makes her take another bath and dresses her in something even more feminine. But it's too delicate to ride in, so when they set out the next day Lady Smallwood gives her some riding clothes that her son wore before he died at the age of seven.

Arya apologizes for tearing the acorn dress and says it was pretty. Lady Smallwood replies, "Yes, child. And so are you. Be brave."

5. A Storm of Swords, by George R.R. Martin, pp. 146-187

Jaime

From the river, Jaime spots an inn and points it out to Brienne and Ser Cleos, who remembers stopping there once. It appears to be deserted, but they pull up to its dock to see if there is any food left in it, and possibly to shelter there for the night. Cleos identifies it as "the Inn of the Kneeling Man," built on "the very spot where the last King in the North knelt before Aegon the Conqueror to offer his submission."

Then they hear the whinny of a horse from the stable, but when Jaime opens the door of the inn he is confronted by "a chunky boy of fifteen" aiming a crossbow at him. Jaime says that if the boy shoots him, Ser Cleos will kill him before he can reload, and Brienne assures him that they have money to pay for food and drink if they have any. A man comes up from the cellar and says they have horsemeat to sell.

The man says he found the innkeeper dead and buried him out back, so he and his wife moved in. The boy showed up and they took him in after their own sons died. The boy's mother was killed by the Bloody Mummers. As he feeds them, he asks where they are headed and calls them fools when Jaime says they're going to King's Landing. "Last I heard, King Stannis was outside the city walls. They say he has a hundred thousand men and a magic sword." Brienne tells him that she plans to sail down the Trident to the sea, then go overland by way of Duskendale and Rosby to avoid the worst of the fighting. But the man tells them that the river has been blocked by sunken boats thirty miles downriver and outlaws have been attacking anyone who tries to go that way. Also, "the lightning lord," Beric Dondarrion, has been ranging through the area, accompanied by Thoros of Myr, "the red wizard." And Roose Bolton has been controlling the fords to the rivers.

He advises them to go overland from the inn, avoiding the roads and sheltering in the woods at night. Brienne says they would need horses, and Jaime mentions that he heard one in the stables. He says they're not for sale, but agrees to show them anyway. There is a big plow horse, a gelding with only one eye, and a grey palfrey. Brienne offers him three gold pieces for them, and throws in their skiff when he shows reluctance.

Although the man offers them beds for the night, and Ser Cleos is eager to take him up on it, Brienne insists that they ride on, and Jaime agrees, having sensed that the "innkeeper" can't be trusted. He also points out that he can't ride with his feet shackled, so Brienne strikes them off. He tries to persuade her to remove the wrist chains as well, but she ignores him. As they start to ride off, their host tells them to avoid the road that leads to Ser Warren's towerhouse and to follow the path through the woods. Brienne says that they will do that.

She takes the plow horse, and gives the palfrey to Cleos, leaving the one-eyed gelding for Jaime, preventing him from riding away from them. When they reach the fork in the road, Brienne takes the one to the towerhouse rather than the one through the woods that the man had recommended. Jaime is surprised that she made the same decision he would have, and thinks, "Well, she may be ugly but she's not entirely stupid." When Cleos protests, she tells him that the man was much too interested in what route they would take, so he may have been directing them into a trap.

When they reach the towerhouse, they give it a wide berth, riding through the fields and returning to the road only when it was well behind them. They find a place to stop for the night, and Brienne offers to take the first watch. Ser Cleos falls asleep immediately but Jaime stays awake with her. He asks if she has any brothers and sisters, and she replies, "No. I was my father's only s--child." He laughs at the fact that she almost said "son," and says, "You make a queer sort of daughter, to be sure."

Wordless, she turned away from him, her knuckles tight on her sword hilt. What a wretched creature this one is. She reminded him of Tyrion in some queer way, though at first blush two people could scarcely be any more dissimilar. Perhaps it was that thought of his brother that made him say, "I did not intend to give offense, Brienne. Forgive me."

She rejects the apology: "Your crimes are past forgiving, Kingslayer." He asks why she keeps throwing that epithet at him, and she asks why he put on the Kingsguard's white cloak if he meant to dishonor it. He replies that he was only fifteen, an answer she rejects. He thinks, "You would not like the truth," which is that he had joined the Kingsguard because he was in love with his sister. Their father had brought her to court to marry her off; meanwhile, he had served as a squire. When he visited her at King's Landing, she told him that their father was planning to have him marry Lysa Tully, but there was an opening in the Kingsguard and "if Jaime took the white, he could be near her always." It would mean giving up his right to inherit Casterly Rock, too. They spent a night of passionate lovemaking in an inn, and he was so intoxicated by it that he agreed. She said she would take care of persuading King Aerys to choose him: Their father would never consent to it, but if the king chose him there was nothing Lord Tywin could do to oppose him. A month later, he was summoned to take his vows. His father was furious, since this meant that the alliance with the Tullys wouldn't happen. But he prevented Jaime and Cersei from being together by resigning as Hand and taking her back to Casterly Rock with him. Jaime was left to guard the mad King Aerys.

In response to Brienne's charge that he dishonored his vow to guard the king, he says, "You are not old enough to have known Aerys Targaryen...." She says that she knows he "was mad and cruel," but that doesn't invalidate his oath to protect the king. Jaime retorts, "We're both kingslayers here, if what I've heard is true." She denies that she killed Renly, and when she tells about the shadow that slew him, he mocks the story: "When they found me standing over my dead king, I never thought to say, 'No, no, it wasn't me, it was a shadow, a terrible cold shadow.'" He hopes to provoke her into attacking him: "A step closer, and I'll snatch that dagger from her sheath and bury it up her womb." But she refuses to take the bait, but further provocations about her wish to be a man only increase her loathing for him, and she walks away, leaving him alone.

He hopes to dream about Cersei, but his mind turns to the murder of Aerys Targaryen. Jaime had killed Rossart, the last of Aerys's Hands, before entering the throne room to confront the king, who "lost control of his bowels" when he realized that Jaime had murdered Rossart and was now about to kill him. Jaime thinks, "Queer that they never ask who killed Rossart ... but of course, he was no one, lowborn, hand for a fortnight, just another mad fancy of the Mad King." Several of his father's knights had entered to see the end of the king's murder, so Jaime had no way of escaping or denying it, but they weren't surprised: "Jaime had been Lord Tywin's son long before he had been named to the Kingsguard." Jaime had sat down on the Iron Throne and waited "to see who would come to claim the kingdom. As it happened, it had been Eddard Stark."

He dreams of fighting with the dead, "gowned in swirling green flames, ... but for every one he struck down two more arose to take his place." Brienne wakes him and they ride on before dawn.

Tyrion

Varys is surprised to find Tyrion waiting for him in his own quarters. Tyrion has searched Varys's room for secrets and passageways, but found nothing. He asks Varys if it's true that Grand Maester Pycelle, whom he had imprisoned, has been reinstated on the small council, and Varys says it is: The archmaesters of Oldtown had insisted on it because only their Conclave can discharge a Grand Maester.  The Conclave had met and chosen a new Grand Maester, "a Tyrell of Highgarden. When I told your lord father he acted at once" and reinstated Pycelle. Tyrion observes, "better a Lannister toad than a Tyrell toad, no?" On the other hand, Varys points out, Ser Boros Blount is being restored to the Kingsguard after "Cersei had stripped Ser Boros of his white cloak for failing to die in the defense of Prince Tommen when Bronn had seized the boy on the Rosby road," so one of Cersei's enemies has also regained power.

Varys wonders if Tyrion's visit has anything to do with his inquiries into the relationship of his would-be assassin, Ser Mandon Moore, and Cersei. Tyrion admits that Bronn has been unable to turn up anything about Ser Mandon except that he "seems to have been quite friendless." Varys agrees, "Lord Arryn brought him to King's Landing and Robert gave him his white cloak, but neither loved him much, I fear." Even his brothers in the Kingsguard found him cold and aloof, devoted to duty. Varys adds, "'And he died as a knight of the Kingsguard ought, with sword in hand, defending one of the king's own blood.' The eunuch gave him a slimy smile and watched him sharply."

Tyrion is disappointed not to find "a link to Cersei, some sign that Ser Mandon had been his sister's catspaw," so he changes the subject. He wants Varys to bring Shae to him. Varys replies, "The dear sweet child. It would be such a shame if your father hanged her." Tyrion isn't surprised that Varys knows about Lord Tywin's threat, but says that he wants "to see her one last time before I send her away." He says that he suspects that he's being watched, and Vary confirms that "The Kettleblacks report frequently to your sweet sister." He adds that Cersei has been flirting with Ser Osmund to secure his loyalty. Tyrion has other enemies as well, including Janos Slynt's sons and Littlefinger, who has spies in the brothels: "Should you be so unwise as to visit any of them, he will know at once, and your lord father soon thereafter." And of course, Varys adds, he's spying on Tyrion too.

Tyrion laughs, and though he knows he can't trust Varys, the eunuch already knows enough about Shae that if he wanted to inform his father he could do so. So he arranges for Shae to be brought to him in the only place in the castle that he knows to be safe: Varys's own quarters.

They make passionate love, but Tyrion is forced to tell her it will be the last time. She seems to ignore his fear, telling him that she isn't afraid of his father. She asks if she can have her jewels and silks again, and how much longer she has to say with Lollys now that he's well. "'Have you been listening?' Tyrion said. 'You can stay with Lollys if you like, but it would be best if you left the city.'" She persists, however, asking if she can go to the king's wedding feast, about which she's heard from the singer Symon. Tyrion is alerted by this, and worries about the singer: "One careless word in the wrong ear,, and Shae would hang." She proposes to dress up like a lady, and says, "No one would know I wasn't."

She arouses him again, and after they make love another time, she continues to plead with him and he continues to insist, "it is not safe."

For a time she said nothing at all. Tyrion tried to speak of other things, but he met a wall of sullen courtesy as icy and unyielding as the Wall he'd once walked in the north. Gods be good, he thought wearily as he watched the candle burn down and begin to gutter, how could I let this happen again, after Tysha? Am I as great a fool as my father thinks? Gladly would he have given her the promise she wanted, and gladly walked her back to his own bedchamber on his arm to let her dress in the silks and velvets she loved so much. Had the choice been his, she could have sat beside him at Joffrey's wedding feast, and danced with all the bears she liked. But he could not see her hang. 

When the candle burns out, he lights another and looks for secret entrances and exits. She tells him that there are steps under the bed, which rises up when Varys touches a certain spot. He gets ready to leave, telling her to wait for Varys, and she tells him that she knows she can't go to the wedding feast, but she wants to stay. "I like being a whore for you, Tyrion. Just keep me, my lion, and keep me safe."

He says that he will, but silently berates himself: "Why did you say that? You came here to send her away!" He returns to his room and sends Podrick to fetch Bronn, who, when he arrives, is annoyed at having been called away from Chataya's brothel. He tells Bronn to find "a singer who calls himself Symon Silver Tongue." He wants to tell Bronn to kill him, but instead says, "Find him before someone else does."

Arya

Arya and Hot Pie are digging up carrots and cabbages from an abandoned garden, and Gendry is sleeping when she hears someone singing. As the song grows louder, Hot Pie says they have to hide. There's no safe place nearby, so she tells Hot Pie to wake Gendry and take the horses behind the remaining wall of the ruined cottage. She'll hide behind a tree, and she draws her sword.

Unfortunately, as the singer gets nearer, one of the horses whickers, and the singer stops. "Did you hear that?" a voice asks, then a second voice answer and then a third. Arya can't see them, but she hears one of them say he could fire some arrows over the wall and see if anyone comes out from behind it. So Arya steps out and says, "Don't," showing them her sword. The singer is a small man about fifty, and with him is a man who looks like a soldier wearing a hooded yellow cloak and a younger man, red-haired, with a bow and a row of arrows stuck in the ground before him.

The singer addresses her as "Boy," and tells her to put her sword away. "Anguy here could put three shafts through you before you could hope to reach us." She denies that and adds, "I'm a girl." She tells them to keep on walking down the road and she won't kill them, which makes Anguy, the archer, laugh. "Lem, she won't kill us, did you hear?" Lem is the one with the yellow cloak. The singer says this is "No place for a little girl to be wandering alone."

Gendry, riding his horse from behind the wall, says "She's not alone." Hot Pie is behind him, leading her horse. The singer asks where they stole the horses, and Arya says, "They're ours." The singer asks their names, and Hot Pie blurts his out, making the singer say, "It's not every day I meet a lad with such a tasty name. And what would your friends be called, Mutton Chop and Squab?" Gendry asks why they should give their names when they haven't told them theirs. The singer says he is "Tom of Sevenstreams, but Tom Sevenstrings is what they call me, or Tom o' Sevens. This great lout with the brown teeth is Lem, short for Lemoncloak. It's yellow, you see, and Lem's a sour sort. And young fellow me lad over there is Anguy, or Archer as we like to call him."

Arya doesn't want to give her name, so she says, "Squab, if you want," and Gendry says, "I'm the Bull." Tom Sevenstrings observes that they escaped from Lord Bolton's kitchen: "You bear his sigil on your chest, little one." Arya realizes that she has forgotten this. When Hot Pie says they were at Harrenhal before Bolton came, Tom asks if they are "lion cubs" -- i.e., Lannister supporters. Hot Pie says, "We're nobody's men. Whose men are you?" Anguy replies, "We're king's men," and when Arya asks, "Which king," Lem says, "King Robert."

Gendry, who doesn't know that he's Robert's bastard, says, "That old drunk? ... He's dead, some boar killed him, everyone knows that." Arya doesn't believe that they're any king's men. "They looked like outlaws, all tattered and ragged," and they have no horses. Hot Pie, to Arya's fury, blurts out, "We're looking for Riverrun." She tells him to shut up, but the damage is done. Tom says it's a long way, but "There's an inn not far ahead kept by some friends of ours. We could share some ale and a bite of bread, instead of fighting one another."

Arya doesn't trust him, but the thought of food is irresistible. Gendry wants to know what sort of friends these are. Tom tells him the innkeep is named Sharna, and she has a husband "and an orphan boy they took in." We have been there before. He tells them to bring along the vegetables they "stole from Old Pate's garden." He buried Old Pate himself, he says, and they have "no wish to bury you, I swear it on my harp. Archer, show her." And before Arya knows it, Anguy has sent an arrow whizzing past her and into the tree she had been hiding behind and has notched and drawn a second one. "She'd thought she understood what Syrio meant by quick as a snake and smooth as summer silk, but now she knew she hadn't." She realizes now that they have no choice but to trust the three of them.

Arya gets on her horse and tells Hot Pie to bring the carrots and cabbages, and they ride along behind the three on foot. Along the way, Anguy kills a duck, which they take with them, and Hot Pie joins in with Tom in singing. When they reach the inn, Arya notices the skiff docked in front and suggests to Gendry that they could take it and sail up the river to Riverrun. Gendry is skeptical about the idea. When they stable the horses, Gendry volunteers to stay and watch them, even though Tom says they'll be safe.

Sharna greets them crossly, and calls her husband up from the cellar to give him the duck to hang for a few days. They'll eat rabbit, she says, and Arya offers the carrots and cabbages. She has the boy bring them ale while she goes off to cook. The husband comes in to say that there are horses in the stable, and Tom says they're "better horses than the three you gave away." He replies that he sold them and got a skiff in the bargain. "Anyways, you lot were supposed to get them back."

Arya thinks, "I knew they were outlaws." Lem says, "They never came our way," but the husband insists that he sent them in their direction. (Jaime and Brienne had been right in not taking his advice.) They argue among themselves for a while, and then Tom offers to buy their horses. Arya realizes that they can take the horses if they want, so she offers to trade them for the "boat outside. But only if you can show us how to work it." The offer provokes general laughter until Gendry bursts in to say there are soldiers coming down the river road. Hot Pie jumps up in alarm and spills his ale.

But Sharna tells them not to worry. "Whatever harm's been done you, it's over and it's done and you're with king's men now. We'll keep you safe as best we can." Arya reaches for her sword, but Lem grabs her wrist. She grabs the tankard and swings it at his face, breaking his nose and blinding him with the ale, but not so much that he can't grab her when she starts to run. Tom pulls a dagger and stops Gendry from coming to her aid.

The door opens and a huge, bearded Tyrioshi enters, followed by two crossbowmen helping a wounded man, then others, including "a spearman in a lion-crested helm, an older man with a limp, a Braavosi sellsword...." And then Arya recognizes Harwin, "Hullen's son, who used to lead her pony around the yard, ride at quintain with Jon and Robb, and drink too much at feast days." She weeps at seeing him, and says, "Harwin, it's me!" He doesn't recognize her at first, and is confused by the sigil on her doublet: "who are you, some serving boy to Lord Leech?" She insists, "You have to know me! You used to lead my pony when I was little."

His eyes went wide, "Gods be good," he said in a choked voice. "Arya Underfoot? Lem, let go of her." 


"She broke my nose." Lem dumped her unceremoniously to the floor. "Who in seven hells is she supposed to be?" 


"The Hand's daughter." Harwin went to one knee before her. "Arya Stark, of Winterfell."